Jan 28, 2011 20:01 GMT  ·  By

Although many have worried that Sandy Bridge will be one of the worst overclockers in recent CPU history, these new chips seem to have massive headroom, allowing for even the wildest of frequencies to be reached, as one enthusiast recently proved when it managed to push its Core i7 2600K CPU to a more than impressive 5767MHz.

The Sandy Bridge architecture was introduced by Intel at the beginning of the year as an replacement for the previous LGA 1156 processors based on the Lynnfield and Clarkdale cores.

Compared to the processors it meant to replace, Sandy Bridge brought a number of performance improvements as well as some added features and better on-die graphics.

However, together with all these changes that made Sandy Bridge a better and more efficient processor, Intel has also decided to lock the BLCK of the chip, a move that some worried it would limit its overclocking potential to a great extent.

Sensing that this will case great unrest among computing enthusiasts everywhere, Intel made one concession to overclokers and created some special chips that came with an unlocked multiplier.

Said CPUs carry a K at the end of their name to be more easily distinguishable from the rest of the company's lineup, such a chip being also used by the overclocker that pushed its Sandy Bridge processor to5767MHz.

In order to reach this speed, the multiplier was raised to 56x (almost its maximum limit) and the Core i7 2600K CPU was fed 1.608V, according to the CPU-Z screen shot provided.

The result was achieved using an Gigabyte P67A-UD7 motherboard as well as a single stage cascade cooling system.

If you are impressed by the result and want to get into some overclocking yourself, be sure to check out our Sandy Bridge overclocking article available here, where we managed to achieve an 4853MHz core frequency just by using air cooling. (via Gigabyte TechDaily)

Photo Gallery (3 Images)

Intel Sandy Bridge Core i7 processor
Intel Core i7 2600K overclocked to 5767MHz - CPU-Z validationIntel Core i7 2600K overclocked to 5767MHz - CPU-Z screenshot
Open gallery