How Intel Will Lock Overclocking on LGA1160 (Mainstream Nehalem) - Fud

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No easy work around

As we told you some time ago, Intel has put in what can only be called an overclocking lock in the upcoming LGA1160 processors which are currently going under the codenames of Lynnfield and Havendale.

Until now we didn't know how this had been implemented, but we've learned some more about it and it looks like there is no easy work around. As these processors have the memory controller and a few more bits integrated into the CPU itself, Intel suddenly has a lot more control than it has had with past designs that utilized a separate chipset which contains the memory controller.

As Intel seems to want to push the much more expensive Bloomfield platform to overclockers,
the company implemented a lock that prevents these new processors from being overclocked by adding two PLL clock generators, one inside the CPU itself and one in the PCH.

This might not sound like it's a big problem in itself, but what Intel has done is that these two will clock generators will reference eachother and this means that just changing the bus speed won't have any effect if you're trying to overclock the CPU as it will dissregard the information from the PCH if it's not a correct value.

There might still be options for overclocking these CPU's, but our understanding is that this isn't easily done and Intel doesn't want it to be and as such Intel is unlikely to give out this information to third party motherboard manufacturers.

The sum of all this is that Intel might loose out a few enthusiast users that don't have deep enough pockets to get a Bloomfield system to AMD, which might not be a bad thing for AMD in the end.

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Source:
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...7255&Itemid=35

Old thread:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=185374

Does it really makes sense? and would they seriously do that? I really hope it ain't so.

I really do hope this is all just a big load of BS, that or Bloomfield better be one kickass platform that OCs to hell and back.

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The sum of all this is that Intel might loose out a few enthusiast users that don't have deep enough pockets to get a Bloomfield system to AMD, which might not be a bad thing for AMD in the end.

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Assuming AMD has anything worthwhile by then.

The Old Bait & Tackle maneuver with C2D..........:yepp:

I'm calling BS because Intel isn't going to ditch the enthusiasts once they finally got their grasp with enthusiasts.

Bloomfield is a Skulltrail replacement correct?

If these dont overclock, any performance gains to be had from the architecture will be neutralised by the overclocking we can do on C2D.

Heres hoping its either wrong, or poorly implemented. Why bother going to such effort to annoy 2% of the market?

Why would they do this? I thought the people that overclock are such a small percent of the market that it's not worth doing anything about? What's the $ motive behind this? Do they think we'll go for the more expensive models instead of overclocking the cheap ones?

Damn Nation no donation no salvation.

Hey Blauhung, is there any chance you could throw us a word on the subject? confirm? negate?

Much appreciated :up:

This news comes from Fudzilla.....nuff said
Second, it would be a very stupid decision
Third, pinmods ffs. There is no way they can lock that, except if ALL procs have the same FSB, which I doubt.

First off this is not the position of the company, only my personal feelings, but....

there isn't really any bus on the Lynnfield or Havendale chipsets, only the interface to the southbridge. Everything is on the package and that is all locked to where it's set at. The reason for the in package PLL is most likely because the clock generation and splitting can now all be done on die which makes for far more control over the process and less part compatibilities to worry about. The second PLL probably just sets speeds for the SB and all the other IC's on the board that need clock generation. This is not a change that is there to lock out overclocking, that is a side effect of the new platform structure.

Second, Intel is not ditching enthusiasts, they have devoted a platform specifically for them.

they will make us all have dell motherboards :o

Well, screw Intel if they do that. I'm so NOT buying overpriced Bloomfield NOR a Lynnfield platform that doens't overclock.
Any takers for the $$$ that I wrote "FOR UPGRADE ONLY"?

I think I'm seeing GREEN.

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Originally Posted by lowfat

Bloomfield is a Skulltrail replacement correct?

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Not really, Bloomfield is single socket so its more of the replacement for the X38/X48 platform. I have no clue if there's a dual socket enthusiast board in the works, but with the loss of the FBDIMMM requirement and the new 3 channel memory controler, Personally I'm going to be holding out for news of that.

HEHE, 3 dedictated memory channels for each processor with enthusiast grade unbuffered DDR3. And each CPU running 8 threads

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Originally Posted by K404

If these dont overclock, any performance gains to be had from the architecture will be neutralised by the overclocking we can do on C2D.

Heres hoping its either wrong, or poorly implemented. Why bother going to such effort to annoy 2% of the market?

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we still don't know if overclocked Yorkfield's will come out on top of stock Lynnfield yet. Remember the boost to memory bandwidth/latency will be large, and with the revamped implementation of SMT this will be an effective 8 threaded chip as opposed to 4. Turbo mode, dynamic single core frequency changes for single threaded apps, will also most likely come in to play just like it has been implemented on the new penryn based mobile platform.

Who knows ... FUDzilla, both fuad and his minions, is not known a bastion of technical knowledge and understanding... what he describes makes no sense at all as the PLLs are kinda stupid ... they do not know the clock period (hence the reason they phase lock), if they understood the clock period there would be no need to lock on the phase.

That does not mean that there isn't something different going on, but what he describes is just technical jibberish.

Well if they do that, you can guess that AMD will take that little hole to get some market shares for sure!

Well i and we can vote in this just not buing nehalems systems if that happens!
Join to my idea and soon we'll see overclockable nehalems!

But yeah i think this is just BS

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Originally Posted by Mad1723

Well if they do that, you can guess that AMD will take that little hole to get some market shares for sure!

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basically yes. Intel is catering to the average home/business users where they make most of their money. This might result in the segment here that does low cost overclocking not seeing anything from Intel that they can use. The problem is, the AMD platforms might go the same way. System on a chip concepts are big right now and that will most likely be the momentum of the mainstream segment of the computer industry for a while.

Now you can see how it would be If INTEL were a monopol, thx god for AMD

I am more than happy to give my money to AMD instead if this is true. I am not buying a multi- socket setup for overclocking and playing games and whatever else I do not use my macbook for.

We will find a way, there's no stopping overclocking.

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Originally Posted by Frodin

I am more than happy to give my money to AMD instead if this is true. I am not buying a multi- socket setup for overclocking and playing games and whatever else I do not use my macbook for.

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Bloomfield is not multi-socket, it is single socket.

Another point. There will most likely be bloomfield CPU's available around the $400 pricepoint. And due to the fact that the ammount of IC's required on the motherboard, prices there will probably drop a bit too compared to X38/48 boards. Having to buy 3 sticks of DDR3 to use the new memory controller to the fullest will be a bit more expensive, but it'll work just fine with 2 sticks. I see no reason why Bloomfield + 2 sticks of ddr3 wont outperform X48 with the same setup due to the lower latency of getting data to the CPU.

The Cost of entry really won't be all that bad.

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Originally Posted by Nanometer

We will find a way, there's no stopping overclocking.

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amen

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Originally Posted by Zytek_Fan

I'm calling BS because Intel isn't going to ditch the enthusiasts once they finally got their grasp with enthusiasts.

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The won't ditch you they will MILK you. IMO it makes perfect sense - what for buy overpriced Bloomfield when you can buy cheaper and yet overclockable Lynnfield ? But if they will lock overclocking you have no choice - pay us or stay with stock Mhz,till now overclocking was free but it seems Intel wants to enforce some kind of 'overclocking tax'.

