From my research, my cpu can be upped to 3.8GHz even though it isn't unlocked. I am yet to figure out how to achieve this though, anybody had any experience of it? If not, i7 appreciation thread?
turbo boost is automatically applied when single thread application is run. you should be able to turn this up even higher. locked Intel CPU can up its frequency by 4 bins, so you should be able to achieve maximum of 4.2GHz. i run my i5 2400 at 3.6GHz even though default is 3.2GHz, turbo to 3.9GHz.
If it's not too much hassle, could it be that you could perhaps tell me how I can do this myself if that's ok? Sorry the excitement has removed my grammatical skills..
i've never used Asrock motherboard so not sure, it should be in the EFI, search for settings that would change CPU multiplier, then just set it to the maximum value it allows. it's that easy.
Should have added I'm in the process of switching to a Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P, it makes me laugh/cry how accurate my tagline is sometimes..
well then, find that highlighted clock ratio option in "MIT" section (if i recall correctly). and keep pressing + until it reverts to a smaller number. then press - once. http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/fullimage.php?image=35190 bob's your uncle.
CPU is a consumer of power, it outputs those power as heat. power is proportional to frequency and voltage squared. so that means your overclock is just going to increase power usage (aka heat) by around 10%. as long as you don't increase voltage (since 10% voltage increase = 21% power increase), you shouldn't notice much difference in heat characteristics.
Argus monitor Is a great tool that can monitor exactly what speeds turbo boost is achieving on your cores, as well as many other useful features.