[H]ardOcP discovered that on the 18th of March, Intel patented a new technology disabling modifications of in clock speed. Those chips will have a quartz crystal, which generates a clock rate. It is then compared to the actual clock speed. Whenever there are differences between those two rates, an internal circuit will undo the modification. Overclocking and underclocking would be undone by this circuit.
Although Intel got a patent for this technology, they are not planning to use it immediately: When [H]ardocp asked Intel about this, their answer was:
“We apply for lots of patents due to the amount of research we do. We have not made an announcement on any kind of implementation of this.”
You can find the patent here.
