Although Intel’s controversial commissioned benchmarks have since been rectified, many are still on the fence about the new flagship Core i9-9900K due to a staggering price tag and noticeable heat when overclocked. This hasn’t stopped the chip taking numerous records though, including an incredible 7.6GHz overclock on all 8 cores.
At the beginning of the month, Intel’s overclocking demonstration during its Fall Desktop Launch of its 9th generation saw the i9-9900K take 16 benchmark records, including a single world record. This included Allen “Splave” Golibersuch and Joe “Steponz” Stepongzi nearly doubling the base 3.6GHz, achieving an impressive 7.1GHz frequency.
Just four days later, German overclocker Roman ‘der8auer’ Hartung managed to push the chip even further by achieving an unprecedented 7613.19 MHz on all 8 cores. If the CPU-Z screenshot above isn’t enough to impress, then the official validation certainly is.
The feat was achieved using an Asus ROG MAXIMUS XI GENE Z390 motherboard with 8GB of DDR4 memory. Unfortunately for consumers out there, this frequency is only possible through the use of liquid helium cooling the chip to -230 °C, and therefore not practical for home use. Still, it’s an impressive watch to see der8auer in action:
Liquid helium is distinctly cooler than we’re used to seeing in benchmarks, dropping down to temperatures of -270 °C rather than liquid nitrogen’s approx. -196 °C limitation. Using LN2, der8auer only managed to achieve 6.1GHz, a much less impressive number but still greater than the i7-9700K’s 5.5GHz across all cores. This does beg the question of how other chips would fare with the liquid helium treatment, but given its limited availability for benchmarking uses, it’s unlikely we will find out any time soon.
KitGuru Says: These numbers are always mouth-wateringly impressive, yet also a tad disappointing that we’re not seeing them inside our own PCs just yet. Perhaps I’m just impatient. Either way, the overclock does show how far we’ve come in just a few years.
