It is possible that Intel will un-overclock cheap B460 motherboards with the release of the new Comet Lake processors. But if that is true, we have to thank AMD for pushing Intel to bring high-end features into the mainstream. However, I honestly don't believe it will actually happen.

I don't know if it is due to the fact that so many people around the world are having to spend more time cooped up at home, but there seem to be far more false rumors floating around than usual.

This latest rumor has at least some "proof" in the form of a leaked image of a Maxsun motherboard posted by Videocardz. Now, this B460 iCraft Gaming Endless(?!) board's potential overclocking support was raised not by Videocardz, but by a fellow at Tom's Hardware.

The Tom's article points to an image of the board's rear panel, which is accompanied by three individual buttons labeled "L," "C,"<> and some details about the so-called "racing engine."

A little machine translation later:

Racing engine On-board processor acceleration button, one-click activation of processor performance, full firepower, instant release of power in the wild.

And as Tom said, this is very similar to some sort of CPU overclocking. However, there is no indication from previous leaks and rumors that Intel will open up the lower chipsets of the 400 series motherboards for overclocking; given that the Comet Lake motherboards have been ready for some time, it is odd that something with such great potential has not been leaked. It is odd that something with such great potential has not leaked.

Intel seems to have removed the shackles of lower-order processors by abandoning the artificial limitations of HyperThreading and opening up extra threading possibilities for all CPUs in the Comet Lake lineup. This would make the quad-core, 8-thread 10th generation Core i3 processor essentially the same as the $350 Core i7 of a few years ago, making it an impressive budget gaming chip.

This is a consequence of AMD's push into core gaming at the top end, and the Red Team had to respond by launching its own new budget gaming processors, the Zen 2 Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 3 3300X CPUs. At only $99 and $120, the new AMD chips are similarly spec'd with 4 cores and 8 threads, and when Intel and AMD go head-to-head on this new silicon, we're in for a real budget gaming showdown.

However, AMD has historically left overclocking potential in all of its Ryzen processors. And whatever pressure Intel is under in the consumer processor market today, that is unlikely to change with Comet Lake.

And there is absolutely no chance that a third chipset like the B460 will facilitate overclocking of expensive K-series silicon. As a pair, they make no sense. [But Comet Lake and the 400 series are due to be announced on April 30, which is just a few days away.