Upgrading to Ivy Bridge to be blocked by UEFI changes?

Meanwhile VR Zone reports that current motherboards may not be compatible with Intel's forthcoming Ivy Bridge processors due to a UEFI related issue. If motherboard makers are unable to fix this problem it will be quite a disappointment as most vendors have gone out and said that their 6-series boards are compatible with Ivy Bridge.

According to our sources, Intel will for example have to do a factory re-work on its own brand motherboards for Ivy Bridge support to be possible, as apparently a clean wipe of the Flash ROM on the motherboard is required to upgrade to the new UEFI version. This is something that apparently can't be done either by the end user or a service location. What we don't know is if this applies to all motherboards, or if this is an issue unique to Intel.

This is bad news for anyone that's been looking at upgrading to Ivy Bridge while keeping their old motherboard, but there's a potential glimmer of hope. On motherboards with a pair of BIOS chips, it should be possible to perform the UEFI upgrade by first flashing the secondary BIOS chip and then the primary one. That said, this would be up to the specific motherboard manufacturer to enable this process for the end users and even in this case, we're not certain if it'll work with all motherboards.

On a second note related to Intel, Sandy Bridge-E (enthusiast) processor might be released on november the 15th,

Intel will have processors as well as compatible Desktop Board products (Intel-branded motherboards) out in the markets, ready for purchase. Ideally, motherboard vendors should have their socket LGA2011 products stocked up by then, too.

Intel will begin the Sandy Bridge-E platform with Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition 6-core Unlocked processor, Core i7-3930K 6-core Unlocked processor, and Core i7-3820 4-core processor. Intel X79 Express is the De facto desktop chipset. The first compatible Intel Desktop Board products include DX79SI, and DX79TO.