Intel's Core i7-7740K overclocked to 7.5GHz using liquid helium

[Shawn Knight]

A group of hardware enthusiasts with Gigabyte recently demonstrated the potential of Intel’s X299 platform as it relates to overclocking. At Computex, Gigabyte hosted an X299 OC gathering that brought together nearly half a dozen of the world’s top enthusiasts including the company’s own senior overclocker, HiCookie.

Utilizing liquid helium at -250° Celsius, the team was able to push Intel’s Core i7-7740K CPU to 7,500MHz (multiplier of 75 and a bus speed of 100MHz) on a Gigabyte X299-SOC Champion motherboard. A 16GB kit of Corsair Vengeance LPX 4,333MHz memory was also used, as was a Corsair AX 1500i power supply.

The same CPU (albeit clocked a little lower), board and PSU combo was also used with an AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme Edition 11G graphics card and G.Skill Trident-Z 3600C17 RAM to set new world records in 3DMark03, 3DMark06 and Aquamark benchmarks. With a second 1080 Ti, the group was also able to reach the global first place position in 3DMark06 with a score of 71,176.

While this type of extreme overclocking is largely for bragging rights and doesn’t imply that you’ll achieve similar results, it’s interesting to see just how far modern silicon can be pushed in the hands of experts with non-practical cooling techniques. Overclocking at such a high level is an art form, really.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/69625-intel-core-i7-7740k-overclocked-75ghz-using-liquid.html

 

[VitalyT]

Is it one of those - the system was stable for 5 seconds before melting down the rig?

When I read about similar competitions about car engines, those usually get a car across the finishing line at least. And what can those rigs do? Utterly nothing, as far as I know. They couldn't last through a single Solitaire game, so much for the computation power.

 

[oldikes]

Is it one of those - the system was stable for 5 seconds before melting down the rig?

When I read about similar competitions about car engines, those usually get a car across the finishing line at least. And what can those rigs do? Utterly nothing, as far as I know. They couldn't last through a single Solitaire game.

they ran a bucket of benchmarks, which is about the same as finishing a single race in a car - in the sense that it looks cool and accomplishes nothing useful - which is most of what people do for fun.

 

[Uncle Al]

Hmmmmmmmmm ..... apparently Amazon isn't carrying Liquid Helium in the convenient 12 oz bottle this year ....

 

[NimbusTLD]

I think it's worth pointing out that CPU-Z shows only 2 cores without Hyperthreading...

 

[Jyrkz]

No1 really cares about LC OC. Consumers want good air cooled OC.
And whats the point of i7 oc if it only has 2cores/2threads.
Back in the day I had a pc with intel celeron @ 5-6ghz with air cooler.

 

[GreenNova343]

I think it's worth pointing out that CPU-Z shows only 2 cores without Hyperthreading...

Guess they thought core speed would be more impressive than total processing capability. Makes you wonder how fast it could have gone had they disabled that 3rd core, or conversely how much slower it would have been with all 4 cores & HyperThreading enabled...

 

[Adhmuz]

I think it's worth pointing out that CPU-Z shows only 2 cores without Hyperthreading...

You're not supposed to point that out, it makes this article that much less impressive, common guy. Or point out the fact that it still isn't the fastest Intel CPU, that record is held by a socket 775 Celeron D, or the fastest CPU, which is an AMD FX-8370 which is running all cores over 8.0 GHz. But hey, imagine those single thread Super Pi results! It makes some people weak in the knees just thinking about it.

 

[mcborge]

...And when they got those final test scores the team all cheered like cartoon chipmunks due to all the helium.

 

[theBest11778]

I used to shoot for, and sometimes break, 3Dmark records for fun. But now it's not really possible for an average user to compete with corporate sponsored/funded teams of people with unlimited hardware lottery to work with. Originally water cooling was the most exotic, but you could still compete on air. For normal users it takes the fun out knowing you can never win even if you do win the cpu and gpu silicon lottery.

 

[GreenNova343]

Nah, I'm thinking more of a Holy Grail-esque cheer, LOL

 

[mbrowne5061]

I used to shoot for, and sometimes break, 3Dmark records for fun. But now it's not really possible for an average user to compete with corporate sponsored/funded teams of people with unlimited hardware lottery to work with. Originally water cooling was the most exotic, but you could still compete on air. For normal users it takes the fun out knowing you can never win even if you do win the cpu and gpu silicon lottery.

I only won the CPU lottery once. A Q6600 G0 revision. You could OC that thing for days, and it just didn't care. I got it up to a stable 4.2 on air once. Ended up backing off only because I was worried about processor life - I still have it in it's anti-static clam shell for when I get the OC bug on occasion.

 

[slamscaper]

So I guess they disabled two cores to get the higher clocks? Well I guess since it's simply for bragging rights anything goes. Yawn. Moving on.

 

[Adhmuz]

I used to shoot for, and sometimes break, 3Dmark records for fun. But now it's not really possible for an average user to compete with corporate sponsored/funded teams of people with unlimited hardware lottery to work with. Originally water cooling was the most exotic, but you could still compete on air. For normal users it takes the fun out knowing you can never win even if you do win the cpu and gpu silicon lottery.

These are not so much for the average gamer to try to be number one on the list, it's more to see how your system compares to other systems with similar hardware to know if you can get more performance out of your components. The number one spots are for whoever/whatever organization has enough money to throw at it, not something just anyone can get into anymore sadly.

 

[HardReset]

Bulldozer is still ahead.