We’re overclocking the Core i5-13600K CPU up to 6100 MHz in 5 minutes or less using the ASUS ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming WiFi D4 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.

Alright, let’s do this.

5 Minute Speed Run

When you’ve entered the BIOS, enter the Advanced Mode

Go to the Ai Tweaker menu

Set Ai Overclock Tuner to XMP II. This enables the use of the Intel Extreme Memory Profile 3.0 technology and will make the DDR5 memory run at its rated speed of DDR5-6200. Selecting XMP II means the motherboard will load the full XMP profile including some secondary timings.

Set ASUS MultiCore Enhancement to Enabled – Remove All Limits. This will unleash the Turbo Boost 2.0 power limits and let the CPU run at unlimited power indefinitely.

Set Performance Core Ratio to By Core Usage. This enables us to configure a dynamic P-core overclock as we can configure the maximum allowed P-core ratio for a given number of active P-cores.

• Set 1-Core and 2-Core Ratio Limit to 62
• Set 3-Core and 4-Core Ratio Limit to 60
• Set 5-Core and 6-Core Ratio Limit to 57

Enter the Specific Performance Core submenu. Here we can limit the maximum ratio for each P-core individually. Even if the by core usage turbo ratio configuration would allow for a higher P-core frequency, the ratio limit will be enforced. Note that the limit is CPU-specific, and your CPU P-cores may need very different settings.

• Set Performance Core0 and Core3 Specific Ratio Limit to 61
• Set Performance Core1 and Core5 Specific Ratio Limit to 60
• Set Performance Core2 and Core6 Specific Ratio Limit to 59

Leave the Specific Performance Core submenu

Set Efficient Core Ratio to Sync All Cores. This will force all E-cores to run at the same frequency.

Set ALL-Core Ratio limit to 42

Enter the AVX Related Controls submenu. Here we can adjust the AVX negative ratio offset which reduces the P-core ratio when AVX instructions are used. 

• Set AVX2 Ratio Offset to per-core Ratio Limit to User Specify
• Set AVX2 Ratio Offset to 0

Leave the AVX Related Controls submenu

Enter the DIGI+ VRM submenu. Here we can make changes to the voltage regulator configuration. We will adjust the VRM loadline to reduce the drop in voltage when the CPU goes from idle to full load.

• Set CPU Load-line Calibration to Level 6

Leave the DIGI+ VRM submenu

Enter the Internal CPU Power Management submenu. Here we can adjust the processor’s TjMax which is the maximum allowed temperature for the CPU. If the operating temperature exceeds TjMax, internal thermal control mechanisms will reduce the operating frequency until the temperature is below TjMax. While the default TjMax for Raptor Lake CPUs is 100 degrees Celsius, we will set it to 90 degrees Celsius.

Set Maximum CPU Core Temperature to 90

Leave the Internal CPU Power Management submenu

Enter the Thermal Velocity Boost submenu

Set TVB Voltage Optimizations to Disabled. This prevents the CPU from automatically reducing the voltage based on its current temperature. This feature is great when relying on the default voltages and ratios, but may induce instability when manually tuning the voltage-frequency curve.

Leave the Thermal Velocity Boost submenu

Set Global Core SVID Voltage to Adaptive Mode. This allows us to control the voltage associated with the highest point of the voltage-frequency curve. The adaptive voltage set maps to what’s called the OC Ratio. The OC Ratio is equal to the highest configured CPU ratio. In our case, that’s 62X. The voltage between 62X and the next V/F Point, 51X, is interpolated by the CPU.

• Set Offset Mode Sign to +
• Set Additional Turbo Mode CPU Core Voltage to 1.475

Then save and exit the BIOS.

Core i5-13600K 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 are higher. We see a maximum performance increase of +24.75% in Geekbench 5 Single.

The highest Core Clock reported in the operating system is 6100 MHz for P-core 0 and P-core 3.

When running Prime 95 Small FFTs with AVX disabled, the average CPU P-core clock is 5463 MHz and average CPU E-core clock is 4200 MHz with 1.221 volts. The average CPU temperature is 89 degrees Celsius. The ambient and water temperature is 25.3 and 35.5 degrees Celsius. The average CPU package power is 207.9 watts.

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