Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors may be struggling with chipset problems and have a locked processor bus, but the new 32nm architecture is good for decent speeds still. Over the last couple of days overclockers have been pushing Sandy Bridge closer and closer to the magic 6 GHz limit, while we’ve also seen the first tests with x58 and x59 multipliers.
Intel has with its latest mid-range platform made more or less all buses dependent on each other. This has lead to that you can’t use the bus for overclocking, other than a few percent. Instead everything comes down to Intel’s unlocked K models where the multiplier of the processor can be changed any way you like.
The official maximal overclock of Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors are 57. This means that without any bus alterations you will be able to reach 5.7 GHz (57 x 100 MHz). Over the last few days we have seen how overclockers have been able to run its processors at not only x58 but also x59 multiplier and reach frequencies over 5 800 MHz with only air cooling to help them.
The highest reached clock frequency today is 5 865.1 MHz and this was a combination of x58 multiplier and 101.12 MHz processor bus. The cooling was a Thermalright Archon heatsink.
The exact multiplier limitation seems a bit vague at the moment, but the biggest problem is finding a motherboard since Intel has stopped all sales while waiting for the new Cougar Point chipsets in April.
Source: ocxtreme.org
