- A German overclocker managed to push the limits of 9th Gen. Intel Core i9-9900K processor, achieving 7.6 GHz on all 8 cores.
- He used liquid helium to bring down the chip temperature to nearly -230 degree Celsius.
In fall of 2018, Intel launched its 9th generation Core i9-9900K processor based on Coffee Lake microarchitecture. It’s a 64-bit octa-core microprocessor manufactured on Intel’s 3rd generation 14nm++ process.
The chip has a Turbo Boost frequency of up to 5 GHz and a Thermal Design Point of 95 W. It includes UHD Graphics 630 IGP working at 350 MHz with 1.2 GHz of burst frequency, and supports up to 64 Gibibyte of dual channel DDR4-2666 memory.
Recently, the processor set a new world record and 15 other benchmark records in the extreme overclocking demonstration at the Intel Fall Desktop Launch, New York City.
Using Liquid Helium to Overclock the Processor
To efficiently cool down the processor, professional overclockers used liquid nitrogen that brought the temperature of i9-9900K below -100 degree Celsius. At these extremely low temperatures, the frequencies and performance of processors reach far higher than off-the-shelf specifications.
Although i9-9900K has a 3.6 GHz base frequency, overclockers at the Intel Fall Desktop Launch were able to achieve 7.1 GHz on all cores – a new record against other processors in the PC Mark 10. Throughout the demonstration, the chip achieved 15 global records (first position) in the 8-core category.
Reference: Intel | YouTube | HWBOT
Another German overclocker “der8auer” managed to push the processor even further: he achieved an unprecedented 7.6 GHz (7613.19 MHz) on all 8 cores, running on Asus ROG MAXIMUS XI GENE Z390 motherboard with 8GB DDR4 memory.
Instead of liquid nitrogen that brings the temperature down to approximately -190 degree Celsius, he used liquid helium that cooled that chip to nearly -230 degree Celsius. Of course, it isn’t practical for home use but still interesting to see der8auer in action.
Image credit: der8auer/YouTube
All benchmarks are published on HWBOT – a website for competitive overclocking that hosts thousands of benchmarking results of overclocked processors from more than 100,000 members.
Warning
Before you get inspired and start overclocking your own PC hardware, we must warn you there could be negative consequences of changing PC voltage and clock or memory frequency:
- It could cause the chip and other integrated components to fail
- decrease system stability and overall life of processor and memory
- cause additional heat and reduce overall system performance
- affect system data integrity.
Read: Intel’s New Class of Memory And Storage Technology
And if your processor is new, you would be voiding its warranty. So proceed while keeping these things in mind.