Intel Core i9-13900KF Raptor Lake processor almost hits 6 GHz on a US$215 B660-based mainboard

While AMD fans are struggling to find affordable low-end AM5 mainboards carrying the low price tag promised by the company for the B650 series, it looks like Intel users can do nearly extreme overclocking on boards with affordable mid-range prices. The latest such achievement brings together the Raptor Lake Core i9-13900KF CPU (US$564 MSRP) and the ASUS ROG STRIX B660-F GAMING WIFI mainboard, priced at US$215. 

HWBOT user ARABUS, based in Hungary and winner of multiple cups and medals for reaching the top 5 on this popular website dedicated to overclocking, has taken the two hardware ingredients mentioned above and reached a speed of 5,974 MHz. This was made while keeping the voltage levels between 1.55 and 1.57. The unnamed AiO cooling solution used allowed for a maximum temperature of 68 degrees Celsius under load. The 32 GB of DDR5 memory used CL30.0 36-36-28 timings and was clocked at 5,218 MHz.

All the above, in conjunction with a stock video card by AMD, namely the Radeon RX 6500 XT, was used to score 2,333 cb in the Cinebench - R23 Single Core with BenchMate test. Unfortunately for AMD users, Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 chips need much more expensive mainboards to aim for this level of performance. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, for example, is about 17 percent slower than the overclocked Intel Core i9-13900KF mentioned above, but costs US$135 and requires quite expensive mainboards for serious overclocking.

Buy the Skytech Prism II Desktop Gaming PC (Intel Core i9 12900K, 32 GB/1 TB, RTX 3090 Ti) on Amazon