Image used with permission by copyright holderNvidia has puzzled and angered its gaming notebook community once again, by re-initiating a block that prevents owners of laptops featuring the GTX 980M GPU from overclocking it. Added through the recent 350.12 driver update, the move is being dubbed the “clockblock” by gamers, with many wondering why Nvidia feels the need to hand-hold users with such powerful machines.
This particular block isn’t hitting everyone who has a 980M GPU, as some have stuck with an older driver that disabled the block (after it was brought in on NVidia’s 347.09 update, as per NotebookReview) and not everyone’s gaming laptops shipped with the locked GPU BIOS that makes overclocking of the chip impossible. However for a large number of gamers, particularly those that are keen to keep their drivers as updated as possible, GPU overclocking has now been disabled once again.
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This seems rather bizarre in the contemporary climate of high-end systems and tweaking, as many of them are sold on the basis that they can be overclocked by end users. Buyers of high-end gaming laptops featuring the powerful 980M chip want maximum performance. While Nvidia might not want anyone doing damage to their presumably already heavily tweaked system by going overboard, most users appreciate that once you overclock something you’ve waved goodbye to your warranty, anyway.
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