What MB Chipsets Over-Clock?

[Carl DaBeast]

I've been looking at a few different motherboards and I started wondering what the different chipsets do. I looked around a bit and found contradicting answers about the chipsets so I came here for a better answer as this community ACTUALLY

knows a thing or two about computers. Which motherboard chipsets allow components such as CPUs, GPUs, and RAM sticks to be over-clocked? What do the numbers and letters mean for example Intel B85, Intel Z97, Intel H87, etc. ?

Thank you very much!

[lh99]

intel z97 and x99 and z 170 natively

 

[Oshino Shinobu]

For CPU, Z and X series chipsets are the primary overclocking ones. There are some cases where the H and B chipsets can, either with certain CPUs or with certain BIOS versions. 

Intel B chipsets tend to have minimal features, typically for mass-produced systems used in office type situations. H series chipsets are general consumer chipsets. Few more features than B chipsets, but typically not on the cutting edge. Z series are the gamer/enthusiast chipsets of the consumer sockets. Features like SLI (not on all of them, mind you), overclocking (CPU) M.2 are on these. X series is similar to Z series, but for the enthusiast sockets (LGA 2011-3 right now). Typically on feature rich boards. 

RAM overclocking can be done on a lot of chipsets, but Z and X are the primary ones for it. GPU overclocking is not dependant on the motherboard chipset. 

There are some other chipsets, like server ones, but you don't really need to know about them for building a PC. 

[positivePXL]

The proceeding letter is the important part if you want to know just whether or not it can overclock.

H/B indicate different qualities of budget-ier mobo's, and the Z/X chipsets can overclock cpu's. It's important to make sure both your chipset, and your cpu can, or both cannot overclock, otherwise you are wasting money on both.

[typographie]

For the Haswell generation, Z87/Z97 and a compatible unlocked K-series CPU are required to overclock by changing the clock speed multiplier. I'm unsure about RAM overclocking on Haswell systems, but you may also need Z87/Z97 for that.

 

GPU overclocking is entirely independent of the motherboard.

 

If it helps, Intel ARK is an excellent resource for quickly checking technical specifications:

http://ark.intel.com/products/82012/Intel-DH82Z97-PCH

http://ark.intel.com/products/82010/Intel-DH82H97-PCH

http://ark.intel.com/products/75019/Intel-DH82B85-PCH

(and etc.)

[ChrisCross]

2 minutes ago, Carl DaBeast said:

I've been looking at a few different motherboards and I started wondering what the different chipsets do. I looked around a bit and found contradicting answers about the chipsets so I came here for a better answer as this community ACTUALLY

knows a thing or two about computers. Which motherboard chipsets allow components such as CPUs, GPUs, and RAM sticks to be over-clocked? What do the numbers and letters mean for example Intel B85, Intel Z97, Intel H87, etc. ?

Thank you very much!

on intel consumer desktop everything with a Z does overclock.

[Carl DaBeast]

Thank you everyone for the quick and helpful responses, like always