Leaks: Intel B560 Motherboards Will Get XMP Memory Overclocking Support

[Random_Person1234]

Summary

Amid pressure from AMD, Intel will allow XMP memory overclocking on next-gen B560 motherboards, according to various leaks. In one leaked benchmark, the i9-11900K and i9-11900 were able to apply XMP with a B560 motherboard and run their RAM at 4133MHz. Another leak from bilibili also says that B560 will get XMP memory overclocking support. Traditionally, Intel has locked RAM speeds on B series motherboards (2666MHz on i3's and i5's, 2933MHz on i7's and i9's).

 

Quotes

From bilibili, translated through Google Translate:

Quote

As shown in the figure, the next-generation B560 motherboards are open for memory overclocking. Although the 11th generation is only a transitional nature, Intel's attitude in the future may change accordingly.

포시포시 on Twitter:

Quote

 

Tom's Hardware:

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In the past, Intel's lower-priced B series of motherboard chipsets were always locked to prevent users from overclocking their CPUs and memory. Instead, you had to hike up and grab a more-expensive Z series board to unlock those features. Fortunately, though, this looks to be changing with Rocket Lake and its associated 500 series chipset boards. Harukaze5719 was able to run a 4133MHz XMP profile on a B560 motherboard on a Core i9 11900K and Core i9-11900, both of which are engineering samples.

VideoCardz:

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Intel is alleged to follow AMD’s path with their upper-mid-range B550 motherboard series, which already offers memory overclocking. Intel said this option as well for its upcoming B560 series. This allowed the leaker from Bilibili to confirm whether the samples that tested support memory’s built-in overclocking profiles (XMP) or not.

My thoughts

This is what competition is supposed to do. This may also help lower end Rocket Lake compete with lower end Zen 3 when they come out since low end/mid-range 10th Gen's ability to compete with low end/mid-range Zen 2 was hampered by this memory cap. 

 

Sources

https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv8983160

https://twitter.com/harukaze5719/status/1341795547707949057

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/11900K-spotted-B560-can-overclock

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-rocket-lake-core-i7-11700k-and-i9-11900-es2-exposed-b560-to-get-memory-overclocking

[illegalwater]

It's about time.

[WhitetailAni]

Now we just need the Magic Mouse 3 to have 2 distinct buttons, rather than being configurable in "System Settings".

[bcredeur97]

and it'll void your warranty

 

-Intel

[leadeater]

Intel, setting the bar so low for such a long time that a single step over it is a major achievement 

[Dabombinable]

They were going out of their way to lock memory overclocking (gotta love pre IMC motherboards), so it'll just simply be less effort on their part.

[thechinchinsong]

Can't wait for people to defend Intel keeping this feature locked until now. Now we just have to wait for a couple more Zen generations before Intel also allows CPU overclocking on B series boards.

[Kisai]

32 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Intel, setting the bar so low for such a long time that a single step over it is a major achievement 

I think it needs to be pointed out that certain chipsets were not intended for "prosumer/enthusiast" and thus stability was more important than tweaking things.

 

But I understand why this might be happening. We're nearing the end of the DDR4 spec, and pretty much every module out there supports XMP, so crippling their boards when AMD isn't, doesn't help them, so they need any extra performance to keep up.

 

That said, I would probably discourage people from buying "cheaper" boards to save money unless the system is going to be assembled once and never tinkered with again. 

[leadeater]

21 minutes ago, Kisai said:

I think it needs to be pointed out that certain chipsets were not intended for "prosumer/enthusiast" and thus stability was more important than tweaking things.

Except that has nothing to do with Intel restricting the ability of using XMP when board partners use those chipsets. That's a decision for the board partners to make, Intel doesn't need to do it for them. Most, if not all, retail channel boards are more than capable of running XMP profiles of generally used RAM so stability is a non issue. The exception are for the more recent extreme memory options which are just hard to get to run at the as rated product speeds regardless of board and CPU, which cost more than lesser chipset boards and CPU combined. I don't think we need to bring those memory options in to the discussion, and even so will not prevent a system from booting when XMP fails.

 

On cheaper boards using lesser chipsets you can just remove all memory tuning options and simply allow XMP only, if it fails it'll run at JDEC defaults which is how it works now. That's a no lose situation for everyone other than Intel that doesn't get to upsell people to something they do not need for no good reason at all.

 

Chipset does not define or limit board design quality or cost. Allowing or disallowing XMP can be done by the board makers, on any chipset so long as the chipset itself does not prevent it.

Edited December 28, 2020 by leadeater

[Kisai]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

 

On cheaper boards using lesser chipsets you can just remove all memory tuning options and simply allow XMP only, if it fails it'll run at JDEC defaults which is how it works now. That's a no lose situation for everyone other than Intel that doesn't get to upsell people to something they do not need for no good reason at all.

 

Chipset does not define or limit board design quality or cost.

Exactly. You do not get to tinker with the cheaper chips, and OEM's like Dell and HP typically omit any possibility of doing so. If someone wants to aftermarket change the RAM, they can, and not get that finger wagging about voiding warranties if XMP is enabled.

 

Anyway I'm kinda doubting this is really anything but trying to keep feature parity with AMD now that they're effectively behind.

 

[leadeater]

7 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Anyway I'm kinda doubting this is really anything but trying to keep feature parity with AMD now that they're effectively behind.

For sure, this was never going to change without competition, why would it. People didn't like it in the past but what were they going to do? Buy FX? lol.