Sandy Bridge E dreams of theoretical 9.5GHz clock speeds!

Yesterday we posted an article that outlined the mechanics of how Intel’s forthcoming Sand Bridge E processors will be overclocked – thanks to Bit-Tech for that one. Today we’ve come across an Intel slide that appears to have gotten into the hands of Taiwanese techies at TopPC.com.tw which outlines a ‘theoretical’ upper limit to the Sandy Bridge processor architecture. According to the slide, which offers details about base clock speeds and Turbo speeds, when you take into account the Base Clock (blck) maximum, and maximum processor multiplier, a CPU core clock ceiling of exactly 9.5GHz is apparent. Check the image below.

Clearly interesting times lie ahead for overclockers and extreme system tuners once Sandy Bridge E arrives. But let’s also be realistic; a theoretical limit is exactly that, it basically means that the processors microcode will understand instructions and offer BIOS configurations that will end at 9.5GHz. It is however unlikely that anyone will ever get to that speed. Look at it this way. Previous gen Gulftown processors had a theoretical limit of approx 16GHz! However, we rarely ever saw one push 7GHz…

Interesting to note that AMD just broke the world record a week or so ago for the "Highest Frequency of a Computer Processor" using a new Bulldozer FX processor doing at an astonishing 8.429GHz on liquid helium.

So yeah, we’re living in very interesting times indeed, with two new and competing enthusiast platforms just around the corner. It’s safe to say that we’re more than looking forward to launching a range of motherboards that’ll give you every excuse to Overclock your Bulldozer or Sandy Bridge E CPU to the limit, including one particular X79 board model which is optimized precisely for that purpose – watch this space!

News sources at Top PC.com.tw and VR-Zone.