If they do - I'm going AMD.

Intel very seriously needs to consider the backlash that would come from this.

+1 for it being Fud, however things are plausible.

ps - Wutup Chaos!

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Originally Posted by Blauhung

Bloomfield is not multi-socket, it is single socket.

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Ah, ok, so what are all those additional pins up from LGA 1160 for then? Tri- channel DDR3? I am ok with that, as long as it does not require rediculously expensive motherboards and EE CPUs. Something along the lines of present q6600 and P35 prices midway through 09 and I won't complain:D

Sounds like they will truly lock down the FSB in doing this. So the only way, even with the Extreme chips, will be to up the multi.

And if AMD doesn't get up out of their doldrums, are you really going to buy those chips? I mean if you have to OC the chip just to get it to run as fast as a stock Intel chip, what's the point? I suppose you avoid contributing to the goliath that Intel is becoming, there is that.

I could smell this one coming based on the last round of attempts Intel made to kill overclocking on the P4's (except for Extremes). You knew they wanted to do it. They probably only left the C2D's alone so they could get the enthusiasm going and now when they come 'round to refresh the C2D with Nehalem, they take the FSB/Mem onboard and finally they have the lockdown they've wanted for a long time. As before however, I think they are underestimating that while a small % of the market, the folks who OC, are "advisors" to a larger part of the market on what company to go with. Then there's the lawsuit to consider, as they may very well point to this type of long term dominance as to exactly why Intel is bad for the market. But that's really a sideline.

We all must have had feelings this might happen and have to make new choices depending on what's available. Remember, however, that the first Nehalem is an Extreme anyway, so for those waiting for the first round, it's evident that they don't want you to "wait" for the mainstream cpu's to find out if they OC or not.

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Originally Posted by Blauhung

Not really, Bloomfield is single socket so its more of the replacement for the X38/X48 platform. I have no clue if there's a dual socket enthusiast board in the works, but with the loss of the FBDIMMM requirement and the new 3 channel memory controler, Personally I'm going to be holding out for news of that.

HEHE, 3 dedictated memory channels for each processor with enthusiast grade unbuffered DDR3. And each CPU running 8 threads



we still don't know if overclocked Yorkfield's will come out on top of stock Lynnfield yet. Remember the boost to memory bandwidth/latency will be large, and with the revamped implementation of SMT this will be an effective 8 threaded chip as opposed to 4. Turbo mode, dynamic single core frequency changes for single threaded apps, will also most likely come in to play just like it has been implemented on the new penryn based mobile platform.

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The illustrious Francois Piednoel had mentioned a few weeks back that they were working on a successor to the SkullTrail with DDR3 so I'm assuming it is some sort of nehalem based platform.

As to some of the other comments here; Guys, don't get your panties in such a bunch until there are at the least some facts known.
It seems to me that Intel has taken a stand for the overclocking community witrh the boards they've brought out in the last year namely SkullTrail and Bonetrail.
Let's wait and see what happens before we get our blood pressure running.;)


(ok Blauhung, does that get me a free board and chips..oops, and memory)

Good pts Movieman.

Yeah I'd have gotten Skulltrail if it had supported better memory. Perhaps all in time :)

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Originally Posted by Dave

overclocking community witrh the boards they've brought out in the last year namely SkullTrail

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Cant call Skulltrail a community release- what % of the 2% that are real overclockers/benchers can afford it, let alone use it to full potential?

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Originally Posted by Frodin

Ah, ok, so what are all those additional pins up from LGA 1160 for then? Tri- channel DDR3? I am ok with that, as long as it does not require rediculously expensive motherboards and EE CPUs. Something along the lines of present q6600 and P35 prices midway through 09 and I won't complain:D

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Correct, they are for the additional QPI link and the 3rd memory channel. The socket 1336 CPUs might initially be EE but hopefully Blauhung is right and we will get some midrange ~$400 cpus for that socket as well, maybe single socket Xeons like we have now.

This should not come as a surprise to ANY of you, current budget overclocking on Intel platforms is nothing more but an unavoidable side-effect of the FSB architecture. It was only a matter of time before system on a chip designs showed up and locked many of the variables we exploit on-die. Oveclocking will still be viable on socket 1336 but you will have to pay premium for it, mainstream platforms are going for performance/watt and limited overclocking is a side effect of improvements to which will benefit the vast majority of mainstream clients.

My concern is, assuming Bloomfield is too expensive compared to Penryn, will locked socket 1160 cpu's be faster than overclocked socket 775 Penryn's? I doubt it, so hopefully Bloomfield ends up being affordable or I will stick to Penryn for a long time.

Hmm, even though I believe Intel could perfectly prevent OC, then I sincerely doubt that they will. This is just more FUD, from a site using FUD as part of their name.

This information is failed without a more sensible and proven accurate source. When Fugger or some of the XIP / Legends say it will be so, then I'll believe it above what even Intel will state.

Until then, I believe, any Nehalem platform will be as overclockable as the current CPU and chipsets, in their respective markets.

To be blunt -- DILLIGAF?

Bloomfield/LGA1366 is not just 'Extreme' processors. It's a lot more than that. The LGA1160 socket is limited. Two channels of DDR3? This is what Intel has now. Two channels of DDR3 with an on-die memory controller? This is what AMD will offer soon.

Even if desktop processors for LGA1366 turn out to be expensive, there will be identical, renamed Xeons for the socket just like there are now. It's desktop, DP and MP. Motherboard manufacturers will know to take advantage of that, and release affordable LGA1366 boards for Xeon use.

And at the end of the day, this is just good old FUD. Maybe it turns out to be true, maybe not. I was aiming for Bloomfield anyway.

This move wouldn't surprise me. But its all FUD (no pun intended) until we multiple reviews and real world testing.

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Originally Posted by Frodin

Ah, ok, so what are all those additional pins up from LGA 1160 for then? Tri- channel DDR3? I am ok with that, as long as it does not require rediculously expensive motherboards and EE CPUs. Something along the lines of present q6600 and P35 prices midway through 09 and I won't complain:D

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LGA 1366 for bloomfield UP, and gainstown DP. both are required for using QPI and the 3 channel memory controller. CPU will probably be $400 or so for the low end, motherboard will probably about the same as prices now.

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Originally Posted by Anemone

Sounds like they will truly lock down the FSB in doing this. So the only way, even with the Extreme chips, will be to up the multi.

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There is no FSB, there is no bus at all. so you can't lock out something that isn't there. There also will be no extreme chips on the mainstream platform.

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Originally Posted by Movieman

The illustrious Francois Piednoel had mentioned a few weeks back that they were working on a successor to the SkullTrail with DDR3 so I'm assuming it is some sort of nehalem based platform.

