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Since late December, it's been possible to overclock Intel's previously locked Skylake processors - and as we revealed in our review of the Core i5 6500, this allows for some pretty explosive performance increases in gaming. Now it seems that the party is over as Intel prepares a firmware update likely to spell the end to this unofficial route to extra processing power. Once this mandatory update becomes the standard, only Intel's officially unlocked chips - the Core i5 6600K and the Core i7 6700K - will be overclockable."Intel regularly issues updates for our processors which our partners voluntarily incorporate into their BIOS," an Intel spokesman told PCWorld. "The latest update provided to partners includes, among other things, code that aligns with the position that we do not recommend overclocking processors that have not been designed to do so. Additionally, Intel does not warranty the operation of the processor beyond its specifications."
The clock-speed of Intel chips is defined by two factors - base clock and multiplier. The former is typically set to 100MHz, while the latter changes between processors. The Core i5 6500 has a multiplier of 32, meaning a 3.2GHz clock-speed. Intel's K chips allow for adjustments to both variables, while the locked processors can only adjust base clock. However, in our tests with the Core i5 6500, we were able to move base clock to 141MHz, giving a 4.51GHz speed that matches the overall speed we achieved with the more expensive (but more flexible) 6600K.
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