Intel Ivy Bridge to Feature DDR3-2133MHz and BCLK Overclocking Support

Awaited in the second quarter of 2012, Intel's 22nm Ivy Bridge processors will feature not only double the transistor density of Sandy Bridge but also support for memory speeds up to 2133MHz and base clock (BCLK) overclocking.

This latest information was uncovered by the Flying Suicide website, which cites sources close to the manufacturer.

The 2133MHz memory speed will be officially supported by at least a part of the Ivy Bridge processors scheduled to be released by Intel, and the author of the report even claims that through overclocking motherboard makers can offer speeds up to 3000MHz.

If indeed true, this could be a bold move on the part of Intel, a company that has traditionally kept away from providing official support for high memory frequencies.

Together with the increased DDR3 frequency, Intel is also reportedly bringing back BCLK overclocking, although this feature has suffered a few modifications along the way.

Unlike previous CPUs, where the BCLK could be adjusted to any speed the user wanted as long at the chip was stable at that frequency, Ivy Bridge will get a set of pre-configured values, similar in a way to the fixed FSB speeds used by pre-2000 motherboards.

Users will have the possibility to fine tune these values by 5% in either direction, meaning that selecting a 100MHz BCLK would allow overclockers to modify this speed between 95MHz and 105MHz.

Unfortunately, at this point in time, we don't know anything about the “base” clock speeds these chips will support.

Ivy Bridge is the code name used for the 22nm die shrink of the current Sandy Bridge chips and basically features the same architecture, but with a few minor tweaks and improvements.

The first quad-core parts based on this design are expected to launch in March/April 2012, while the dual-core models will arrive about a month later.

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