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A few weeks back, Intel appear it had pushed an update out to motherboard manufacturers to remove BIOS overclocking for Skylake processors that were supposed to be locked in the first place. Always since 2022, Intel has restricted overclocking to upper-finish Core i5 and Cadre i7 products with a "Yard" designation in the name, and the visitor never meant to offering Skylake fries that could be overclocked in the first place.

Users who bought lower-terminate Skylake chips and motherboards tin can nevertheless overclock by refusing to update to newer BIOS versions, of course. But information technology seemed that the window on this item feature had closed for good, since new boards would ship with newer BIOS versions, and motherboard manufacturers haven't historically wanted to go head-to-head with Intel in enabling features the company isn't fond of.

ASRock, information technology seems, has other ideas. The manufacturer has announced a new set of motherboards — the Fatal1ty H170 Functioning/Hyper and the Fatal1ty B150 Gaming K4/Hyper, both of which utilise an external clock generator to bypass the restrictions that Intel has placed on Skylake overclocking.

h170fatality

The H170 Fatal1ty

It's not articulate what the new boards volition cost, but ASRock tends to target the lower-finish of the motherboard space, with boards in the $100 to $120 range. Presumably these will exist priced similarly.

This is the first time we've seen a motherboard company openly buck Intel's CPU lockdown in this fashion, which raises the question: Why now? Is ASRock trying to lock down a business organisation segment it of a sudden establish was pop, or is there something about Skylake that makes it easier for manufacturers to integrate external solutions as a way around this problem? Asus, MSI, and the like have been manufacturing overclocking motherboards for a number of years; it's hard to believe they wouldn't accept adopted a solution like this as a way to appeal to enthusiast buyers if it was practical to do then.

Feature-wise, the two motherboards are fairly similar. The B150 offers gigabit Ethernet courtesy of Killer Networks, while the H170 has SATA K.2 support, SATA Limited, and eight USB 3.0 ports (the B150 has "but" half-dozen). If this type of overclocking support proves popular with enthusiasts, you can bet other manufacturers will adopt it — the cutthroat globe of motherboard manufacturing demands nothing less, and companies are quick to follow when i of them discovers a characteristic gamers and builders desire to pay for.