88 Issue 1213
hadn’t been cherry-picked by Intel via its sampling system
as best choices for exceeding 4GHz and emblazoned with
a ‘K’ designation.Te chnically, it was Supermicro that first
demonstrated a BIOS that could unlock theoretically
locked Skylake processors, but pretty soon most big
board makers had Z170 based boards that could unleash
the potential in all the range’s processors.
To say that Intel went ballistic at this development
is putting it mildly. I’m not sure what threats it issued
to board makers, but almost overnight these modified
BIOS were pulled, and Intel set about makinga
microcode adjustment to plug the exploit this hack
used. This update will be mandatory, I’m told, even if I’m
not sure how you can force anyone to apply a firmware
update or even a motherboard BIOS enhancement.
I mention all this because it was a topic of conversationI
had with a major board makerrecently, who quietly offered
to provide me with a doctored BIOS, if I wanted to see what
my Skylake chip could actually do when unfettered by Intel’s
training wheels.
There was a time when I’d have leapt at the chance, because
over the years I’ve overclocked almost everything.I think the first thing
I tweaked was a BBC Micro, but I’ve gone beyond the specifications
of processors, motherboards, Ethernet adapters, memory, video cards,
wi-fi, hard drives and even speeded up a printer once.
As fun as some of these projects were, and the gains in
performance that I occasionally got veryreal, these days I’m not as
compelled to abuse stock settings. The problem with overclocking
is that when anything goes wrong, my first thought is that I’ve
introduced a stability issue by pushing the envelope. It might not be
the case, it might be a bug or a glitch or a failing part, but tweaking
does introduce an extra level of uncertainty.
I’ve also had systems that I massively overclocked, that worked fine
initially, and then started to manifest all manner of tiny problems.OffOff
LoggingLogging
88 Issue 1404
EDITORIAL
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Fereday, Ian McGurren, Aaron Birch,
David Briddock, Craig Grannell, Kevin
Pocock, Andrew Unsworth, Dave
Robinson, Rob Leane.Caricatures:Cheryl Lillie
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Jan-Dec 2010A
fter Intel launched Skylake many people weren’t
impressed with the limited chip selection, and even
smaller number that came unlocked. That made the few
‘K’ class devices very popular, rapidly draining their stock
in the channel and causing street prices torocket upwards.
When such artificial forces come into play they’re often
countered by people’s ingenuity, it seems, and soon someone
worked out that there was a way to unlock Skylake chips that