Intel's Pentium Gold G7400T CPU overclocked to 5.8 GHz

Why it matters: Earlier this month, overclocking enthusiasts discovered it's possible to overclock Intel's non-K Alder Lake CPUs when paired with a high-end motherboard. For instance, with the right cooling and a good chip one can bring a Pentium Gold G7400T to incredible heights for what is otherwise a low-end part designed to operate in silent business PCs.

Intel's Pentium processors aren't what you'd typically find in a gaming PC, but they are pretty common in business settings where the budget doesn't allow for the purchase of more expensive computers. That said, overclocking enthusiasts also love to push Team Blue's inexpensive low-end dual-core CPU to test its limits.

Renowned overclocker Hicookie was able to take the Alder Lake-based Pentium Gold G7400T from its default 3.1 GHz base clock to a respectable 5.8 GHz. This makes it one of the fastest dual-core processors ever manufactured, and we're talking about a model that has a manufacturer recommended price of only $64.

Hicookie achieved this feat by altering the BCLK of the Pentium Gold G7400T, raising it from 100 MHz to 187 MHz. This configuration was only stable at an input voltage of 1.656V, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that it also required the use of liquid nitrogen cooling. The CPU was installed on a Gigabyte Aorus Z690 Tachyon motherboard, which is quite expensive at $329 on Amazon.

As noted by HD-Technologia, the overclocker posted benchmark results for the overclocked part on several databases. Owing to Alder Lake's microarchitectural improvements, the Pentium G7400T at 5805MHz is now the fastest dual-core CPU in Geekbench 3.4.4, Y-Cruncher-Pi-1B, HWbot x265 Benchmark 4K, and HWBot x265 Benchmark 1080p.

Earlier this month, der8auer managed a 57 percent overclock on a Celeron G6900 processor using the same method. Intel isn't a big fan of the practice and recommends that normal users refrain from overclocking its 12th Gen non-K processors, but since it's only possible on higher end motherboards, we don't imagine most people would be interested in doing it anyway.