Intel Sandy Bridge Overclocking Guide

Editor's Note: Before starting, you should know that any kind of overclocking normally invalidates your product's warranty. While many products come pre-overclocked, brands usually don't expect you to get extra performance for free. In this case, 2 components will be overclocked: CPU and motherboard. If you're a beginner, read the whole guide before starting, or (better) print it to have it around while your PC is being tested. Benchmark Reviews won't be responsible for any damaged component caused by overclocking.

I know, the first paragraph makes it look like a very dangerous action, but don't be scared, it isn't. In fact, I can tell you that every CPU tested in this article is completely alive and running 100% stable at the moment of publishing this article, even I tested with "dangerous" voltage levels. If you're a beginner or you haven't overclocked any LGA1155 (or similar) platform before, you need to understand the basic concepts of the commonly-used variables and the process of overclocking: raise frequency, test stability, confirm and raise frequency again until you can't complete this sequence anymore.

Before starting I need to say we would have written this guide a couple of months ago when Sandy Bridge was launched along with the H67 and P67 platforms. However, Sandy Bridge platforms suffered a 2-3 months delay thanks to a small error in the P67 chipset design. Users with B2 revision motherboards might find troubles with S-ATA 2 ports in long term use. While this was supposed to happen after 2-3 years and only to about 5% of the products shipped, Intel quickly took action on this and aborted all shipments asking manufacturers not to provide their motherboards to the distributors and resellers. Intel acted quickly enough to stop Sandy Bridge distribution besides some re-sellers, reviewers, media sites and a small portion of people who ran of to the store and bought their Sandy Bridge platform. Within the end of March and beginning of April, many brands announced they would start shipping Sandy Bridge Motherboards again, and here we are now.

The Rules have changed

Intel launched a pair of "special" processors for the LGA 1156 platform; the Core i5 655K and the Core i7 875K. Those processors were supposed to bring better overclocks without any limits. However, many of us already expected this to be part of a new methodology, in which Intel would end shipping those processors and limit all non-K processors to their stock frequencies. This happened with Sandy Bridge. The thing is that you can't overclock any non-K processor way beyond its default frequency anymore. Non-unlocked processors are stuck to Base Clock (BCLK) overclocking, which happens to be so poor with this new platform that it won't give you more than 100-200 extra MHz before reaching the limit.

Intel also got platforms separated as the P67 platforms represents a mid-high segment and the H67 platform represents a segment where the user wants to take advantage of the integrated graphics unit in their CPU. H67 platforms can't overclock with non-unlocked processors, but even worst, they won't let you OC your unlocked processor either. So again you're stuck to BCLK (if any) overclocking, but in exchange, they'll let you overclock your iGPU to some decent levels.

While there are speculations about the Z68 platform, we're still stuck at the middle of the arena mainly between the H67 and P67 platforms. Let me put it straight: if you want to overclock, you need a K processor with the P67 platform. Any other combination will result in very poor overclocking capabilities. Finally, let me add that while X58 and P55 platforms overclocked to a 200+ BCLK easily, Sandy Bridge won't give you more than 3-7 extra MHz. YES. That means the limit on Sandy Bridge motherboards lies between 103-107MHz, which is just nuts.

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