There is no doubt, and before the expectation of the AMD Ryzen 7000 with Zen 4, that the Intel Core 12 are the CPUs of the moment for desktop PCs because they are the ones that give the most performance. However, you will be interested to know how far you can push the mighty Core i9-12900K via overclock. Whether it’s getting more frames in your games or speeding up apps.
Intel Core 12 processors differ from previous Intel architectures in that they use two sets of cores. On the one hand the so-called P-Cores or performance cores and on the other hand the E-Cores or performance cores. Both are x86 cores, but asymmetrical in their organization and each of them can not only achieve different speeds in the i9-12900K overclock.
How far can the Core i9-12900K be overclocked?
First of all we must take into account that there are two elements that mark the clock speed of a core, on the one hand we have what is the base speed, which in both cores is 100MHz, but where they differ is in the multiplier. In the case of the P-Cores it is 52, which allows us to reach the 5.2GHz and in the E-Cores it is 40, which allows us to reach the 4GHz. However, in normal operation, these speeds are only reached under two conditions:
- During PL2 mode, which has a time-limited duration.
- Only on two of the cores at most.
This limitation is done to prevent thermal throttling and the CPU from getting too hot. Since there is a direct relationship between voltage and clock speed, we need to find the lowest value for the former that allows us to achieve the maximum possible speed for the latter. The exact point is in the 1.27 volts
You will therefore need good AIO cooling above the CPU, although we recommend looking for much lower speeds when overclocking your i9-12900K.
Why is reaching full speed on a CPU not ideal?
The answer is not only due to the fact that it limits the life of our processor and forces us to replace it more quickly, but also because it causes certain imbalances in the functioning of the processor. The reason is that today everyone has the internal organization of an SoC, even if there is no integrated graphics card or device controller under the same chip.
A way to avoid the temperature rise in the whole chip? By lowering the clock speed of neighboring elements within it, so that when we keep the speed of a CPU like the i9-12900K high by overclocking other parts of it, they slow down.
If we focus on the overclock of the i9-12900K we will observe that the Intel CPU is designed to have a consumption between 125 W of TDP during its standard operation at a base speed of 3.2 GHz and 241 W of TDP with the maximum speed which is 5.2 GHz, so the key is finding a speed that supports your cooling system for a long time, does not put the processor at risk and assumes a performance increase.
Our recommendation is that you look for a good AIO cooler before you consider accelerating this powerful Intel processor, as it will allow you to reach higher speeds.
