ASRock Patches Overclocking Options Non-K Skylake CPUs From Its Motherboards

ASRock has for no reason removed the SKY OC feature with a recent bios update for its Z170 motherboards. This made it possible to overclock non-K Skylake CPUs, which do not officially support overclocking.

On ASRock’s bios page, it can be seen that all motherboards that supported overclocking the CPUs in question will no longer do so after the latest bios update. It is striking that the company announced quite grandly that the SKY OC function was going to be introduced and that its abolition is hardly mentioned, let alone explained. Overclocking non-K Skylake CPUs probably also goes against Intel’s wishes: the K CPUs that officially support overclocking have a higher price point. The introduction of non-K overclocking capabilities means users can get more performance for less money, and so could negatively impact Intel’s revenue.

The overclocking capabilities of non-K Skylake CPUs have only recently made their appearance. In early December it was announced that professional overclocker Dhenzjhen had reached a clock speed of 4955MHz on a Core i3-6320. That’s one of the models that doesn’t officially support overclocking at all. The speed reached the Philippines using a custom bios for its SuperMicro motherboard. Instead of adjusting the multiplier as can with K CPUs, the speed was achieved by bereikt

increase the base clock. Shortly after, the publication of bios that supported this.

As far as we know, the other manufacturers that offer the functionality, such as MSI, Biostar, Asus, Evga and Gigabyte, have not yet followed the lead of ASRock.