More Intel Alder Lake Non-K CPUs such as the entry-level Core i3-12100 & Celeron G6900 have been tested with unlocked BCLK overclocking by Der8auer & as expected, these chips show an insane amount of overclocking potential.
Intel's Entry-Level Quad & Dual-Core Non-K Alder Lake CPUs Showcase Insane Overclocking Potential With Unlocked BCLK, Up To 60% Overclock Over Stock Clocks
Last weekend, we reported how some high-end motherboards had been discovered to feature Non-K BCLK overclocking. This feature allows users who are running a non-K CPU to reap the OC benefits that these expensive motherboards have to offer and since the majority of Non-K chips are based on P-cores-only and not overclocked to the wall like the flagship SKUs, they seem like the perfect fit for overclockers to sharpen their skills.
As such, Der8auer not only tested the Core i5-12600 and Core i5-12400 but this week, he decided to give a go to the entry-level Core i3-12100 Quad-Core and Celeron G6900 Dual-Core chips. These are as entry-level as the 12th Gen Alder Lake lineup can get and while testing them on the $600 US motherboard does seem weird, the testing did reveal that these chips pack really strong overclock potential. Der8auer also used a custom water-cooled setup to replace his Intel Laminar stock CPU cooler which he had used for testing the previous two chips.
Intel Core i3-12100 Quad-Core CPU 5.4 GHz Overclock:
Starting with the Intel Core i3-12100, a stock chip scores 3200 points with a boost clock of 4.3 GHz. But the chip was overclocked to an insane 5.4 GHz (+1.1 GHz) with 1.447V and delivered a score of 4283 which ended up being faster than the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6 core chip. That's a massive 34% performance uplift for a 26% clock increase (over boost clock).
Der8auer also compared the Intel Core i3-12100 to AMD's own Ryzen 3 5300G quad-core in the Y-Cruncher benchmark and found it to be extremely fast compared to the Zen 3 offering. The Intel Core i3-12100 with a 5.3 GHz clock and under custom water cooling scored 37.017 seconds while the AMD Ryzen 3 5300G scored 52 seconds while being under LN2 and running at a much higher clock speed. So you can see how vast of a performance difference Alder Lake, a sub-$100 US (F-variant) chip, is offering against AMD's Quad and Hexa-core offerings.
Intel Celeron G6900 Dual-Core CPU 5.34 GHz Overclock:
Moving on to the Intel Celeron G6900, the chip was also overclocked to an impressive 5.34 GHz with 1.474V and scored up to 1498 points. This is faster than the AMD Ryzen 5 2400G, a chip that packs 4 cores and 8 threads.
Although the 2400G is old by current standards, it should be pointed out that the Celeron CPU costs less than $50 US. Der8auer also has an update stating that he was able to discover a few B660 motherboards that should also technically allow non-K Alder Lake CPU overclocking and if that ends up true then those boards are going to sell like hotcakes.
Quick update regarding Mainboards: I found two B660 Boards which should technically allow non-K OC. Ordered both and should have an update within the next 2-3 days 🙂
It seems to be a very hot candidate. pic.twitter.com/tjfEB3f0pK
— Andreas Schilling (@aschilling) January 19, 2022
One motherboard that might likely allow this feature seems to be the ASUS ROG STRIX B660-F Gaming WiFi, as spotted by Andreas Schilling of Hardwareluxx. The motherboard is spotted with the Intel Core i5-12400 Non-K CPU running at clock speeds of 5.38 GHz (1.492V). This is going to be one awesome motherboard from ASUS if they allow the Non-K BCLK overclocking on it and keep it open for consumers to enjoy. CornerJack over at overclocking.com has also been able to produce similar overclocking results with the Core i5-12400 as tweeted below:
Un i5-12400 non-K à 5350 MHz, c'est chez nous et c'est pas encore fini @IntelFrance @Overclocking_Fr
BIOS 0811 de la Z690 APEX qui permet de débloquer l'overclocking via le BCLK ! @ASUS_ROG_FR
✔️ i5-12400 stock (4 GHz) + R23 = 12171
✔️i5-12400 à 5350 MHz + R23 = 16548 (+36%) pic.twitter.com/Lmo29Mtitj— CornerJack (@overclex) January 18, 2022
Once again, this goes off to show some great performance potential of the Intel Alder Lake Non-K CPU lineup. They already feature outstanding performance out of the box but with overclocking, they can prove to be worthy mainstream chips but it is unlikely that Intel will want motherboard makers to enable wider support for BCLK overclocking as they want that feature to be limited only to their high-end K-series lineup, unlike AMD which does offer overclocking support across all their Ryzen chips.
