Normally when it comes to giving more love to the overclocking crowd, Intel charges a huge premium, requiring one dish out for an 'Extreme Edition' top-end chip if they want an unlocked CPU that brings with it many more options for getting a better overclocking result.

However, as of today that requirement is no longer in place. Intel has launched two new 'K' series Core i7 and Core i5 processors to the market, based on the same Lynnfield and Clarkdale packages, respectively, but with that very overclocking friendly word associated with them; "unlocked". This means more multiplier options to play with while being sold at significantly cheaper than Extreme Edition pricing.

The two unlocked K series CPUs to hit town first up are the Core i7-875K which we looked at in detail earlier today to see how much we could push out of it and also the Core i5-655K. These processors come with default clock rates of 2.93GHz and 3.20GHz, respectively.

With the official launch of the new K series processors now behind us, there's a bunch of coverage floating around webwide :-

- Hardware Canucks
- Hardware Heaven
- PC Perspective
- Hot Hardware
- Legit Reviews
- Motherboards.org
- Tech Report
- Techgage
- KitGuru
- Overclockers Club
- Toms Hardware
- Anandtech