Intel Sandy Bridge CPU Overclocking Results Leaked

Well, its about that time again. Intel has some new chips up its sleeve and they are about ready to show their face. However before Intel got to show them, the China-based Coolaler Forums posted some screen shots of an i7-2600K (K for the unlocked multiplier) sitting at 5Ghz with a Super Pi 1M run of 7.488s under its belt. This is one of the more relevant pieces of information out of this “leak” as this would work out to sub 6s runs at a mere 6.25Ghz according to Hwbot.org’s calculations. Normally that would take around 7Ghz with current architecture.

The other item to note for overclockers is that in one of Coolaler’s screenshots, it shows a 65x multiplier. While that doesn’t mean much with today’s chips (because of the ability to overclock via bclk), it means the world to Sandy Bridge which has a 100Mhz bus to start and extremely limited headroom through the bclk (think 0-10% from the rumor mill). In fact, an OC Forums member (who also happens to be a technician at OCZ) has confirmed this rumor.

It was also feared that Sandy Bridge was going to have a 57x multiplier ceiling, limiting them to 5.7Ghz @ 100Mhz bclk. However after seeing that screen shot, if true, the extreme crowd can breathe a sigh of relief. Now lets keep crossing our collective fingers in hopes that the bclk limitations go away as well. Rumors are swirling about BIOS updates that may enable further bclk adjustment, but those cannot be confirmed at this time.

Without further delay, here are the screen shots:

– Earthdog