The Intel Core i9-13900K processor has set a new world record for overclocking a desktop processor by breaking the 9 GHz mark for the first time.
Tom’s gear (opens in a new tab) noticed that the team of overclocking experts z Asus (opens in a new tab) managed to force the flagship model Raptor Lake to reach the frequency of 9.008 GHz. Of course, this was with exotic cooling (liquid nitrogen and liquid helium in this case) with the CPU housed on the Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Apex motherboard (and ROG Thor 1600W Titanium as PSU).
While breaking the record at 9GHz, there was some tension when the team hit 8.9GHz and fell short – and ran into obstacles such as a frozen USB port that disabled the keyboard and wasted time. In the end, there was only enough liquid helium left for the final shot – which reached a speed of 9.008 GHz.
The overclocking session also yielded several other world records for the 13900K CPU, namely PiFast completed in 6.85 seconds and SuperPI 32M completed in 3 minutes 3.788 seconds.
Analysis: Broken psychological barrier
This is a big deal for Intel in the overclocking realm, as for the longest time prior to Raptor Lake, AMD ruled the roost at the top of the supercharged CPU rankings. The AMD FX 8370 was the champion when it came to overclocking to 8.722GHz, but its long reign was recently ended by Elmor (who was involved in this new overclock) who hit just over 8.8GHz and has now surpassed the 9GHz barrier.
The 9 GHz mark is one of those psychological milestones that makes you think it can’t be too long before we see a processor that can actually hit 10GHz; who knows? There can certainly be room to push the 13900K further, though of course it won’t even come close to that level.
Overclocking this way is not relevant to the average user given all the caveats that include not only ridiculous cooling but overclocking the CPU to disable performance cores and hyper-threading (so all that works is only 8 performance cores), with 8 strands). However, it does show that Raptor Lake, and the Core i9-13900K in particular, have a lot of overclocking potential, even for those using more mundane liquid or air cooling systems.
Don’t forget that Intel also has the 13900KS waiting in the wings, a special edition of the flagship that the chip giant told us will speed up to 6GHz out of the box with no overclocking required. We may see it as soon as next month, and certainly in early 2023, as promised by Intel.