As to some of the other comments here; Guys, don't get your panties in such a bunch until there are at the least some facts known.
It seems to me that Intel has taken a stand for the overclocking community witrh the boards they've brought out in the last year namely SkullTrail and Bonetrail.
Let's wait and see what happens before we get our blood pressure running.;)


(ok Blauhung, does that get me a free board and chips..oops, and memory)

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Yup, Intel isn't ignoring us. They are devoting entirely new platforms to this comunity. Because of the requirements that this community wants, these new platforms may cost a bit more. They are ignoring the people who get the cheap chips and make them work like the better ones do. They are not locking them out to prevent you from overclocking them. They are moving everything on die to lower power requirements and cost of production of the home and business desktop/mobile platforms with the goal of greatly improving performance per watt and dollar. This has the side effect of removing the levers that this community uses to raise the clock speed.

I repeat, this is not in place to screw this community. That just happens to be a side effect of all the improvements that 98% of the users will greatly appreciate.

Just calm down.

The whole point of overclocking is to get more performance for your money for 99.9% of people out there. I doubt Intel is "catering" to anything. According to you, they're going to be catering to those who want to buy :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing $1000 chips and then OC them. That's not me, nor anyone I know or care to know. If this is true, which it very well could be, Intel's just being a giant douchebag because they can.

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Originally Posted by Swatrecon_

The whole point of overclocking is to get more performance for your money for 99.9% of people out there. I doubt Intel is "catering" to anything. According to you, they're going to be catering to those who want to buy :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing $400 chips and then OC them. That's not me, nor anyone I know or care to know. If this is true, which it very well could be, Intel's just being a giant douchebag because they can.

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fixed.

I have to call fake.
For intel to do this, they'd loose market they weren't even trying to make buy the more expensive stuff.

Enthusiasts build pcs for non-enthusiasts, if I had to buy the extreme edition to overclock type idea, I'd be going amd all the way, every system i'd build, intel would no longer be an option.

I think the people that pay over $500 for a CPU+Mobo are in the minority even here on XS. Its quite obvious though that due to the design the only way to overclock the low-end chips would be through the multi.

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Originally Posted by LuckyNV

I really do hope this is all just a big load of BS, that or Bloomfield better be one kickass platform that OCs to hell and back.



Assuming AMD has anything worthwhile by then.

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Depends if oveclocked AMD is faster than the mainstream nehalem.

If AMD is slower by stock, but faster when overclocked, then I'd go with AMD anyday if the prices aren't too high.

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Originally Posted by gdogg

I have to call fake.
For intel to do this, they'd loose market they weren't even trying to make buy the more expensive stuff.

Enthusiasts build pcs for non-enthusiasts, if I had to buy the extreme edition to overclock type idea, I'd be going amd all the way, every system i'd build, intel would no longer be an option.

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Remember when Intel was against overclockin? What actually brought C2D to it's prime? 1: good OC capability 2: good performance over K8.

What if you couldn't OC C2D's, but could K8? C2D would fail here in XS.

Intel seems to have no threat from AMD right now, but what about if AMD becomes competitive @ same clockspeeds and AMD's clock like C2D does right now? Then Intel would want people to OC. ;)

RIght now people just buy the cheapest parts and OC them to near the top parts. :p

I just hope the enthuasiast platform has chips that will be accessible by the vast majority of this community. A lot of overclockers utilize budget chips and strive for moderate overclocks, alienating that supporting crowd of members could have drastic effects. Either way though, I'm more worried about the overclocking and cold-bug potentials of Nehalem over the platform itself. 45nm Core 2 will still be around and still be powerful, if Nehalem costs too much then just ride the 45nm train till 32nm Nehalem is out :up:

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Originally Posted by BrowncoatGR

I think the people that pay over $500 for a CPU+Mobo are in the minority even here on XS. Its quite obvious though that due to the design the only way to overclock the low-end chips would be through the multi.

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Well, stuff wasn't exactly that much cheaper (if at all), in the day when AMD 64 and X2 was king of the hill.

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Originally Posted by [XC] gomeler

I just hope the enthuasiast platform has chips that will be accessible by the vast majority of this community. A lot of overclockers utilize budget chips and strive for moderate overclocks, alienating that supporting crowd of members could have drastic effects. Either way though, I'm more worried about the overclocking and cold-bug potentials of Nehalem over the platform itself. 45nm Core 2 will still be around and still be powerful, if Nehalem costs too much then just ride the 45nm train till 32nm Nehalem is out :up:

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:up:

Even if Nehalem had no OC capability at all, C2D / C2Q would probably still be a very excellent alternative, both in terms of performance and overclocking ability.

Nehalem's worst enemy is probably 45nm C2D / C2Q, and probably not anything AMD has to offer at the time (but God, I hope I am wrong).

although this is probably a lie.. (its FUD after all) i think its quite funny how people are acting! it's not the end of the world if you can't oc... you buy a car for £20,000 and you get 300bhp (for example), you then need to BUY extra stuff to get more BHP out of it.
getting a chip for £200 and then overclocking it to a £600 chip is intel loosing money and they do realise that you know :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Origin_Unknown

although this is probably a lie.. (its FUD after all) i think its quite funny how people are acting! it's not the end of the world if you can't oc... you buy a car for £20,000 and you get 300bhp (for example), you then need to BUY extra stuff to get more BHP out of it.
getting a chip for £200 and then overclocking it to a £600 chip is intel loosing money and they do realise that you know :rolleyes:

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That I do agree with, but this is XS after all hehe :p:

I bought a $1000 chip from Intel 1½ year ago, and if it couldn't clock beyond its 2667 MHz speed, then I wouldn't really put it past them (Intel never promised me more than that). For games and applications, I have never found a need for it to OC'ed. For benchmarking it is good that it can overclock, but still... I wouldn't pay $100.000 for a McLaren F1 and expect it to be like a >1.000.000$ McLaren F1. I believe you can only expect and demand to get, what you pay for ... the rest is just fortunate. Stock speed and features are what you payed for, not the promise of something faster or better.

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Originally Posted by Seraphiel

Well, stuff wasn't exactly that much cheaper (if at all), in the day when AMD 64 and X2 was king of the hill.

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Nothing was stopping you from OCing P4s, K7s, Sempron K8s and SC K8s(after the X2s got released). So it is not the same. You really need to read Blauhungs posts as well

you guys need to chill!
do some reading first... and those of you over 18, try to remember back in the days...
the game stays the same, but the way you play it... it's another story.
I, for one, am waiting with high hopes this new architecture

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Originally Posted by BrowncoatGR

Nothing was stopping you from OCing P4s, K7s, Sempron K8s and SC K8s(after the X2s got released). So it is not the same. You really need to read Blauhaungs posts as well

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As you still could with current X2, X4 / Phenom, C2D / C2Q ... and the difference is? This with regards to your >500$ statement for Nehalem CPU+Mobo.

Sure, just like then, there will be people chosing older and cheaper products/platforms, but there will also be those that will pay that 500$ or whatever it will cost.

I can't see the difference in examples.

But I could be missing the point, and if so, I will stand corrected :)

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Originally Posted by Dan_c

you guys need to chill!
do some reading first... and those of you over 18, try to remember back in the days...
the game stays the same, but the way you play it... it's another story.
I, for one, am waiting with high hopes this new architecture

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I believe few is taking this news seriously :)

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Originally Posted by Blauhung

There is no FSB, there is no bus at all. so you can't lock out something that isn't there. There also will be no extreme chips on the mainstream platform.

