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What simply occurred? Fanatic-class discrete graphics playing cards sometimes dominate conversations about excessive efficiency, however built-in GPUs aren’t far behind with regards to overclocking data for clock frequency. The newest world document holder just lately defined how he managed voltage and temperature ranges to push an Intel iGPU previous the 4GHz mark for the very first time.
Overclocker Pieter Massman just lately detailed how he set a brand new graphics clock frequency world record at Computex 2025. Whereas most up-to-date document holders have used Nvidia’s flagship RTX 4090, Massman surpassed them utilizing the built-in GPU from an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K.
With assist from Asus overclocker Peter “Shamino” Tan, Massman pushed the Arrow Lake processor’s Xe2-LPG 64EU iGPU to 4.25GHz – greater than double its inventory enhance clock. The crew achieved the feat twice, validating the leads to CPU-Z throughout a livestream within the early days of this yr’s Computex occasion in Taiwan.
In accordance with Massman’s weblog, Skatter Bencher, the achievement marks a brand new world document for each built-in GPU clock frequency and GPU clock frequency total.
Because the RTX 4090 launched in 2022, frequency data have steadily climbed from round 3.3GHz to 4.02GHz in 2023. Massman had beforehand set the iGPU document at 3.9GHz throughout an Arrow Lake launch occasion late final yr – utilizing the identical chip he would later overclock at Computex.
The overclock concerned setting the GT ratio to multiply the default reference clock by an element of 85, the very best out there setting. Initially, Massman provided 1.3V to the built-in GPU by way of a VccGT voltage rail devoted to the CPU’s graphics tile cores, however this solely reached 3.1GHz.
Pushing additional required a fragile stability of overvolting and liquid nitrogen cooling, finally attaining 4.25GHz with 1.7V and a temperature of -170°C.
Nonetheless, measuring the iGPU’s efficiency at these settings overwhelmed a number of widespread benchmarking instruments. Furmark crashed after reaching 2,800 factors in 1080p, 3DMark Velocity Means halted round 650 marks, and GPUPI 1B solely ran for about 17.9 seconds. To stabilize the system, the crew overclocked the graphics die-to-die interface and elevated the reference clock.
Whereas discrete and total GPU clock frequency data have steadily risen for the reason that early 2000s, progress with iGPUs solely resumed just lately.
After breaking the 2GHz barrier in 2011, built-in GPU overclocking plateaued for practically a decade earlier than surpassing 3GHz in 2023. Whether or not graphics overclocking will stagnate as CPU frequency good points have since 2010 stays to be seen.
