Gigabyte Z68 chipsets getting locked with Ivy-bridge multiplier

[Natalia.123]

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I have heard that some Sandy Bridge processors cannot be overclocked much on these motherboard due to BIOS limitation or BIOS lock something. I am not sure but some says that this issue is official announced from the Gigabyte side. Even if you have “k” series unlocked processor, the motherboard will restrict the overclocking point at certain limit and I think that is approximately 3.8GHZ. It means the Z68 motherboard partially compatible for overclocking Intel core processors with “K” models. I tried to overclock my Core i7-3770K processor on GA-Z68x-UD7/B3 motherboard but during the OC process I have found that the multiplier locked at x39. I cannot pass that limit. Many users reported the same in various forums. Do you think that Gigabyte already released a BIOS update to fix this issue?

[Vrushabha]

If you are really looking forward to get an Intel Ivy Bridge processor make sure that you are not using the Gigabyte motherboards. The Gigabyte has itself officially announced that the motherboards which use the Intel 6-series of chipsets does not able to overclock the processor completely.

The two motherboards Gigabyte Z68 and P67 does not support the complete overclocking of Ivy Bridge processors due to the semi locked multiplier and lack of BIOS support. Intel Core i7-3770K processor really stuck at multiplier x39.

[HKrish]

As far as I know that the apparently, the Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge processor works well on most of the compatible motherboard. This is intended to overclock to almost 6GHZ clock speed. Even you can overclock this processor fully or at least to utmost amount on the Intel Z77 chipset.

Other than this I didn’t see any motherboard which is 100% compatible for OC. The older Intel LGA1155 motherboards based on Z68 or P67 chipsets are already out of list from the overclockers side and I don’t know how long it will take to get into again. It is obviously a BIOS issue.

But Gigabyte gave us hope to rectifying the issue. They told that, they are working on this bug and soon they will release a new BIOS which will contain a fix. The BIOS would be a Hybrid BIOS or UEFI BIOS.

[Svana]

Originally Posted by HKrish

But Gigabyte gave us hope to rectifying the issue. They told that, they are working on this bug and soon they will release a new BIOS which will contain a fix. The BIOS would be a Hybrid BIOS or UEFI BIOS.

Yes, it is a BIOS issue. Intel P68 and P67 chipset based motherboard are suffered most. But if you have got a Asus z68 board, you will be fine with Intel core 3XXX series processors but if you are using the Asus P67, then the 3xxx series processors multiplier cannot be increased above the 34-39. But in ASUS ‘K” series processors can be overclocked fine.

[Kumar esan]

Combination of Intel P67 and H67 chipsets results into a best Intel Z68 chipset with video output jacks and full overclocking control. Full overclocking it is applicable to the both the processors: CPU and GPU(Integrated one) clock speed. I own a Gigabyte's GA-Z68X-UD5-B3 motherboard and it has a very Good BIOS where I can see number of controls for overclocking a CPU.

Also you can overclock directly at realtime using the TouchBIOS interface which will be available once you boot into Windows. But here the problem is BCLK overclocking is limited to 105MHz. The default multiplier value is set to x33. But you can reach at x48 multiplier without increasing the voltage. You could get the stability. With this motherboard I have seen that even a core i5 2500 processor can be clocked to 4.1GHz maximum even if there is a locked multiplier but your system must have a upgraded configuration.