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Yep thanks for correcting my thinking, with QPI the FSB concept goes away. There must still be a ratio of core speed to memory speed though, I'd imagine. But it won't work the old way that's for sure.

I wouldn't have expected any EE chips on the mainstream platform.

Well I don't know how's you guys. But I work as System's administrator.
Because current Intel architecture is superior to AMD's, I've got quad core
under my hood at home's computer.

Now because I'm the one who decide what kind of Office desktop's we're
buying it's all Intel C2D. There's about 500 of those.

When I was on AMD side I was buying AMD's for the Company.

Now, if they will lock their CPUs, i'm back at AMD's door step.

I'm sure there is much more guys like me...

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Originally Posted by Xope_Poquar

Why would they do this? I thought the people that overclock are such a small percent of the market that it's not worth doing anything about? What's the $ motive behind this? Do they think we'll go for the more expensive models instead of overclocking the cheap ones?

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Originally Posted by Anemone

Yep thanks for correcting my thinking, with QPI the FSB concept goes away. There must still be a ratio of core speed to memory speed though, I'd imagine. But it won't work the old way that's for sure.

I wouldn't have expected any EE chips on the mainstream platform.

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Yes there will still be ratio's and multipliers to control everything with an on die/package PLL doing the clock generation. Memory will most likely be set to the highest platform supported SPD profile coded on the ram, and probably won't be user selectable.

I can tell you right now that if intel follows through with this, you can expect a surge of people buying AMD cpu's at nehalems release.

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Originally Posted by Seraphiel

As you still could with current X2, X4 / Phenom, C2D / C2Q ... and the difference is? This with regards to your >500$ statement for Nehalem CPU+Mobo.

Sure, just like then, there will be people chosing older and cheaper products/platforms, but there will also be those that will pay that 500$ or whatever it will cost.

I can't see the difference in examples.

But I could be missing the point, and if so, I will stand corrected :)

I believe few is taking this news seriously :)

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My point wasn't the cost itself. Blauhung mentioned that Intel made a platform dedicated for overclockers while the rest cant be OCed/ is difficult to OC(we'll see which of the 2). I just pointed out that a large percentage of ppl even here on XS do not have or are unwilling to pay the kind of money the Bloomfield platform is going to cost.

So we'd return to the days of re-writing spd's to improve memory speed.

Remember folks, it's not like AMD might not do much of the same things we see here. They need more $$ too and we all remember the days of the FX chips.

Why does everyone expect the 'Bloomfield platform' to have an insane price? Why does everyone think 'Bloomfield' and LGA1366 means just Skulltrail and Intel Extreme processors?

Socket LGA1366 is for both servers/workstations and desktops.

What does this mean? Just look at what this does for LGA775 today. You have Core 2s.. and you have identical, yet renamed Xeon processors.

Will there be Xeons for LGA1366? Yes. Will everything be locked down? No.

People aren't stupid, they'll buy Xeons if Intel doesn't offer anything else but the 'Extreme' processors. It then stands to reason that Intel will offer regular, multiplier-locked processors for the LGA1366 socket. Even if they don't, nothing is stopping enthusiasts from buying Xeons, and nothing is stopping manufacturers like DFI, Foxconn and even ASUS from making enthusiast LGA1366 boards for them.

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Originally Posted by Blauhung

First off this is not the position of the company, only my personal feelings, but....

there isn't really any bus on the Lynnfield or Havendale chipsets, only the interface to the southbridge. Everything is on the package and that is all locked to where it's set at. The reason for the in package PLL is most likely because the clock generation and splitting can now all be done on die which makes for far more control over the process and less part compatibilities to worry about. The second PLL probably just sets speeds for the SB and all the other IC's on the board that need clock generation. This is not a change that is there to lock out overclocking, that is a side effect of the new platform structure.

Second, Intel is not ditching enthusiasts, they have devoted a platform specifically for them.

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Originally Posted by Blauhung

Yup, Intel isn't ignoring us. They are devoting entirely new platforms to this comunity. Because of the requirements that this community wants, these new platforms may cost a bit more. They are ignoring the people who get the cheap chips and make them work like the better ones do. They are not locking them out to prevent you from overclocking them. They are moving everything on die to lower power requirements and cost of production of the home and business desktop/mobile platforms with the goal of greatly improving performance per watt and dollar. This has the side effect of removing the levers that this community uses to raise the clock speed.

I repeat, this is not in place to screw this community. That just happens to be a side effect of all the improvements that 98% of the users will greatly appreciate.

Just calm down.

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Thanks.

So if I gather correctly, the information is "true" in the sense that OC'ing will not be possible, not because Intel is playing malicious, but as a no choice side effect of the new architecture? (But would still be impossible?). AKA clockspeed is set in stone. Or did I get it wrong?

Anyway I just hope the improvements from the new architecture will compensate for all that in any case.. Looks promising either way :cool:.

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Originally Posted by BrowncoatGR

My point wasn't the cost itself. Blauhung mentioned that Intel made a platform dedicated for overclockers while the rest cant be OCed/ is difficult to OC(we'll see which of the 2). I just pointed out that a large percentage of ppl even here on XS do not have or are unwilling to pay the kind of money the Bloomfield platform is going to cost.

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Ok, I can accept that but that leaves me with a single question:

How is the platform dedicated for overclockers any different from the mainstream one?

If it only means worse support, something like XE vs mainstream CPU, and X38 vs P35 chipsets, then I totally understand.

But this sounds more like X1 CPU and X2 chipset can't OC, but Y1 CPU and Y2 chipset can. It sounds more like a choice, or leaving out features in the mainstream platform that prevents OC, than anything else.

I could miss something and probably certainly have, but I don't understand this.

Blauhungs posts certainly didn't convince me, that this isn't anything other than a choice, or willing lack of support.

The side effect that the community uses to raise the normal levers etc... Well, those are obviously compensated for in the enthusiast platform. Why couldn't Intel make the mainstream CPU and chipset have the same features as with the enthusiast one (to a certain degree, it doesn't have to be all or nothing)?

Yeah right,lock OC in they're mainstream CPU's and we'll see AMD rise again;)
After all why are C2D/C2Q and C2X so popular?Because of they're easy ability to achieve big clock's with simple coolers and now they do this?I don't think so,they aren't dumbas(r)ses

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zytek_Fan

I'm calling BS because Intel isn't going to ditch the enthusiasts once they finally got their grasp with enthusiasts.

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But they have a different platform for enthusiasts on Nehalem, the last thing i want is for this to be true but i wouldn't be too surprised if it happened

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lowfat

Bloomfield is a Skulltrail replacement correct?

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It's average-Joe's version of Nehalem iirc

Bloomfield is the desktop quad for LGA1366. The LGA1160 Lynnfield and Havendale are 'average joe's Nehalem'.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DMH

Yeah right,lock OC in they're mainstream CPU's and we'll see AMD rise again;)

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My thinking as well, if this goes down as I (mis)understand it, as of now based upon a FUD site, and a member's information that may be very correct (I call FUD upon the first source, but not the latter).

