CPU-Z developers say that overclocking of Gigabyte’s 8GHz Alder Lake is impossible
Motherboard manufacturers love PR. Every time a new processor or graphics card is introduced, you can always expect to use liquid nitrogen (LN2) cooling and one percent CPU or GPU overclockers to create some “new world records”. All of these are designed to demonstrate the unparalleled strength of a certain motherboard or hardware.
A week after the introduction of Intel’s 12th-generation processors, motherboard and memory manufacturers can show off their overclocking muscles. A new press release is issued every day, detailing the latest records.
Gigabyte is no exception. It proudly claims that its upcoming Z690 Tachyon motherboard can reach an impressive 8.0GHz with Core i9 12900K. Sounds great, right?However, according to the developers of the CPU-Z validator, this result is not true (by Tom’s hardware.)
Is it just a deliberate fraud? We don’t think Gigabyte will drop to these levels, but it means that whenever you see an LN2 cooled OMG MHz overclocking, you have to be cautious.
Almost everyone has reported overclocking to 8 GHz on Alder Lake, supported by the screenshots of the CPU-Z verifier. Well, this is why this CPU is unlikely to actually reach 8 GHz. ⤵️PS: I am the developer of the CPU-Z validator. https://t.co/c7V5xKFq7NNovember 4, 2021
The source of the problem is the silicon errata that appears when the clock multiplier is set to 63 or higher. Since Intel is likely not to waste time on LN2 overclocking early in the development process, it cannot fix this errata for hardware prior to design freeze and retail production.
Later, a BIOS repair program was developed, but if anyone can find a solution, it is an internal overclocker with a BIOS development team on hand.
There are many other 7GHz+ suicide screenshots, but on HWbot, the current record is 7,543MHz, so the jump to 8GHz is, we can say, suspicious?
We really don’t think Gigabyte is cheating here. At least we hope not! But it does highlight the importance the marketing team attaches to these results, even if they are ultimately meaningless.
Passing the benchmark test is one thing, but in the screenshot of the processor at -185°C, the 2.0V voltage is pushed into it immediately before it may die immediately, which is meaningless to 99.999% of gamers.