The Sandy Bridge Preview (Anand)

[rado992]

Well, look at it from another point of view: At least now there will be cheap multi-unlocked CPUs, so BCLK won't be a concern until you try LN2 since 57x105 seems about the maximum obtainable frequency. Still plenty of room for easy OC on air and water. OC is never guaranteed and never will be. Intel's only concern is to provide a chip that is guaranteed to work at stock settings. The rest is a bonus you may or may not get. For examle, the i7-875K is very attractive currently, as it easily goes to 4 GHz with half-decent cooling regardless of the max BCLK your board can manage.