also @ TechSpot: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Review

MSI adds real-time overclocking to P55 boards

By

On July 9, 2009, 11:40 AM

While most people will just dive into their system’s BIOS or use a Windows-based tool to squeeze that extra bit of performance on-the-fly, MSI wants to make things easier for overclockers. With its upcoming P55 motherboards for Lynnfield and Clarkdale processors, the company will be introducing the new Direct OC feature, which will see three overclocking buttons located directly on the printed-circuit board.

The plus and minus buttons will let you tweak the system’s base clock in real time with 1MHz increments, while the remaining OC Genie button can automatically overclock the processor to its maximum. In a short video embedded after the jump, you can see an MSI P55-GD65 board and Lynnfield engineering sample with a 133.7MHz default base clock and a multiplier of 17. Hitting the plus button four times brings the base clock to 137.7MHz, which pushes the CPU from 2.27GHz to 2.34GHz.

It’s may not be as impressive as Asus’ bay-mounted overclock assistant, the OC Station, but it will definitely go easier on your wallet. Furthermore, MSI plans to include a new “V-Kit” in all of its P55 motherboards, a feature overclockers and benchmark fans will find useful to keep track of motherboard voltages with a multimeter.


No tags on this story

User Comments: 5

Got something to say? Post a comment
  1. TBH i have my case closed at all times, and i'd prefer dwelling into the bios to do and overclock than to go into my case and press some buttons which would probably be blocked by cables, GFX or just too small to fit my hand in... >.>

    gimmick but not practical IMHO.

  2. Exactly what hamsteyr said. Who wants to fool around with cracking their case to do the same thing via BIOS in seconds?

  3. Going to have to third this motion, to be honest I've never quite understood the idea behind 'on the fly' overclocking; overclocking is generally a long process where you slowly increase the clocks, test the stability, increase the voltage, test the stability; not just whack it up a notch when you 'need a bit more juice'. If only it worked like that!

  4. I agree with the other comments on this. As an overclocking 'noob' (I have only overclocked once before, my C2D e6300 from 1.86 to 2.45GHz), even I don't trust these sort of OC methadologies. I would much prefer to keep my case closed at all times and have my CPU running at a pre-determined (via BIOS tweaking) overclocked frequency that I know is stable for extended periods of time.

  5. i tweaked my gaming rig for some time, but once i got it squeezed, thats it...no more OC.

Recently commented stories

Post a new comment

Social Login & Guest Posting TechSpot Members
Login here or sign up for free,
it takes about a minute.
Get complete access to the TechSpot community. Join thousands of technology enthusiasts that contribute and share knowledge in our forum. Get a private inbox, upload your own photo gallery and more.
TechSpot on:

Subscribe to TechSpot

Get free exclusive content, learn about new features and breaking tech news.