Have you noticed that it is becoming more and more difficult to overclock CPUs? And the CPUs are not the ones to blame for it: the manufacturing process is improving, new models are coming out, new core steppings are released. The overclocking potential of the CPUs is doing just fine, but our overclocking attempts are hindered by… mainboards! Long time ago overclocking was really hard to do. In order to change the clock frequency multiplier, adjust bus or memory frequency, set the correct voltage, you had to reset a lot of jumpers. Moreover, the increment was very big and the supported value range – very small. For example, you could only set FSB to 60, 66, 83 or 100MHz, and later the maximum was shifted to 133MHz. The mainboards that features more convenient DIP-switches were considered good. And any even smallest mistake would require you to get back inside the system case to clear CMOS and reset a few additional jumpers.



Link: X-bit Labs