Intel Pushes CPU Microcode Update which Cripples Overclocking Non-K Skylake CPUs

[Kenrou]

ASRock was just the beginning...

http://www.techpowerup.com/mobile/2...cripples-overclocking-non-k-skylake-cpus.html

 

[Nebulous]

Yeah saw that over @ [H]. Since intel isn't making money, they want to disable the non-k overclocking feature that ASRock implemented on their boards.

 

[saturn]

Hay look new bios for my board... crap can't OC now... 10 minutes later with a bios/hex editor and its back...
If I had a Skylake and knew more about the bios the boards use I'd be modding bios for the boards with OC'ing still enabled.

Anyway whats to stop manufacturers from not adding the microcode?

 

[EarthDog]

Yeah saw that over @ [H]. Since intel isn't making money, they want to disable the non-k overclocking feature that ASRock implemented on their boards.

Intel is making plenty of money.

Everyone has this on their boards AFAIK.

But like was in the other similar thread (may merge these two...) Im not surprised the others will 'have to' follow...

 

[Woomack]

It's the same with all gpu/cpu manufacturers. All have to agree to Intel/AMD/Nvidia rules or will lose warranty and partner status. No one wants to lose warranty in this scale of sales. Especially when enthusiast/overclocker series are really low % of all sales.
On the other hand I don't know why they care so much when there would be really low % of users who would overclock lower CPU series. Even i3 or lower i5 are really expensive nowadays so if anyone can pay like $175 for i3 then will pay $240 for i5.
Additionally overclocking of lower chips could convince some AMD users to move to the blue team.

 

[Witchdoctor]

As long as the BIOS's are out there there will be people sharing them with in the overclocking community

This is not going away anytime soon

 

[EarthDog]

Agreed Witchy... the only concern I really have with this are on the boards that cannot 'flash back'... which I am sure there is a work around there too.

 

[Nebulous]

To rephrase what I said earlier was Intel doesn't want to lose money and is pushing this so that only high end CPUs will sell. And once you update the bios on any board that is running a non K chip, you'll be locked out. I'd like to see a workaround when this happens

 

[EarthDog]

As the others alluded to, I don't think they will be losing much at all here. There are so few that overclock and even less that know they CAN overclock these chips, its a pico drop in the bucket. Now that doesn't mean they don't want to patch the leak, but it's a pittance I am sure.

 

[wingman99]

711 million PC gamers in the world, the USA only has 323 million people. I hardly think the enthusiast crowd is a drop in the bucket. Look at all the equipment for overclocking that you see advertised, Top sellers at Newegg are the K series CPU's, AMD FX & Z170, X99, AM3+.

People like to think overclocking is special, however it is not, it's just marketing now. link: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gaming/serious-gaming.html

 

[Woomack]

Gaming PC are like 5-7% of all PC sales. Overclockers are maybe 1-2% of all sales.
In last years more gamers are buying consoles and it's normal that almost everyone has PC at home. It doesn't mean it's a gaming PC. Intel marketing materials are pretty much false ( as generally every other brand marketing materials ). Intel is assuming that their new IGP are also for gamers. On the other hand their dedicated gaming PC is something like i7+ GTX980Ti ( at least that I saw on their conference ). Now count how many gamers have i7+GTX980Ti. Most gamers are younger people who have limited budget. Most have older hardware at home and stick to one build for ~5-6 years.
Z170 has generally lower sales than previous series and many gamers still stick to older series as new are not helping much in games ( if you had Intel ).

Now think that Intel is the biggest graphics card manufacturer with shares about 60%. About 70% computers are designed for office work. So home PCs are that 30%. About 1/3 of all home users are not playing games. So there is 10% what is including various gamers. From that % at least 70% can't afford don't want to upgrade PC more often than every 3-4 years.
Not to mention that sales of mobile computers ( laptops, tablets etc ) are growing each year what means that home users don't need computers for games or have additional PC or console for gaming only.

So overclocking nowadays = pure marketing = "we can beat competition because our motherboards have 24 power phases and our graphics cards have flashy design with large extreme overclocking labels" ...
Overclocking is great for marketing but on the other hand it's dangerous if we want to predict RMA rate. So what we see in last years ? Most manufacturers are limiting overclocking or are telling us where is the limit. If you want to try something above that limit then you automatically lose warranty. "Special" OC series have sometimes additional support what is of course counted in the product price.

In press releases you see that EVGA, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ... achieved some records in max frequency or score in benchmark. Yes it's nice but in most cases not on retail hardware even though all think it was retail. Later you see posts on the forums from disappointed users who spent additional money to get best of the best hardware which in real can't make much more than standard series. Here is required something special to what most users have no access ( or don't know how to make that ).

 

[wingman99]

Gaming PC are like 5-7% of all PC sales. Overclockers are maybe 1-2% of all sales.
In last years more gamers are buying consoles and it's normal that almost everyone has PC at home. It doesn't mean it's a gaming PC. Intel marketing materials are pretty much false ( as generally every other brand marketing materials ). Intel is assuming that their new IGP are also for gamers. On the other hand their dedicated gaming PC is something like i7+ GTX980Ti ( at least that I saw on their conference ). Now count how many gamers have i7+GTX980Ti. Most gamers are younger people who have limited budget. Most have older hardware at home and stick to one build for ~5-6 years.
Z170 has generally lower sales than previous series and many gamers still stick to older series as new are not helping much in games ( if you had Intel ).

