From PC World: Budget PC builders, here's your holiday bonus: Motherboard maker Asrock has just released its “Sky OC” BIOS for its Skylake motherboards, so even folks without pricier CPUs can overclock their chips.
In a blog post on Wednesday, the company called the BIOS "an alternative for users to overclock any Intel Skylake i7/i5/i3 or even Pentium non-K CPUs on their Asrock Z170 motherboard.” It comes at a good time, because in addition to enabling these budget overclocks, Asrock notes that the pricier “K” CPUs are in short supply right now.
Until now, Intel has restricted overclocking to its more expensive “K” CPU models. With the redesign of its Skylake chips, however, a backdoor overclocking method became available that’s now being exploited by motherboard makers. This is truly a present to budget-strapped gamers, though as always, you should tread carefully.
After teasing its backdoor overclock last week, Asrock has made the cheap-chip hack public. ”Lab tests show that the once-not-overclockable Intel Core i5-6400 CPU can now be overclocked up to a 60% frequency boost with Sky OC on Asrock’s Z170 Pro4,” Asrock said.
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