In an unprecedented move, three major motherboard vendors, ASUS, ASRock, and MSI have announced overclocking support for Intel’s non-K CPUs on the budget H series boards. Although this isn’t overclocking per se, it does have a similar effect. Instead of raising the boost clock, the base frequency is raised. This is done by increasing the TDP or the value of PL1 (sustained all-core boost power).
By enabling this feature you allow your processor to run at boost or near boost frequency for longer. Traditionally, Intel CPUs run at the boost clock for a stipulated interval of time (called Tau), after which they return to stock frequencies. Motherboard makers have already been overriding this rule by including powerful VRMs on their higher-end boards which lets the processor stay at the boost clock for much longer.
ASUS’ Performance Enhancement and ASRock’s BFB “technology” basically overrides the same value on non-K CPUs (running on budget H and B series boards), allowing them to run at their boost clocks for prolonged intervals. This is essentially done by raising the stock power and clock values to the boost settings. You can read more about how Intel’s boosting algorithm works in the above post.
Computer hardware enthusiast, PC gamer, and almost an engineer. Former co-founder of Techquila (2017-2019), a fairly successful tech outlet. Been working on Hardware Times since 2019, an outlet dedicated to computer hardware and its applications.
