Intel has been trying to restrict overclocking for quite a long time already, however, its chips have been being overclocked for even longer time. Nothing can stop overclockers and hardware enthusiasts from boosting the performance for free and Intel definitely does not like this. Another aspect of overclocking is possible “mass-overclock” by unfaithful resellers, who remark the lower-end CPUs into more expensive ones and then sell for higher price. It is not a really wide practice, but we hear about such cases from time to time. So, Intel has at least two serious reasons to dislike overclocking and overclockers and also try to totally restrict such practice at all.

Apparently, the US Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO) was examining an Intel‘s patent on a mechanism that prevents overclocking since September 1999 till March 2003.

An overclock deterrent mechanism of a chipset which comprises an overclock detection circuit for detecting overclocking of a CPU clock signal based on comparison of ratio of the processor clock signal which is likely to be overclocked and a fixed, stable reference clock signal which is highly unlikely to be overclocked, and an overclock prevention (thwarting) circuit for deterring such an overclocking by either disabling operations of a computer system or significantly undermining key operations of a computer system. For more details refer to this page of USPTO web-site.

Although abstract description of the mechanism is quite clear, some things of its working principles are not so obvious. For instance, where the “compare” scheme is located? Inside the CPU or in the core-logic? And what about the mechanism that disables operations of a computer system or significantly undermines key operations of a computer system? Is it an ordinary Performance Throttling feature found in the Pentium 4 processor? And the main question: is this system implemented in the current platforms?

Well, I am sure that we will hear quite a bit about Intel’s technology that thwarts overclocking in future.