I would welcome anything that makes AMD CPU an excellent alternative, but I still think this is too much in the dark, and those that really know what this is all about, can't say anything really significant (Blauhung is still in that catogory until I am convinced otherwise).

Too little information, or I am too dumb to understand what is given. I'll wait and see, and both will probably be correct :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seraphiel

Ok, I can accept that but that leaves me with a single question:

How is the platform dedicated for overclockers any different from the mainstream one?

If it only means worse support, something like XE vs mainstream CPU, and X38 vs P35 chipsets, then I totally understand.

But this sounds more like X1 CPU and X2 chipset can't OC, but Y1 CPU and Y2 chipset can. It sounds more like a choice, or leaving out features in the mainstream platform that prevents OC, than anything else.

I could miss something and probably certainly have, but I don't understand this.

Blauhungs posts certainly didn't convince me, that this isn't anything other than a choice, or willing lack of support.

---

In moving the entire northbridge on die, Intel has a way to reduce cost and power usage on mainstream platforms, something which 98% of the users of those systems will greatly appreciate. Because of this, there are no longer levers for this community to raise clock speeds.

because of this fact, and the want to not alienate this community. Intel developed the Bloomfield based platforms specifically for this community. Everyone else keeps seeing this as the other way around. As if they could have extended the Bloomfield platform down to the mainstream end, where the features wouldn't be useful to anyone other then those who are looking for overclocking potential on the cheap, and to sell this platform to that market they would have to operate at somewhat of a loss in profitability. This community is the only reason there even is a Bloomfield platform. Otherwise Tylersburg would be completely limited to MP and DP platforms only and there would be absolutely no OC'ing at all. It is due to the fact that Intel does want to keep this community support that they tweaked their server chipset to support the wants of the people here.

Just keep it in mind, there was a choice made. That choice was not to screw people out of their hobby. The choice was to continue actively supporting this community with the best possible systems for getting the best performance from your system. They created a platform based on high performance server components that has the ability to overclock, 3 channel memory controllers, and support 2x16 PCIe 2.0

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seraphiel

The side effect that the community uses to raise the normal levers etc... Well, those are obviously compensated for in the enthusiast platform. Why couldn't Intel make the mainstream CPU and chipset have the same features as with the enthusiast one (to a certain degree, it doesn't have to be all or nothing)?

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Really, that would have involved having 2 separate platforms that operate at about the same stock performance but target 2 portions of a given market with one of those portions only taking up 2% of the market, and the platform you market to the smaller portion costing more for you to produce. If you were a large company what decision would you have made?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blauhung

In moving the entire northbridge on die, Intel has a way to reduce cost and power usage on mainstream platforms, something which 98% of the users of those systems will greatly appreciate. Because of this, there are no longer levers for this community to raise clock speeds.

because of this fact, and the want to not alienate this community. Intel developed the Bloomfield based platforms specifically for this community. Everyone else keeps seeing this as the other way around. As if they could have extended the Bloomfield platform down to the mainstream end, where the features wouldn't be useful to anyone other then those who are looking for overclocking potential on the cheap, and to sell this platform to that market they would have to operate at somewhat of a loss in profitability. This community is the only reason there even is a Bloomfield platform. Otherwise Tylersburg would be completely limited to MP and DP platforms only and there would be absolutely no OC'ing at all. It is due to the fact that Intel does want to keep this community support that they tweaked their server chipset to support the wants of the people here.

Just keep it in mind, there was a choice made. That choice was not to screw people out of their hobby. The choice was to continue actively supporting this community with the best possible systems for getting the best performance from your system. They created a platform based on high performance server components that has the ability to overclock and support 2x16 PCIe 2.0

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That I do understand, but still it doesn't make any sense... The choices made would come down to clocks, voltage, lanes, features etc... not something not already possible to manipulate today. What on earth is so crucially different? But not different enough to allow it all to manipulated on an alternative platform.

I am not trying to be an ass here, but simply trying to understand those decisions made by Intel.

I you were the FUD, I wouldn't think much about your information. But you present yourself as someone in the know, and I accept you as such, or else I wouldn't take your info seriously at all.

If you can't provide more than this, I accept that and thank you for your infos so far! I don't believe you lie, but I think you are not giving the complete picture here (NDA?).

But of course, I can be stupid, and let us then just leave it at that :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blauhung

Really, that would have involved having 2 separate platforms that operate at about the same stock performance but target 2 portions of a given market with one of those portions only taking up 2% of the market, and the platform you market to the smaller portion costing more for you to produce. If you were a large company what decision would you have made?

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A company wouldn't be interessted in the enthusiast platforms, just like they aren't in the current XE models and X motherboards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by K404

Cant call Skulltrail a community release- what % of the 2% that are real overclockers/benchers can afford it, let alone use it to full potential?

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No, I think I said it right. That ST board isn't meant for any other segment of the PC world and cost can never be a factor in what the board is designed for just as some may have hopped up honda civics and others hopped up Ferrari's.
Even with the ST you have vast options on a build.
Do you buy 2-$275.00 5420's or do you buy 2-$1500.00+ QX9775's?
Then there are the vid options..one or two.
ST can be kept to a reasonable cost(under $2000.00 total build price) or go nuts and drop $8000.00 on it.
There are also many more than the "2% that are real overclockers/benchers" that have interest in the ST board.
Not everyone thats an enthusiast is a diehard overclocker or bencher.

Fair enough. Frankly most folks here buy mid grade mobo's and chipsets pretty normally. We may debate whether you want a X48 or a X38 but often folks do end up with some kind of a ROG grade board from a good vendor (ROG is just an example of a quality level not that everyone buys Asus).

So chipset wise I'm not thinking this is a big deal. And a Skulltrail 2 would be different from a single socket Bloomfield, so that's ok too, imo. People would have a choice mainstream, enthusiast, enthusiast cpu x2. That's really not much different from now.

The real question is would there be a cheaper cpu, say $300-400 ish that would run on the "bloomfield cpu x1" board that you could OC? Said differently, as long as you are on the "enthusiast" board could you get a cheaper than EE level chip that you could OC?

From my interpretation of the above posts, you could be on the "right" chipset (Bloomfield) but if you still did not have a EE chip you couldn't OC.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seraphiel

That I do understand, but still it doesn't make any sense... The choices made would come down to clocks, voltage, lanes, features etc... not something not already possible to manipulate today. What on earth is so crucially different? But not different enough to allow it all to manipulated on an alternative platform.

I am not trying to be an ass here, but simply trying to understand those decisions made by Intel.

I you were the FUD, I wouldn't think much about your information. But you present yourself as someone in the know, and I accept you as such, or else I wouldn't take your info seriously at all.

If you can't provide more than this, I accept that and thank you for your infos so far! I don't believe you lie, but I think you are not giving the complete picture here (NDA?).

But of course, I can be stupid, and let us then just leave it at that :)





A company wouldn't be interessted in the enthusiast platforms, just like they aren't in the current XE models and X motherboards.