Now think that Intel is the biggest graphics card manufacturer with shares about 60%. About 70% computers are designed for office work. So home PCs are that 30%. About 1/3 of all home users are not playing games. So there is 10% what is including various gamers. From that % at least 70% can't afford don't want to upgrade PC more often than every 3-4 years.
Not to mention that sales of mobile computers ( laptops, tablets etc ) are growing each year what means that home users don't need computers for games or have additional PC or console for gaming only.

So overclocking nowadays = pure marketing = "we can beat competition because our motherboards have 24 power phases and our graphics cards have flashy design with large extreme overclocking labels" ...
Overclocking is great for marketing but on the other hand it's dangerous if we want to predict RMA rate. So what we see in last years ? Most manufacturers are limiting overclocking or are telling us where is the limit. If you want to try something above that limit then you automatically lose warranty. "Special" OC series have sometimes additional support what is of course counted in the product price.

In press releases you see that EVGA, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ... achieved some records in max frequency or score in benchmark. Yes it's nice but in most cases not on retail hardware even though all think it was retail. Later you see posts on the forums from disappointed users who spent additional money to get best of the best hardware which in real can't make much more than standard series. Here is required something special to what most users have no access ( or don't know how to make that ).

What are you basing your figures from, I would like to see them?

Here is one of my sources, 711 million PC gamers link: http://www.pcgamer.com/there-are-711-million-pc-gamers-in-the-world-today-says-intel/

QUOTE:“We're really focused around PC gaming and enthusiasts. This is the one area of PCs that has kept growing,” Intel's Lisa Graff told me at the show. “These are out most loyal customers: PC gamers. They want as much performance as we can throw at them. We're going to bring Intel's best technologies to bear for PC gaming.”

 

[Woomack]

What are you basing your figures from, I would like to see them?

Here is one of my sources, 711 million PC gamers link: http://www.pcgamer.com/there-are-711-million-pc-gamers-in-the-world-today-says-intel/

I don't remember exactly but there were articles in last years about graphics card sales and % of computers in market sales. I posted links some ( long ) time ago. I won't find them now and I won't try to prove that all what I said is absolutely correct. These numbers have probably slightly changed but PC sales are constantly dropping so I don't think it's much better now.

You know that info from your link is generally the same marketing talk which I heard on Intel conference at the end of last year. It's hard to believe just because Intel marketing team is the only "source" which is saying that desktop PC sales are growing while everyone else says it's dropping. They were saying that to distributors and resellers to convince them that PC sales are worth to invest in. However if I remember it right then in last year it was nearly 7% drop while Intel says it was 15% raise. I work in IT for long years and sales of desktop PCs are constantly dropping while laptop sales are raising. Hard to call 95%+ laptops gaming computers.
Intel is assuming that computers with their IGP are also designed for gaming but for less demanding gamers. Considering this fact every PC with above standard GPU should be gaming PC.

 

[wingman99]

I don't believe you over what intel and Newegg says there selling you don't have any facts. Do you think intel is lying about enthusiasts growth? I'm looking for facts? http://blog.neweggbusiness.com/news/10-best-selling-cpus-of-2015-so-far/

If overclockers were only a drop in the bucket intel would not even bother with overclocking development, because you would still need a PC.

Intel and I are not talking about OEM, it is the PC gaming and enthusiasts were talking about

QUOTE:“We're really focused around PC gaming and enthusiasts. This is the one area of PCs that has kept growing,” Intel's Lisa Graff told me at the show. “These are out most loyal customers: PC gamers. They want as much performance as we can throw at them. We're going to bring Intel's best technologies to bear for PC gaming.”

If it was not for the enthusiasts, all the parts for building PC's would be bankrupted, including overclocking, how can that be a drop in the bucket?

 

[Alaric]

I think it's entirely possible Intel's PC sales are growing , relative to the competition (AMD) , but I'm not sure PC sales overall are growing.

Gamers and overclockers have influence out of proportion to sales because they are the ones a lot of Joe Public looks to in search of "the best" parts to order from Dell and HP. The folks who provide the benchmarks are a much smaller minority than those who use them for purchasing research. And they would be benching single core , locked multiplier chips if that's all that was available.

 

[Dr. McCoy]

Agreed Witchy... the only concern I really have with this are on the boards that cannot 'flash back'... which I am sure there is a work around there too.

Get a programmer like I have and you can flash it with whatever you want.

I said earlier someone should get and archive these BIOS files that allows for OC'ing these chips from as many vendors and board models as you can get.
If not the party is really over guys since new boards will have a BLK locked BIOS from this point foward.

BTW give AMD due credit, when it was found that AM3 chips with disabled cores could be unlocked they didn't go off the wall over it. Although they really didn't like it sales from folks wanting to play the silicon lotto with the bonus of maybe getting a real bargain on a given chip model certainly drove sales.
AMD played it cool, kept it going as if nothing had happened and they had plenty of business come their way.

I figured if anything ever happened like that with Intel they'd do the opposite and they've proven me right.

 

[EarthDog]

Absolutely Dr Mccoy... its too bad those that have the tool and ability are rare so... its locked down for the overwhelming majority of people.