Tech Bytes: New Overclocking Features

Hi, Lexy. Great to talk with you.

Yeah, thanks for joining us. In today's episode, Dan will be walking us through new overclocking features on the 11th Gen Intel Core desktop processors, and what makes this generation of features different. Also, we'll be going through how Intel supports the overclocking community and what type of tools are out there to help overclockers. With that being said, let's jump in.

Every time we have a launch, we hear "new overclocking features." Which, that terminology is great, but what are those new features, and what do they do?

All right, I'm glad you asked. So we start off with an already amazing processor and we add overclocking tuning capabilities-- I like to call these tuning knobs-- that allow you and the overclocker to extract additional performance from the processor.

And in this case, we've added a host of new knobs that I would put in two main categories, the first one being AVX instruction-based tuning capabilities. We've added three knobs in this area. This allows you to extract additional performance when AVX is running and also when AVX is not running. So a couple of three new knobs there.

And then we have an exciting new set of features around memory overclocking. There's an all-new memory controller here and on this new controller, we've added something called Gear-2 support. Gear-2 enables the potential for higher memory frequencies. It does so by adding greater latency depth capabilities, and we still have retained the Gear-1 that people love to use, so that's available as well.

And these knobs add to a suite of about two dozen existing overclocking knobs, all to give you the ability to extract the maximum performance out of your processor.

Got it. Now, what else makes overclocking on the 11th Gen Intel Core desktop processors different?

Well, we, in this generation, are vastly expanding our memory overclocking capabilities. This is exciting because we're opening up memory overclocking to additional SKUs that previously didn't support memory overclocking. And previously, you would need a K SKU processor with a Z chipset in order to have your memory overclocking.

Well, now with this generation, we've expanded that to include all of our core processors, Xeon processors, paired with a chipset that is either a B, H, or W. And within the B, H, and W, there are some details that are available on our website that will tell you which SKUs are supported. But you can now have overclocking at all these different price and performance points. This is exciting.

And I'm really thrilled that we've listened to the enthusiast community. We love that community and they said, hey Intel, we would really love to see more memory overclocking capabilities at various price points. So entry overclockers now can get started, even with a B chipset. So this is really exciting, and I think it's the beginning of something new.

All right, Dan. So there's Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, and then there's Intel Performance Maximizer. Can you break these tools down, and when do I use one versus the other?

Sure, yeah. So we have two tools for two different groups of users. The first one is the Intel Performance Maximizer. This is for somebody who simply wants to have their overclocking be automated. They don't want to have to know about all the knobs that I talked about before. They just want to click go, and it's great for them.

The second category is the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility. This is for somebody who really wants that full control over their overclocking tuning. So they want all the knobs exposed, they want benchmarking, stress testing, monitors, all these different things to maximize their performance. So we have one tool for extreme and one tool for somebody who wants one-click overclocking.

Gotcha. Now Dan, if I was to jot all of this into a flash card in my mind, what would be that thing that I should emphasize the most?

Yeah, I believe that the 11th Gen Intel Core desktop processors are going to usher in a new inflection point in memory overclocking. Specifically, there's two reasons for this belief. Number one is that with the great new memory controller we have, combined with the new memory tuning knobs, we're going to see a higher average memory overclock capability.

Secondly, because we've vastly extended the number of SKUs of both the processes and the chipsets that support memory overclocking, we're going to bring in a whole new array of potential users and overclocking systems that support memory overclocking. So this is really exciting to me.

Got it. Thanks, Dan, and thank you so much for joining us and talking about overclocking.

Thank you.

And to all of our viewers, if you have any questions or you're looking for additional resources, check out your partner portal. Until then, don't forget to tune in to next week's Intel Tech Bytes.

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