Intel Kills Off Overclocking-Focused Extended Warranty

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Adios, PTPP

Flaming Proc
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

With no fanfare whatsoever, Intel has discontinued its Performance Tuning Protection Plan (PTPP), an extended warranty plan that offered protection from damage that occurred during overclocking. The company made the announcement via a message delivered on the PTPP website.  

The Performance Tuning Protection Plan was a great insurance plan for owners of Intel's K-series of processors. For a small additional fee, you could squeeze more performance out of your processor without having to worry about it dying. If you had the plan, Intel would issue you a one-time replacement chip to cover damage due to overclocking, no questions asked. Pricing depended on the tier of the processor, but the plans typically cost between $19.99 and $29.99.

It's unknown why Intel decided to kill off the Performance Tuning Protection Plan. Luckily, owners with existing plans can continue to enjoy the coverage as Intel will honor them until the warranty period is up.

By default, Intel covers the Xeon W-3175X for overclocking, so W-3175X owners have nothing to fret about. But for the rest of us that don't own $3,000 processors, there's no safety net for overclocking. 

Here's Intel's message on the unexpected discontinuation of the program:

To PTPP Customers,

The Performance Tuning Protection Plan program has been discontinued.

As customers increasingly overclock with confidence, we are seeing lower demand for the Performance Tuning Protection Plans (PTPP).

As a result, Intel will no longer offer new PTPP plans effective March 1, 2021.

Intel will continue focusing on delivering amazing processors with tuning flexibility and overclocking tools like Intel Performance Maximizer and Intel XTU.

All existing plans will continue to be honored through the duration of the processor warranty period.

For questions, contact Intel Customer Support.

Note about the intel xeon W-31 75X Processor
The intel xeon W-31 75X Processor is automatically covered for overclocking, No additional plan or activation code is required

Thank You,
PTPP Team

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

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7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Phaaze88
    "By default, Intel covers the Xeon W-3175X for overclocking, so W-3175X owners have nothing to fret about. But for the rest of us that don't own $3,000 processors..."

    ???
    A protection plan to cover OC on Xeon W-3175X shouldn't have been a thing.
    Reply
  • MoxNix
    "As customers increasingly overclock with confidence, we are seeing lower demand for the Performance Tuning Protection Plans (PTPP)."

    Yeah right... More like the only customers who purchase PTPP are extremely aggressive overclockers chasing records and first time overclockers who don't have a clue what they're doing. IOW, the ones most likely to fry a CPU by pushing it way too far.
    Reply
  • Makaveli
    Kinda convenient doing this just before the Rocket Lake S launch.... :)
    Reply
  • ginthegit
    It was a little stupid (maybe desperate) to open up this option in the first place. But to only make it for server chips anyway is a bit dumb.
    Intel are being clocked by AMD sideways and backwards with their relentless pursuit of the 10nm node, which it seems obvious has a low success rate after being tapped out. A price to pay for the 3D tech idea of stacking transistors to put 2 or 3 in a similar area that 1.5 of them would have taken in the 14nm node. The problem is, when you are mixing ASICs complexity, with high density Multilayer PCB design, you are asking for problems. They are facing at the nano level, what AMD faces when its GPUs were a different height to the HBM memory and trying to cool both. You cannot mix ASICs on a single die when you use a completely different architecture for the GPU as they will not be the same height and a heat dissipating filler must be used (meaning they may have an advantage with power consumption, but not with size of die).
    AMD is gaining ground fast with thermal dissipation of 50% less with competing or processors that exceed the performance of Intels best.
    If OCP cant be an option, they have to think of something else.... Time for them to take the red pill and scrap the 10nm and move lower. They have to now think of another selling point to trick their customers into buying.
    Reply
  • Olle P
    I guess it's more cost than income to keep this running. As MoxNix wrote those few that bought the insurance are those most likely to make good use of it.

    Phaaze88 said:
    A protection plan to cover OC on Xeon W-3175X shouldn't have been a thing.
    If they decide to cover just one model, why not make it their most high end HEDT processor?
    Reply
  • Phaaze88
    Olle P said:
    If they decide to cover just one model, why not make it their most high end HEDT processor?
    That's one model that doesn't need it. Users that actually need a cpu like that should be prioritizing system stability over what meager gains - if any - they'd get.
    Now they gotta spend time doing trial and error to make sure what they applied is as stable as possible - time that their machine isn't making them money.
    If a BSOD or whatever comes along... whether they lost data or not, that's still time and money lost.

    Pro overclockers? That's a niche use for a cpu of that caliber - what happens to that cpu is on them. I don't think the more typical users of those kinds of cpus need to get pulled in to do OC, either by Intel's marketing or social pressure.
    Overclock a 9900X? Under custom liquid, sure, because air and hybrid is only going to carry them so far... and that means even more down time when maintenance needs to be done - or a part needs to be replaced... or, god forbid, a leak happens.

    I've direct die mounted this 7820X - TG Conductonaut + Eisbaer Aurora 360, all in an H500P Mesh... this particular cpu was binned for 4.6ghz, and I STILL can't keep it reasonably cool under Cinebench R23, Realbench, or Prime 95, Small FFT, All AVX off.
    On a cold day using those apps, it lands around 85-90C. I've gotta go the custom liquid route if I want to get 4.6ghz under reasonable operating temperatures.

    A Xeon W-3175X? No, just no... Skip straight to custom liquid to OC that, which a typical user of this cpu wouldn't be in a good spot with.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    MoxNix said:
    "As customers increasingly overclock with confidence, we are seeing lower demand for the Performance Tuning Protection Plans (PTPP)."

    Yeah right... More like the only customers who purchase PTPP are extremely aggressive overclockers chasing records and first time overclockers who don't have a clue what they're doing. IOW, the ones most likely to fry a CPU by pushing it way too far.
    Yeah, modern CPUs generally tend to be pretty robust unless they are being pushed to extremes. It's also questionable whether Intel would even deny an overclocked processor for the standard warranty coverage unless there was obvious physical damage to it. When they started offering the service, they might have had a larger number of people who were getting it just for more typical overclocks, but as time went on most probably decided it was a largely pointless expenditure, reducing the user-base of the service and shifting it to high-risk users, making it unprofitable.

    It does kind of make you wonder whether processors on their upcoming architectures or process nodes might be significantly more at risk from damage from overclocking though. Or maybe they intend on binning their processors to a point where overclocking becomes largely pointless, much like what we see with most of AMD's recent CPUs. Even Intel's existing higher-end models don't exactly leave much room on the table for overclocking. You can overclock them, sure, but you are unlikely to see any perceptible performance difference from doing so.
    Reply