ASRock Confirms Overclocking on B85 and H87 Motherboards

Motherboard manufacturer ASRock has confirmed that its products based on B85 and H87 chipsets will give enthusiasts access to unlocked CPU multipliers. The company identified a backdoor which allowed it to implement a BIOS feature called “Non-Z OC” on its “non-Z” motherboards. The setting allows K-series CPU like the Core i7-4770K and Core i5-4670K, which normally feature unlocked multipliers, to be unlocked even on motherboard not based on the Z87 chipset.

Fatal1ty H87 Performance Motherboard - Image Courtesy ASRock
Fatal1ty H87 Performance Motherboard – Image Courtesy ASRock

 

Intel markets the Z87 as the top performance chipset for its new line of Haswell-based Core processors. The other chipsets normally lack many overclocking options, including the option to unlock the CPU multiplier. While B85 and H87 chipset-based motherboards still have to do without a lot of the overclocking features of Z87 boards, the BIOS tweak implemented by ASRock lets the users get the most out of their new K-series Core processors. The main advantage of this is clearly the price, as fully-featured Z87 motherboards retail for much more than mainstream H87 and entry level B85 offerings.

While this is great news for Core i7-4770K and Core i5-4670K processors, the “Non-Z OC” BIOS feature cannot unlock multipliers on “non-K” processors. Furthermore, ASRock says that the feature may not be available on future CPU models. We should also add that future BIOS updates could see the special setting removed as we imagine Intel may be pressuring ASRock regarding that matter.

Read the original story on XBit Labs

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