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To be fair to Blauhung, he works for Intel and I'm sure there's things he's not allowed to say and I respect that.
On the other hand he's many times filled out what was speculation with facts and is a great asset to this forum.
One more thing;
I've gotten to know him a bit as he's helping on the WCG team and what I've seen is a decent guy who is here like the rest of us because he enjoys the hobby. I think this adds up to a win-win for everyone.:up:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Movieman

To be fair to Blauhung, he works for Intel and I'm sure there's things he's not allowed to say and I respect that.
On the other hand he's many times filled out what was speculation with facts and is a great asset to this forum.
One more thing;
I've gotten to know him a bit as he's helping on the WCG team and what I've seen is a decent guy who is here like the rest of us because he enjoys the hobby. I think this adds up to a win-win for everyone.:up:

---

Well, that confirm my thoughts: I'll understand his words better and what all this means, when things are more official :up:

Again, thanks for the heads up and early information, Blauhung. I need no more explanation :)


EDIT: If it wasn't clear I never doubted his informations or him being right, only my own ability to understand it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seraphiel

That I do understand, but still it doesn't make any sense... The choices made would come down to clocks, voltage, lanes, features etc... not something not already possible to manipulate today. What on earth is so crucially different? But not different enough to allow it all to manipulated on an alternative platform.

I am not trying to be an ass here, but simply trying to understand those decisions made by Intel.

I you were the FUD, I wouldn't think much about your information. But you present yourself as someone in the know, and I accept you as such, or else I wouldn't take your info seriously at all.

If you can't provide more than this, I accept that and thank you for your infos so far! I don't believe you lie, but I think you are not giving the complete picture here (NDA?).

But of course, I can be stupid, and let us then just leave it at that :)

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I'm not trying to be argumentative, sorry if it comes out that way, and your not being stupid, as you are bringing up the good questions that need to be answered to keep people on track here. Really I'm just trying to clear up the fear mongering that normally just comes out of FUD.

The basic differences between the platforms are the amount of stuff that is integrated into the CPU package and how that affects where OC'ers can tweak stuff from.

On the high end Bloomfield parts, you have the Cores the cache as normal, plus a QPI controller and the 3 channel memory controller. All the clock generation is done on a PLL that is on the mobo and the reference frequency is set on the Tylersburg NB. To overclock here you can raise the QPI frequency as it will be the reference frequency that the CPU and memory speeds are split from with CPU multies and memory ratios. There will also be unlocked EE chips that allow CPU multiplier changes.

On Lynnfield which is where the bulk of this forum is interested. Intel moved all the rest of the NB functions onto the package. I'm not sure about the truth of the idea of an integrated PLL from the FUD article, but it makes sense to me. All the clock generation and splitting can now be done in the package and there is no need for any interconnect other then talking to the I/O hub/SB. Removing the interconnect/bus generates huge savings in latency and power consumption as everything is right there, and since there's less chips on the board, the manufacturing costs go down and that results in lower cost to the consumer. That is why the platform is setup this way. The unfortunate for us side effect is that the only ways one could overclock this system is to either alter how the PLL operates (it's in the package and most likely locked at whatever frequency it's set at) or change the multipliers on the CPU (they are also most likely locked). Really there's no way to change the speed once it is set after the binning process in the factory. Because Intel has compromised all the overclocking capabilities on the mainstream platform to save consumers money and power usage in the long run, they created the Bloomfield platform to do the best they can to give this comunity something to play with. Going as far as develping an offshoot of the server line that works very nicely as a High end desktop with a full set of OC capabilities.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Movieman

To be fair to Blauhung, he works for Intel and I'm sure there's things he's not allowed to say and I respect that.
On the other hand he's many times filled out what was speculation with facts and is a great asset to this forum.
One more thing;
I've gotten to know him a bit as he's helping on the WCG team and what I've seen is a decent guy who is here like the rest of us because he enjoys the hobby. I think this adds up to a win-win for everyone.:up:

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hehe, thanks dude:up: and everyone remember, i'm not posting any inside info here, this is all stuff that's available outside. And I'm not speaking for the company just my own personal observations.



And real quick I wanted to present a counter point to those that are thinking about boycotting Intel systems in their decisions where they work.

I believe business decisions should still be about what gives the best bang for your buck. Middle of next year is about when both Intel and AMD mainstream systems should be in full swing. Say AMD does come out with better performance/Watt and $. More power to them and i would expect you to fill offices with their systems. If Intel puts out a system that wins in those categories over AMD then I would expect that to be the system of choice there.

Regardless of that outcome, those who would be voting with their purchases by buying AMD because Intel didn't release an overclockable mainstream platform, would be also voting against all the decisions that are based on reducing cost of purchase and improving power consumption in the mainstream desktop.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blauhung

I'm not trying to be argumentative, sorry if it comes out that way, and your not being stupid, as you are bringing up the good questions that need to be answered to keep people on track here. Really I'm just trying to clear up the fear mongering that normally just comes out of FUD.

The basic differences between the platforms are the amount of stuff that is integrated into the CPU package and how that affects where OC'ers can tweak stuff from.

On the high end Bloomfield parts, you have the Cores the cache as normal, plus a QPI controller and the 3 channel memory controller. All the clock generation is done on a PLL that is on the mobo and the reference frequency is set on the Tylersburg NB. To overclock here you can raise the QPI frequency as it will be the reference frequency that the CPU and memory speeds are split from with CPU multies and memory ratios. There will also be unlocked EE chips that allow CPU multiplier changes.

On Lynnfield which is where the bulk of this forum is interested. Intel moved all the rest of the NB functions onto the package. I'm not sure about the truth of the idea of an integrated PLL from the FUD article, but it makes sense to me. All the clock generation and splitting can now be done in the package and there is no need for any interconnect other then talking to the I/O hub/SB. Removing the interconnect/bus generates huge savings in latency and power consumption as everything is right there, and since there's less chips on the board, the manufacturing costs go down and that results in lower cost to the consumer. That is why the platform is setup this way. The unfortunate for us side effect is that the only ways one could overclock this system is to either alter how the PLL operates (it's in the package and most likely locked at whatever frequency it's set at) or change the multipliers on the CPU (they are also most likely locked). Really there's no way to change the speed once it is set after the binning process in the factory. Because Intel has compromised all the overclocking capabilities on the mainstream platform to save consumers money and power usage in the long run, they created the Bloomfield platform to do the best they can to give this comunity something to play with. Going as far as develping an offshoot of the server line that works very nicely as a High end desktop with a full set of OC capabilities.

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You sir (and probably many others), have then still understood what I couldn't. That I respect!

Still, I thank you for the informations and conclusions. But I would like to ask a favor of you:
Could you provide links to the sources of information that lead to your conclusion and provided infos?; so that I may on my own, be able to learn more about these (more than I realized) complex platforms?

I kinda understand, that that integrating NB functions and optimizing for low power consumption on one platform, and not on another (or others) are the reasons for this complexity, I think?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blauhung

Because Intel has compromised all the overclocking capabilities on the mainstream platform to save consumers money and power usage in the long run, they created the Bloomfield platform to do the best they can to give this comunity something to play with. Going as far as develping an offshoot of the server line that works very nicely as a High end desktop with a full set of OC capabilities.

