Intel Plans to Deliberately Limit Overclocking

yea, Shadow703793 posted this info a few days ago :

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/260683-29-sandy-bridg...

question is how much will those "fully unlocked" chips cost? That will determine the amount of people that will actually shell out the cash for these CPU's.

I have a feeling that distribution of the "partially unlocked" which is a cute way of saying "mostly restricted" chips will be more widespread and considerably cheaper. Seems like an unusual move for Intel, though.

I guess we will have to sit back and wait for more details/benchmarks. The other issue is the fact that SB is based off of socket 2011 so its going to cost an arm and a leg to upgrade (for those who already own LGA 1366) + add another stick of ram for quad channel configurations. Hopefully Intel can surprise us with some bang for buck options.

This article states motherboard manufacturers may find a way round it http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/sandy-bridge-cougar-point...

Apparently, all good things come to an end.  

I also read about the motherboard manufacturers. With the integration of the PCIe bus into the CPU, I am not too hopeful.

I remember my first computer - 1978 TRS80 Model I. One clock ran everything: CPU, memory, video interface. CPU was no problem. And the RAM chips were fast enough. But trying to push the CPU faster broke the display. It took piggy backing chips, cutting PCB traces, and running jumpers to overcome that.
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Overclocking since 1978 - Z80 (TRS-80) from 1.77 MHz to 2.01 MHz

My guess would be that the "limited" CPU's will be offered and built in OEM solutions like Dell & HP machines that lock the BIOS's anyway, in other words, they were not going to be overclocked anyway.

The question remains, does Intel have some fast economical way to cherry-pick which CPU's are more capable of overclocking as opposed to ones that are not as blessed as every chip is different.

My guess is that they are seperating the OC-able CPU's from the not so OC-able ones, this may be a good thing, back in the day i would have gladly paid up to $30.00 or so for a Q6600 that guaranteed to hit 3.6+

i dunno, that's just me and my 2c