The flagship Intel Raptor Lake processor makes the jaws drop as it leaks amazing overclocking to 6.5GHz
Intel’s flagship Raptor Lake processor has been spotted by an overclocker, with impressive results – including reaching speeds of 6.5GHz (with big reservations, as you might guess; in fact, be skeptical of all this information).
This leak was highlighted by Wccftech (opens in a new tab) (by VideoCardz (opens in a new tab)) and courtesy of the Brazilian overclocker Roberto Sampaio, who wrote about his efforts on Overclock.net (opens in a new tab). Of course, we should approach this post with some caution, but the photos have also been provided – although all part of them and all Sampaio posts in the thread have now been deleted.
Sampaio further urged people who quoted him in their own posts to remove this content, but some overclocker comments are still visible (at the time of writing).
Using a Core i9-13900K in the Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Extreme motherboard, the overclocker claims to hit 6.5GHz on a single core at 1.45V using a decent liquid cooling solution. Though it adds that the chip it has seems to be an excellent overclocking tool.
Apparently 6.5 GHz was achieved under “very light load” meaning that in practice it would obviously not be the 13900K speed or anything like that – and it was undoubtedly only hit for a very short period of time.
That said, of course, that bodes well for liquid nitrogen-fueled record attempts. Sampaio observed that the flagship processor’s performance cores reach 5.7 GHz (and 4.4 GHz for the performance cores) at full load.
Analysis: Raptor Lake’s flagship promises to be insanely good?
Sampaio called the 13900K “crazy” and wrote: “I’m testing the Z790 and 13900K and I can tell you… the 12900KS is a kid compared to the 13900K.”
The 12900KS is Alder Lake’s fastest processor right now, and remember that it’s a specially tuned version of the flagship 12900K. So the top dog Raptor Lake promises to be impressive, and it’s not the only time we’ve heard it (although, frankly, the Ryzen 7000 looks similarly enticing and speeds up much higher than previous AMD processors; up to 5.7GHz in fact).
However, we must strongly remember that the overclocker apparently does really good chip here. (Remember that processors vary within certain tolerances of how fast they can run while remaining stable, and some are better than others – when you get a good one you are said to have won the silicon lottery.)
One thing you may have heard about the 13900K is that while it can be made to hit some really enormous boost speeds, it comes at the cost of an equally high power consumption. Indeed, 350 W numbers have recently passed through the rumor mill.
Sampaio notes that these kinds of rumors have been inflated, and with overclocking the expectation of around 250W is more realistic. Moreover, it tested the 13900K with a basic air cooler ($ 20 model) and the CPU did not get hotter than 90C.
Take it all with lots of spices, of course, but these discoveries are not unique. Another recent leak has ensured that Raptor Lake performs much better than Alder Lake when overclocking voltage to overclock, so it really does seem that these next-gen Intel processors could be a great choice for enthusiasts and DIY enthusiasts who like to get the most out of their hardware .
For those of you wanting to read more about it, we’ve got a guide on how to get started overclocking.