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Do you know if this was an initiative from management(or marketing) down or somthing the engineers themselves pushed for?

I thought Bloomfield was a highend workstation platform and the fact that it can be used also as a high end gaming/enthusiast platform was just an added bonus.

oh theyve been wanting to do this for a long time.. they can and they will.. can you blame them? cant really.. its all about $ $ $

theyve been loosing greatly to low $/clock cpus.. every single person on the planet that has ever overclocked an intel cpu.. intel lost $ big time.. at least thats how they see it

by creating these new platforms they can separate their desktop/extreme cpus into two secured markets that will bring in ~100% $.. atm the market is loose.. chaos.. out of control

in other words.. this is short of calling overclocking: "piracy"

well all things come to an end anyways.. so will cheap fun intel overclocking

until amd incorporates such.. cheap fun overclocking for long time on the green side

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NapalmV5

oh theyve been wanting to do this for a long time.. they can and they will.. can you blame them? cant really.. its all about $ $ $

*snip*

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I am not so sure it is so simple anymore. It was a few hours ago to me, but the more I think about it, the more I believe there is something positive for all concerned parties about all of this.

Yes, it may be another money milking scheme, but I don't really think that it is. I would like some references, but I have done some reading on my own, and also used current platforms to compare with (along with positive and negatives), and I think Intel is actually right about this, if this is, what I now believe (and hope) it will be, eventually :confused:

These rumours are starting to sound plausible to me.

At present, everyone assumes that Intel moving the MCH onto the CPU itself will simply be their equivilent of the transistion AMD made with the Athlon 64. At present, AMD CPU's now have the HTT link which connects the graphics card, main system RAM, and devices that communicate through the chipset, directly to the CPU. AMD's implementation allows the user to alter the internal CPU FSB, and the HT link, provided the motherboard BIOS has the appropriate options. In short, there are two seperate data bus's, the CPU bus and HTT link.

However, when Intel move the MCH onto the CPU, they may very well have a single bus that controls the speed of the CPU, the main system memory, graphics card, and devices linked to the ICH (Southbridge). This basically means that their would be one main data bus. Obviously all subsiduary data bus's, such as the ageing PCI bus, would communicate with the CPU via the chipset.

At the very least this should have some effect on production costs that may in turn effec how much Nehalem CPU's will retail for. I'm sure that power requirements would be lowered somewhat but there's no way to tell at present whether they would be lowered by any significant ammount.

To sum up my opinion, if this turns out to be true it will all boil down to good old fashioned price and performance. If a new Intel CPU performs better than an overclocked AMD that costs the same amount of money, I'll go Intel, otherwise it's AMD. Nevertheless there's not much more that can be said on the matter until more information is released.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blauhung

They are not locking them out to prevent you from overclocking them. They are moving everything on die to lower power requirements and cost of production of the home and business desktop/mobile platforms with the goal of greatly improving performance per watt and dollar. This has the side effect of removing the levers that this community uses to raise the clock speed.

I repeat, this is not in place to screw this community. That just happens to be a side effect of all the improvements that 98% of the users will greatly appreciate.

Just calm down.

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You know there are some folks posting here who are worse than Fudo and that Shacoocoo guy. Fugger and the gang are about Xtreme Overclocking, not Bang for Buck overclocking, that's some other site, not this one. Thanks Dewd for clearing this up.

Not to knock the cheap guys at all. No detail but just in General will there be any Legacy Processors for Sc-775/771 or will they truly die?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Donnie27

Not to knock the cheap guys at all. No detail but just in General will there be any Legacy Processors for Sc-775/771 or will they truly die?

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Shacoocoo guy = Sharikou? *shudders*

I believe there will be continued and new support for the SC-775/771, in terms of newer steppings and chipset, but not anything that will support both them and Nehalem. The roadmaps implies this to some extend for both, at least as I read them :)

(Still haven't found sensible counters to our previous discussion hehe)

My dad being an electronics engineer for at least 50 years, has dealt with PLL systems they are tunable. So I would guess that there is code for adjusting the PLL frequency, they are not going to taylor the circuitry for each and every bin level, it just wouldn't be cost effective. This may actually make overclocking easier if there is code to change the cpu speed.

$400 for a starter overclockable part, with a $200 board and expensive DDR3 mem??? When today for $220 you can get an E8400 that goes to 3.8 Ghz, $240 gets a Q6600 and $290 a Q9300? With a cheap $120 mb and rock-bottom DDR2 mem to boot.

There's always a bright side. This is actually great news... for AMD :D
Not so great news for competition though :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DeepThought86

Not so great news for competition though :(

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FALSE. IF this is true, then Intel gives AMD a great advantage = AMD in the battle = more competition = Intel will drop prices at least and AMD will push Overclocking forwards as much as possible. Basically when overclocking for cheap, you need to ditch Intel and go for AMD.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DeepThought86

$400 for a starter overclockable part, with a $200 board and expensive DDR3 mem??? When today for $220 you can get an E8400 that goes to 3.8 Ghz, $240 gets a Q6600 and $290 a Q9300? With a cheap $120 mb and rock-bottom DDR2 mem to boot.

There's always a bright side. This is actually great news... for AMD :D
Not so great news for competition though :(

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$400 is not alot for a processor....

lol, sorry, but anyway you try to explain it, intel is trying to make overclocking into some upper niche luxury hobby... Great for their bottomline, but I won't swing that way, I'd rather get amd... Unless lynnfield will be oc'able, I will get a phenom system. Intel has a voice, and so should we, and I will voice my opinion against this change, I don't really care if budget overclocking loses Intel money, I will only support what benefits me... I had less reservation giving amd 400 for my opteron, cause amd is a small company and they have a tougher time competing, however I won't be forced into an expensive cpu. Again, Intel has a right of doing this, its their platform, but it does go against my better interests, and I have a strong feeling that this will help amd quite a bit as a lot of people won't give up their hobby. Its as simple as that, vast majority of the reasonable overclocking community will either stick with c2 or go to phenom if it catches up.

oh, and 400 is quite a bit for a processor, intel doesn't even have any mainstream cpus at that price point as of now...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChaosMinionX

$400 is not alot for a processor....

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I bet a good 75% of people here spend less than $400 on their CPU.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Calmatory

FALSE. IF this is true, then Intel gives AMD a great advantage = AMD in the battle = more competition = Intel will drop prices at least and AMD will push Overclocking forwards as much as possible. Basically when overclocking for cheap, you need to ditch Intel and go for AMD.

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Well, depends on how you look at it. If it enables AMD to survive longer it's good. However Blauhung intimated that it's to enable cheaper mainstream parts for people who don't overclock (i.e. basically 98% of the market). This is going to hurt AMD more than any moves on the extreme high-end -- not to mention Nehalem is a nukular bom in the server market. If Intel abandons the bang-for-buck overclockers (70% of the 2% that overclock?) it's entirely possible AMD will too. And even if they don't, AMD has nothing until 2010 that hints at an improvement in single-threaded performance over what's available today i.e. relatively cheap 4GHz procs like the 8400.

