Intel B460 Motherboards Could Land With Overclocking Functionality

[harlan4096]

Is Intel ready to turn over a new leaf?

VideoCardz has shared photographs of Maxsun's B460 iCraft Gaming Endless (MS-iCraft B460M) motherboard. More importantly, the leaked marketing materials suggest that Intel might enable overclocking on the upcoming B460 motherboards.

Out of the two chipmakers, AMD has always been more generous towards overclocking as the company enables the feature from the premium X-series chipsets all the way down to the A-series chipsets. Intel, on the other hand, only allows overclocking on the Z-series platform, which typically commands a hefty price tag. However, Intel can potentially replant its posture on overclocking with the new wave of 400-series motherboards for 10th Generation Comet Lake-S processors. Maxsun's motherboard appears to support that theory.

The B460 iCraft Gaming Endless seemingly features three little, intriguing buttons on the rear panel. They are labeled with "L," "C," and a lightning bolt symbol. For the moment, we're uncertain what buttons do or what they stand for. The short description, which contains a bit of marketing fluff, points to speeding up the processor with a single click. This could be a gimmick or an indication that B460 motherboards might have some level of overclocking.

It wasn't always impossible to overclock a non-K series processor. Back in the Sandy Bridge days, you could overclock certain locked models up to four bins (400 MHz) above their advertised turbo boost clock speed. It was even possible to overclock on some non-Z series motherboards, but Intel eventually brought that to a halt. As you can see, there's a precedent of overclocking on chipsets other than the Z-series.

During our tour of Intel's secret overclocking lab, we pitched the idea of enabling overclocking on B-and H-series chipsets to Intel. The chipmaker's major concern was the quality of the power delivery subsystems on non-Z series motherboards. In all fairness, B-and H-series motherboards are aimed at budget-oriented consumers. However, some of these low-cost offerings come with questionable power delivery subsystems so we can understand Intel's hesitation.

In Maxsun's case, the B460 iCraft Gaming Endless motherboard exposes a decent-looking eight-phase power delivery subsystem. The heatsink looks pretty robust, and, according to Maxsun, it helps maximize the system. It's unrealistic to think that Intel would outright permit unconditional overclocking on B460 motherboards because that would cannablize sales of the higher-end Z490 models. In other words, if Intel does enable overclocking, there's bound to be some type of limitation.

Given the segment the B460 chipset is designed for, the corresponding Intel motherboards are bound to compete with AMD's looming B550 motherboards, which will hit the market on June 16, 2020. AMD hasn't officially confirmed if overclocking is on the table, but given the chipmaker's history, the feature should be present. B550 motherboards will support the PCIe 4.0 interface, though, so that's one feature that Intel won't be able to match.
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