Intel’s 11th gen Rocket Lake-S processors are due to release on March 30, but we’re already seeing a seriously impressive overclock using the Intel Core i9 11900K. With a standard base frequency and single core boost of 3.5GHz and 5.3GHz respectively, Twitter user Tum_apisak spotted the processor breaking 7GHz speeds – 7047.88MHz according to a CPU-Z validation page, to be precise.
With the chip fitted into Asus’s brand new ROG Maximus XIII Apex – a device with all the hallmarks of the best gaming motherboard – the overclocker cranked the voltage up to 1.873v to reach the monster clock speed. This is a pretty impressive achievement for such a new CPU, and we could expect even higher clocks on the i9 11900K in a few months, as officially optimised consumer BIOS updates release.
Don’t expect to pick up an i9 11900K, slap on the best AIO cooler, and see similar overclocking results, though. It’s not specified how the processor was cooled, but these sorts of speeds usually involve liquid nitrogen to keep the temperatures down, which isn’t a viable, cheap, or long-lasting solution for cooling your PC.
In fact, Youtuber PC Wale hit 6.5GHz using the extreme LN2 cooling treatment, so it’s unlikely you’ll be able to hit 7GHz while gaming.
Both of these are still a long way off the CPU-Z overclocking record, however. That achievement surprisingly belongs to an AMD FX-8350 Piledriver chip, which managed to hit a whopping 8.79GHz back in 2012.