It doesn’t really come highly recommended, but for those desperate for more speed out of their personal computer processor, motherboard maker Elitegroup Computer Systems Inc, based in Fremont, California, has come out with a board that can be switched into overdrive mode by software control, PC Week reports. In the PowerShift accelerated mode, Elitegroup replaces the clock crystal with a voltage control oscillator to wind up the clock rate – and the company’s engineers stumbled on the technique when they were working on the other side of the problem, slowing the thing down to save power in quiescent mode. It enables CPU performance to be increased by as much as 22% but the downsides are that the thing tends to start cooking, so the software also detects overheating and switches it back into normal mode as soon as the temperature starts to climb typically after only a few minutes. And if the thing really does fry your chip to a frazzle, you’re on your own: Intel Corp will not guarantee CPUs run at higher than their rated speed. The Elitegroup boards are available from OEM customers and include power-down along with the PowerShift features.
