We’re overclocking the Core i9-13900K CPU up to 6000 MHz in 5 minutes or less using the GIGABYTE Z790 Aorus Master motherboard and EK-Quantum custom loop water cooling.

I’ll speed-run you through the BIOS settings and provide some notes and tips along the way. Please note that this is for entertainment purposes only and not the whole picture. Please don’t outright copy these settings and apply them to your system. If you want to learn how to overclock this system, please check out the longer SkatterBencher article.

All right, let’s do this.

5 Minute Speed Run

When you’ve entered the BIOS,

In Easy Mode, click on XMP/EXPO – Disabled. That enables the Intel Extreme Memory Profile 3.0 technology and makes the DDR5 memory run at its rated speed of DDR5-6200.

Switch to Advanced Mode

Set CPU Base Clock to 99.85 MHz. That is a simple workaround in case the V/F Points don’t work correctly in combination with 100 MHz BCLK.

Enter the Advanced CPU Settings submenu

Set Voltage Reduction Initiated TVB to Disabled. That prevents the CPU from automatically reducing the voltage based on its current operating temperature. This feature is useful when relying on the default voltages and ratios. However, it may cause instability when manually tuning the voltage-frequency curve.

Set AVX Settings to User Defined. Now we can adjust the AVX negative ratio offset, which lowers the P-core ratio when using AVX. The Offset is referenced against the Per P-core Ratio Limit, which we’ll configure later. 

• Set AVX Offset to 2

Set Active Turbo Ratios to Manual. That enables us to configure a dynamic P-core and E-core overclock. We can configure the maximum P-core ratio for a given number of active P-cores and the maximum E-core ratio for a given number of active E-cores.

• Set Turbo Ratio (1 P-Core Active) to 60
• Set Turbo Ratio (2 P-Core Active) to 60
• Set Turbo Ratio (3 P-Core Active) to 60
• Set Turbo Ratio (4 P-Core Active) to 60
• Set Turbo Ratio (5 P-Core Active) to 59
• Set Turbo Ratio (6 P-Core Active) to 59
• Set Turbo Ratio (7 P-Core Active) to 57
• Set Turbo Ratio (8 P-Core Active) to 56
• Set Turbo E-Core Ratio 1 to 44
• Set Turbo E-Core Range 1 to 16

Set Turbo Per Core Limit Control to Manual. Now we can limit the maximum ratio for each P-core individually. Even if the Active Turbo Ratio configuration would allow for a higher P-core frequency, the P-core ratio limit is enforced. Note that the limit is CPU and P-core-specific, and thus your CPU’s P-cores may need very different limits.

• Set Turbo P-Core 0 Ratio Limit to 60
• Set Turbo P-Core 1 Ratio Limit to 60
• Set Turbo P-Core 2 Ratio Limit to 60
• Set Turbo P-Core 3 Ratio Limit to 60
• Set Turbo P-Core 4 Ratio Limit to 56
• Set Turbo P-Core 5 Ratio Limit to 60
• Set Turbo P-Core 6 Ratio Limit to 56
• Set Turbo P-Core 7 Ratio Limit to 60

Leave the Advanced CPU Settings submenu

Set Vcore Voltage Mode to Adaptive Vcore. By choosing the Adaptive Voltage mode, we can configure a dynamic voltage configuration that matches our dynamic Active Turbo Ratio configuration.

Set VF Offset Mode to Selection. That enables Intel’s Advanced Voltage Offset feature, more commonly known as V/F Points. This feature extends the Adaptive Voltage mode by allowing end-users to undervolt or overvolt specific points of the CPU’s factory-fused voltage-frequency curve.

Set Internal CPU Vcore to 1.45. That is the adaptive voltage which maps to “OC Ratio.” That’s the highest point of the voltage-frequency curve and equal to the highest configured CPU ratio. In our case, that’s 60X. The voltage between 60X and the next V/F Point, 58X, is interpolated by the CPU.

• Set VF Point 6 Offset to -0.05
• Set VF Point 7 Offset to -0.05
• Set VF Point 8 Offset to -0.05
• Set VF Point 9 Offset to -0.05
• Set VF Point 10 Offset to -0.05

Enter the Advanced Voltage Settings submenu

Enter the CPU-VRM Settings submenu. Here we can make changes to the voltage regulator configuration. We adjust the VRM loadline to minimize the Vdroop, which is the voltage drop when the CPU goes from idle to full load. We choose the VRM loadline with the smallest Vdroop, so the effective voltage deviates the least from our manually configured CPU voltage-frequency curve.

• Set CPU Vcore Loadline Calibration to Turbo

Enter the Internal VR Control submenu. Here we can set expert settings related to the CPU core voltage regulator. By defining the ACDC loadline, we can make the CPU adapt its voltage management to the motherboard’s electrical impedance. The AC loadline is used to adjust the voltage request from the CPU to the voltage regulator, whereas the DC loadline is used to make sure the CPU internal power management appropriately adapts to the AC and VRM loadline configuration

• Set IA AC Loadline to 1
• Set IA DC Loadline to 1

Then save and exit the BIOS.

Core i9-13900K Overclock Performance Improvement

To ensure everything is working as intended, we re-run some benchmarks and check the performance increase compared to the default settings. Higher is better, and all our benchmark scores are higher. We see a maximum performance increase of +12.73% in AI Benchmark.

The highest Core Clock reported in the operating system is 6000 MHz for all P-cores except P-core 4 and 6.

When running Prime 95 Small FFTs with AVX disabled, the average CPU P-core clock is 5492 MHz, and the average CPU E-core clock is 4287 MHz with 1.319 volts. The average CPU temperature is 100 degrees Celsius. The ambient and water temperature is 26.0 and 39.0 degrees Celsius. The average CPU package power is 337.1 watts.

And that’s it, thanks for watching and see you next time!