Editor's take: Intel's just-launched Core i9-10900K was recently pushed to an impressive 7.7 GHz at the hands of some incredibly skilled overclockers. And odds are, we'll likely see it nudged even higher once enthusiasts become more familiar with the chip. How high can it go?
Asus recently invited some of the world's top overclocking enthusiasts to have a go at pushing Intel's new Core i9-10900K to the limits.
As you'll see in the clip posted by ElmorLabs, the crew started out by getting a feel for the hardware using liquid nitrogen. From there, they switched over to liquid helium which is much colder. Ultimately, they were able to hit 7707.62 MHz (76 x 101.42) with a core voltage of 1.194 using an engineering sample Core i9-10900K CPU, an Asus ROG Maximus XII Apex motherboard and a single stick of G.Skill TridentZ RGB memory. Windows XP was the OS of choice.
For comparison, renowned overclocker der8auer reached around 7.25 GHz for validation purposes using liquid nitrogen.
Our own Steven Walton was able to maintain an all-core clock frequency of 4.9GHz with MCE enabled on an Asus ROG Maximus XII Extreme in his recent review of the i9-10900K. When switching to an MSI Z490 Tomahawk board, he was able to push the all-core frequency to 5.1GHz, all using a Corsair Hydro H150i Pro 360mm all-in-one liquid cooler.