A pair of PC enthusiasts have managed to overclock Intel’s recently-released Core i9-13900K processor to 9GHz, achieving a new world record.
Overclocking experts Jon Sandström and Pieter Plaiser helped set the record at an Asus office in Taiwan earlier this month. Normally, the Core i9-13900K is designed to only offer max boost speeds at 5.8GHz. However, the team was able to achieve far higher clock speeds by using liquid helium to cool the CPU.
Both Plaiser and Intel have published videos, documenting the achievement. The team first cooled the Intel processor to -196 degrees Celsius (-320.8 Fahrenheit) before bringing the temperatures further down to -260 degrees while trying to overclock the CPU.
The team’s first attempt managed to overclock the processor to 8.9GHz. But eventually the processor struggled to boot up due to the insanely cold temperatures. They also tried to use two other Core i9 chips as backups, but both processors came up short in performance.
With their liquid helium running out, the team went back to their original Core i9-13900K rig to try and break the 9GHz barrier. That’s when the chip was finally able to reach a speed of 9,008MHz over a single Performance Core in the processor while the temperatures were at -250 degrees. The overclocking site HWBot has since confirmed the feat.
To achieve the overclocking, the team used an Asus’s ROG Maximus Z790 Apex motherboard. In addition, a metal pot over the Intel chip was installed, so that the extremely cold liquid helium could be used to cool the CPU.
Overclockers typically use liquid nitrogen to achieve the insane clock speeds. However, Sandström chose liquid helium because the substance can reach even colder temperatures, thus giving the team a better chance of breaking the 9GHz barrier. But they only had enough liquid helium to attempt the overclocking for a span of a single hour.
The Core i9-13900K chip broke the 9GHz barrier after setting the previous CPU overclocking record at 8.8GHz back in October. That achievement managed to take the crown from a ten-year-old record held by AMD’s FX-8350 chip, which overclocked the CPU to 8.79GHz back in 2012.