Hardware stub

ASRock Posts Firmware Hack for X99 Owners to Support Broadwell-E

Posted on April 14, 2016

ASRock routinely breaks rules with Intel – like with the SkyOC firmware hack that allows non-K CPU overclocking. In the latest breach, ASRock mentioned Intel's new Core i7-6950X Broadwell-E processor and listed some of its core specs. The CPU will be part of the line replacing Haswell-E (which was the first consumer architecture to host DDR4 memory) and the X99 platform.

Motherboard manufacturer ASRock says that the Intel Core i7-6950X will host 10 physical cores with hyperthreading (total of 20 threads). ASRock indicates that its existing X99 motherboards will be able to leverage a firmware patch to unlock support for Broadwell-E, meaning that HW-E owners may not have to upgrade motherboards if firmware hacks are available. ASRock's will be posted here.

As for other chips, the Core i7-6900K will be one of the highest-end, non-X-class (Extreme) parts with eight cores and sixteen threads. We previously posted a specifications leak of the Intel i7-6950X, 6900K, 6850K, and 6800K; the specs table is reproduced below.

 Cores/ThreadsFrequency / TurboTotal CacheMemory SpeedTDP
i7-6950X10/203.0GHz / 3.5GHz25MB2400MHz140W
i7-6900K8/163.2GHz / 3.7GHz20MB2400MHz140W
i7-6850K6/123.6GHz / 3.8GHz15MB2400MHz140W
i7-6800K6/123.4GHz / 3.6GHz15MB2400MHz140W

Note that these specifications are not official from Intel and could still prove inaccurate. As of now, the 6950X specs have thus far proven correct, as validated by ASRock.

- Steve “Lelldorianx” Burke.