Also, $400 is a lot for a CPU! Go to Office Depot etc and see the $500-$1000 PC's including monitor. That's where the mainstream market is at.

I hang round these "Extreme" forums which inspired me to go out and put together a system myself for the first time. When it was time to buy I ended up with a $60 CPU that performs like a $110 one, a cheap mobo and the money I saved I used to get 6GB of RAM. The "poor enthusiasts" like me have nothing to gain from a move like this. And judging the popularity of the Q6600 by the number of threads it's spawned compared to say threads on $500+ procs, I'd say there are many more like me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xope_Poquar

Why would they do this?

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That is a good question. Before i became an overclocker i used to upgrade my CPU every 2-3 years. Since i started to be a overclocker i will buy 3-5 CPU's per year.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lowfat

I bet a good 75% of people here spend less than $400 on their CPU.

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$1800.00 for my 2005 3600/2mb/800 Irwindales..:D
testing a board this week with a pair of X5482 Harpertowns that are almost $1500.00 EACH..
More than I can afford but damn to they bring home the bacon!:rofl:

Blauhung, do you know if intel will allow nvidia to make motherboards for the new processors anymore?

$400+ CPU prices are going to turn off 99% of enthusiasts who are in this for bang for the buck. There are competitons based on price per benchmark point. Unless they're writing reviews and getting engineering samples, your average enthusiast doesn't want the black box xtreme chips, they want $200 chips that can be chewed up and spit out.

On the other hand I have to admit I'd make the $400 jump. I doubt most will though.

:(

That about sums up my feelings on this.

Umm not if anyone notices this but that simply means we can't overclock via FSB... that doesn't mean we can't overclock

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blauhung

Not really, Bloomfield is single socket so its more of the replacement for the X38/X48 platform. I have no clue if there's a dual socket enthusiast board in the works, but with the loss of the FBDIMMM requirement and the new 3 channel memory controler, Personally I'm going to be holding out for news of that.

HEHE, 3 dedictated memory channels for each processor with enthusiast grade unbuffered DDR3. And each CPU running 8 threads



we still don't know if overclocked Yorkfield's will come out on top of stock Lynnfield yet. Remember the boost to memory bandwidth/latency will be large, and with the revamped implementation of SMT this will be an effective 8 threaded chip as opposed to 4. Turbo mode, dynamic single core frequency changes for single threaded apps, will also most likely come in to play just like it has been implemented on the new penryn based mobile platform.

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I have an inspiron 1525 with a T7250 in it. I loaded up prime 95 on it the other day on just one core, then locked the affinity to core 0. I literally saw a 1/2 second jump up to an 11x multi, but could never get it to repeat. Why, do you ask? Because the stupid computer kept tricking itself into thinking that both cores were being loaded. Idontcare and I had a fairly long discussion in the AT forums about this, with the tentative conclusion being that the computer doesn't know HOW to use just one core most of the time. I understand that nehalem will be able to jump up 3x instead of 1x, but if they don't figure out a way to improve the feature then it will continue to be nearly useless.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChaosMinionX

$400 is not alot for a processor....

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Tell that to my Barton 2500+ and Brisbane G1 3600+. :shakes:

Is long as Intel continue to release different FSB models, we should be able to oc. Just like we pin-mod 266fsb CPU to 333fsb, and 333 to 400fsb, there's probably way to trick the pll to do that. It'll just be we'll have to physically mod the cpu to oc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seraphiel

Shacoocoo guy = Sharikou? *shudders*

I believe there will be continued and new support for the SC-775/771, in terms of newer steppings and chipset, but not anything that will support both them and Nehalem. The roadmaps implies this to some extend for both, at least as I read them :)

(Still haven't found sensible counters to our previous discussion hehe)

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Yup that's him, we also call him Doctor Nick. The fake doctor from the Simpsons;)

It seems FUD is successful in spreading Fear Uncertainty and Doubt... LOL.

Blauhung is one of the few who actually seems to know what he's talking about on this subject.

Having an on-die clock/PLL has nothing to do with locking out overclocking... http://www.nehalemnews.com.

-Chris.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WRC

Blauhung, do you know if intel will allow nvidia to make motherboards for the new processors anymore?

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NVIDIA's options with Nehalem... http://www.nehalemnews.com/2008/05/e...halem-sli.html

-Chris.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mrcape

$400+ CPU prices are going to turn off 99% of enthusiasts who are in this for bang for the buck. There are competitons based on price per benchmark point. Unless they're writing reviews and getting engineering samples, your average enthusiast doesn't want the black box xtreme chips, they want $200 chips that can be chewed up and spit out.

On the other hand I have to admit I'd make the $400 jump. I doubt most will though.

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Gosh I love how the rules change when the Blue team is doing it, it's bad but when the Green team is doing even worse, it's OK! Folks bragged about how sweet a deal was for a $389 to $439 3800+ for almost a year while AMD raped the market.:rolleyes: Green blooded guys from far and wide defended them. They absolutely gushed and blushed about $850 FX-55's and were down right Giddy over $634 4400+ so please spare that it cost too much crying!?:rofl: Please? NO, most folks here didn't buy Intel's top models and when Conroe launched Intel had enough sense to also ship some for the Sub $200 Market and not pull an AMD 3800+ trick.

Please speak for yourself:rolleyes: If any Nehalem ships anywhere near the $400 price point it will sell like gangbusters. Sure every one can't afford it, but many more will IMHO! Unlike the other guy, most of us can at least predict that Nehalem will be worth $400:ROTF:

Q9550/X3360 currently priced at 530 dollars.
QX9650/QX9770/QX9775 Currently priced +1200 dollars.
Q9450/X3350 Currently Priced 360 dollars.

Who says the Current Gen is mostly under 400 dollars?
The Only Cheap current Gen is Ones that can't be overclocked much such as the Q9300. Or The Dual-Cores which can overclock alot, but are not Quad-Cores.

I have a principle not to buy CPUs that cost over $300 (300€). I don't give a crap what the chip does in SPi or 3DMark, all it matters is it's relatively cheap and overclocks. After that price point the marginal gains you get aren't worth it. It's obvious those who buy $300+ chips don't care about performance/price so their opinions about this OC-lock aren't that relevant in the end as certainly the huge majority of overclocking is done on sub-$300 chips such as E6600/Q6600/E8_00 and lesser. The second issue are the motherboards. I never buy "high-end" boards that costs >200€, and since the high-end X58 seems to be the only choice with Bloomfield for some time that's yet another no-go.

I sincerely doubt we'll see sub-$300 LGA1366 chips and sensibly priced Bloomfield mobos - but I guess it's just Intel who loses. And I'm fine with that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChaosMinionX

$400 is not alot for a processor....

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I've been doing the PC thing since the mid 90's and have NEVER spent that much on a cpu.

On 9th April, when I had asked the question "What about enthusiasts/overclocker??" while Mr Pat Gelsinger was giving info regarding Nehalem. He answered that they will continue with Extreme Edition trend. When I pressed more all he said was its "too early to talk about it". But honestly if this is a "locking mehanism" by any chance I think Intel may feel the heat after a quarter passes after the launch next year :P