We are all familiar with the ability to overclock a CPU and GPU inside a PC. The idea to increase the speed of a desktop PC chip beyond its written limits was born from the hardware enthusiast community in the late 1990s. While companies like Intel and AMD once frowned upon this kind of thing, both companies have since embraced the activity by promoting the overclocking abilities of their newest processors.
Now there's word that Intel is going to show yet another PC part that could be overclocked: SSDs. The WCCFTech website reports that the company will reveal that its upcoming Ivy Bridge-E platform will be the first to allow for the overclocking of SSDs on a desktop. The reveal will be made as part of a session on September 10th during the annual Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.
There are two big questions about this feature: How will users be able to overclock SSDs in the first place and how much of a performance gain will be achieved with this method? The article says that Intel may have found a way to use the Ivy Bridge-E platform to speed up the clock rate of the SSD controller speeds which, in theory, would also increase the transfer rate of its NAND Flash memory.
However, the same report also claims that, at least for now, the performance gains for overclocking SSDs would be small, thanks to the current limitations of the SATA 6 GB/s interface. In 2014, Intel is expected to launch the SATA Express interface, which should allow for better performance for SSDs with increased controller speeds.
It's also possible that this new overclocking feature would be supported only on Intel-made SSDs as it could violate the warranties of drives made by other companies.
Source: WCCFTech | Image via Intel
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