What just happened? We've just moved a step toward the 10 GHz CPU milestone that Intel said would be here by the year 2005, though it's a very tiny step and required the usual exotic cooling. A new frequency world record has been set after someone pushed an Intel i9-14900KF above 9.12 GHz.
HWBot's CPU Frequency chart shows that up until January 12, the current frequency world record holder and only person to push the past the 9 GHz mark was Jon "Elmor" Sandström from ElmorLabs.
But Elmor's previous record of 9,117.8 MHz using an Intel Core i9-14900KS has now been surpassed by Chinese user wytiwx. The new world record, set on an Intel Core i9-14900KF, is 9,121.6 MHz.
According to the record's entry, wytiwx used an Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Apex with 16GB of DDR5 memory for his record.
The i9-14900KF, which lacks integrated graphics, had all sixteen of E-cores disabled and hyperthreading turned off, leaving the eight p-cores to break Elmor's record by just 4 MHz. Liquid helium, a favorite among extreme overclocking enthusiasts, was used to achieve the feat, and the core voltage was set to 1.387V.
Something else that's notable here is that wytiwx used the Windows 7 (6.1) Operating System for his record.
The i9-14900KF is part of Intel's older Raptor Lake-S Refresh lineup, built on the same Intel 7 process (10nm-class node) as the 13th-generation Raptor Lake processors.
Team Blue's latest Arrow Lake desktops have an efficiency focus: the frequency record for one of these CPUs is 7,488.8 MHz on an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K using liquid helium, set by Elmor. The tile-based architecture of the chips can make extreme overclocking more complex.
Intel might dominate this field today, but AMD had held the frequency world record for over a decade with the AMD FX-8350. Launched in October 2012 for $199, Elmor pushed the Bulldozer chip to a then-record 8,793.33 MHz in 2012, which held until Elmor hit 8,812.85 MHz with an i9-13900K in October 2022. He broke the 9 GHz milestone that December on the same CPU.
Overclocker pushes Intel Core i9-14900KF to 9.12 GHz, setting new CPU frequency world record
