Hardcore PC enthusiasts often want to overclock their hardware to their limit, but it’s safe to say that this Intel Core i9 14900KF overclock takes it to a whole new level. A new world record has been set, pushing the Intel Core i9 14900KF to a record-beating 9.12GHz clock speed, over 4GHz higher than its typical boost clock.
If you’re an Intel loyalist, this last-gen flagship continues to be one of the best gaming CPUs you can buy, especially with Intel Core Ultra 200 series CPUs, such as the Core Ultra 7 265K, underperforming for gaming on launch. AMD, meanwhile, continues to dominate with its hugely successful X3D series chips, as you can in our AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review.
For overclocking enthusiasts, however, Intel Raptor Lake CPUs such as the 14900KF continue to hold interest. Recorded CPU-Z benchmark data, along with HWBOT leaderboard data, confirms that a user named wytiwx achieved the world record-beating feat. Only one other person, Elmor, has managed to push a CPU past the 9GHz mark, reaching 2.11GHz with a 14900KS. Elmor also managed to set a recent AMD Ryzen 9 9950X overclock record with a 7.5GHz clock speed.
Achieving this result took more than just a few settings changes, however. The i9 14900KF used had Hyper-threading switched off and all its E-cores disabled, with core voltage set at 1.387V. The rig itself was formed around an Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Apex motherboard, along with 16GB of DDR5 RAM.
Wytiwx used Windows 7 on his test rig for this attempt, matching the operating system used in other world record attempts, including Elmor’s previous world-leading record. While there’s no data to confirm the cooling system used, given past attempts it’s almost a certainty that specialist cooling, such as liquid nitrogen, was used to keep the CPU cool as it was pushed well beyond its design limits.
This overclock is certainly an interesting attempt, showing how far these Intel chips can go without any of the usual thermal limits to hold them back. It’s important to stress, however, that we wouldn’t recommend pushing your own Intel CPU to a 4GHz overclock unless you fancy seeing your CPU on fire.
Want the specs in your own gaming PC to rival this one? You can check out our best gaming PC guide for some high-spec Intel and AMD gaming rigs.