Intel Nehalem to allow overclocking, some processors will even encourage it

[Monkeywoman]

"Taipei (Taiwan) - Hot on the heels of AMD's overclocking secret, we can reveal that Bloomfield and Lynnfield, key processors of Intel’s upcoming Nehalem family, will indeed feature overclocking capabilities for up to eight CPU cores (16 threads).

Credible information we were able to obtain from industry sources suggest that rumors about Intel preventing users from overclocking Nehalem processors are false. From what we have learned, Intel has very healthy silicon on its hands. It appears that there are some challenges related to overclocking, especially in the memory controller area. However, it is unlikely that there will be anything that prevents overclocking of the CPU cores.

Core 3, or whatever Intel decides to call the desktop Nehalem CPU, will be available as an Extreme Edition variant again, which is ready to elevate the performance bar. At the very high-end, Intel is currently "investigating the development of the successor of its super-expensive V8 Skulltrail platform. This time around, your Windows Task Manager will see 16 cores and not just eight (8 cores, 16 threads).

Bloomfield is Intel's high-end part, featuring a 192-bit DDR3-1333 and DDR2-1600 memory controller. DDR3-1600 support is still unofficial at this point, since Intel is waiting for JEDEC ratification. Lynnfield is the mainstream desktop part, which will feature a more conventional 128-bit memory controller.

Time will tell what Intel's Bloomfield overclocking potential really is. It will be interesting to see what Fugger, Coolaler, Kinc, Shamino (apologies to the ones I forgot to mention here, but we can't keep track of all those nicks) and the rest of OC community can do when Bloomfield gets frozen to -100 degrees Celsius or even less than that. We will try to find out is final silicon immune to the infamous "cold bug" or not.

When Nehalem comes to life, you can expect that our usual suspects will have overclocking motherboards ready - and Intel will have overclockable CPUs."

source; http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37824/135/

w00t

[Sly Fox]

I do hope this is true and that the other rumors saying Nahalem will only be overclockable in the "extreme editions" are false.

I really don't think that overclocking harms Intel in any way and yet at the same time I think that it helps generate buzz for them. When people see "XXXXX world record broken with Ln2 cooled Intel chip!" that is good PR IMO. Wouldn't make much sense for them to severely limit OC'ing frankly.

[AliG]

heh, good bye amd, it was nice knowing you

[Genius_pt]

Glad intel still cares about overclocking.

I was starting to get afraid of these "no overclock on nahalem" news over the internet.

[Blauhung]

All Bloomfield's will be able to scale by increasing the QPI reference clock. Lynnfield might still be limited to only OC'ing through unlocked multiplyers, as I'm still under the opion that there isn't really any reference clock that is accesable to the motherboard.

[LuckyNV]

Hang on I thought Nehalem was DDR3 only and I've only ever seen DDR3 boards, and it talks about DDR2?

[Blauhung]

Hang on I thought Nehalem was DDR3 only and I've only ever seen DDR3 boards, and it talks about DDR2?

I'm pretty sure that's a typo as JDEC is probably not going to standardize DDR2-1600

[Natalia]

Best news in a while

[ColonelCain]

heh, good bye amd, it was nice knowing you

Unfortunatly, this begins to shine more true day by day.

Though, I really wonder if the IMC will hamper overclocking to some extent?

[MarlboroMan]

on the high-end segment I was sure intel would never cut the overclocking possibility, but I wanna hear more about the main-stream/low-end.

Core 2 series you can overclock any cpu, some higher some lower...

[Chickenfeed]

Glad intel still cares about overclocking.

I was starting to get afraid of these "no overclock on nahalem" news over the internet.

I was sure this would never of happened. The Core 2s wouldn't be so popular among gamers/benchers if they didn't have the head room they do. I'm sure the Phenom's would be more attractive if they could clock high as well and as they don't you've seen how popular they've been.

[LowRun]

Unfortunatly, this begins to shine more true day by day.

Though, I really wonder if the IMC will hamper overclocking to some extent?

"Taipei (Taiwan) - Hot on the heels of AMD's overclocking secret, we can reveal that Bloomfield and Lynnfield, key processors of Intel’s upcoming Nehalem family, will indeed feature overclocking capabilities for up to eight CPU cores (16 threads).

Credible information we were able to obtain from industry sources suggest that rumors about Intel preventing users from overclocking Nehalem processors are false. From what we have learned, Intel has very healthy silicon on its hands. It appears that there are some challenges related to overclocking, especially in the memory controller area. However, it is unlikely that there will be anything that prevents overclocking of the CPU cores.

Core 3, or whatever Intel decides to call the desktop Nehalem CPU, will be available as an Extreme Edition variant again, which is ready to elevate the performance bar. At the very high-end, Intel is currently "investigating the development of the successor of its super-expensive V8 Skulltrail platform. This time around, your Windows Task Manager will see 16 cores and not just eight (8 cores, 16 threads).

Bloomfield is Intel's high-end part, featuring a 192-bit DDR3-1333 and DDR2-1600 memory controller. DDR3-1600 support is still unofficial at this point, since Intel is waiting for JEDEC ratification. Lynnfield is the mainstream desktop part, which will feature a more conventional 128-bit memory controller.

Time will tell what Intel's Bloomfield overclocking potential really is. It will be interesting to see what Fugger, Coolaler, Kinc, Shamino (apologies to the ones I forgot to mention here, but we can't keep track of all those nicks) and the rest of OC community can do when Bloomfield gets frozen to -100 degrees Celsius or even less than that. We will try to find out is final silicon immune to the infamous "cold bug" or not.

When Nehalem comes to life, you can expect that our usual suspects will have overclocking motherboards ready - and Intel will have overclockable CPUs."

source; http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37824/135/

w00t

Seems like an IMC is indeed not an OC friendly feature.