Getting Into The Overclocking Business

Digitimes had an interesting article about Intel plan to put some overclocking features into its motherboards.

There’s no mention of FSB adjustments, which you kind of need to be taken seriously in the overclocking world, and if Intel doesn’t do that, it’s just a matter of too little, too late.

But let’s say Intel does allow some degree of FSB overclocking on its boards. OK, it probably still won’t make you get amnesia about Taiwanese mobo manufacturers.

But what about the OEMs? More specifically, the desperate OEMs: the NDs (Not Dells).

To put it mildly, the big OEMs competing against Dell aren’t doing too well. It’s like Dell is this big leech sucking the blood out of them, slowly but surely.

Or sometimes not so slowly, Gateway being the prime example of this.

As things are going right now, if Gateway doesn’t somehow distinguish itself from other PC makers, it will get inevitably crushed by Dell on one side and HP on the other exploiting their economics of scale. Gateway recently said as much yesterday.

If Intel gives a half-blessing to overclocking with its motherboards, even they don’t allow FSB overclocking, that could be a sign for a Gateway or other desperate OEMs to try to compete by playing with overclocking fire.

Of course, Intel won’t like that at all, but when you see Gateway advocating digital copying to sell equipment, they can always wave the AMD flag and “Do you really want Dell to take over the world?”

I don’t think they’d flatout sell overclocked machines, just provide a mobo that can overclock (and there would be no problem getting those from Taiwan), and just make people aware that they can turn it up a notch. Allowing a Northwood 1.8 or 2.0 to go up 33% would be a very easy and safe bet.

And if Gateway got away with that, there would be pressure on others to follow.

Not saying it’s going to happen, or even is likely to happen. Just saying it might happen. It would be a desperate move, but as the PC industry becomes a commodity industry, we’re likely to see a few desperate moves. If you can’t compete with the big boys on price and you need some feature that Dell and HP will be reluctant to instantly copy, why not try a little overclocking.

Probably won’t happen, but might be really interesting if it did.

Ed