We overclock the Core Ultra 5 245K up to 5633 MHz in 5 minutes or less using the ASUS ROG Strix Z890-I Gaming motherboard and AIO cooling.

I’ll speedrun 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 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 guide.

All right, let’s do this.

5 Minute Speedrun

When you’ve entered the BIOS, switch to the Advanced Mode view and go to the Ai Tweaker menu.

Set Performance Preferences to ASUS Advanced OC Profile. This sets a number of BIOS options that help with overclocking, including some that override Intel’s default parameters.

Set Ai Overclock Tuner to XMP I. This lets us rely on the Intel Extreme Memory Profile 3.0 technology and will make our G.SKILL DDR5 memory run at its rated speed of DDR5-7800. Selecting “XMP I” means the motherboard will load the XMP profile’s primary timings, frequency, and voltage. However, we let the motherboard tune the secondary timings.

Set ASUS MultiCore Enhancement to Enabled – Remove All Limits. This unleashes the Turbo Boost 2.0 power limits and lets 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 define the maximum allowed P-core ratio for a specified number of active P-cores.

• Set 1-Core and 2-Core Ratio Limit to 57
• Set 3-Core to 6-Core Ratio Limit to 56

Enter the Specific Performance Core submenu. Here we can define a maximum allowed ratio for each P-core individually and configure the DLVR adaptive voltage that is mapped to the specified ratio.

• Set Performance Core0 and Core1 Specific Ratio Limit to 55.33
• Set Performance Core2 and Core3 Specific Ratio Limit to 56.33
• Set Performance Core4 and Core5 Specific Ratio Limit to 53
• Set Performance Core0 to Core5 Specific Voltage to Adaptive Mode
• Set Additional Turbo Mode CPU P-core0 and P-Core1 Voltage to 1.400
• Set Additional Turbo Mode CPU P-core2 and P-Core3 Voltage to 1.450
• Set Additional Turbo Mode CPU P-core4 and P-Core5 Voltage to 1.200

Leave the Specific Performance Core submenu

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

• Set Efficient 1-Core to 5-Core Ratio Limit to 51
• Set Efficient 6-Core to 8-Core Ratio Limit to 50

Enter the Specific Efficient Core submenu. Here we can define a maximum allowed ratio for each E-core cluster, consisting of 4 E-cores, individually and configure the DLVR adaptive voltage that maps to the specified ratio.

• Set Efficient Core Group0 and Group1 Specific Ratio Limit to 51
• Set Efficient Core Group0 and Group1 Specific Voltage to Adaptive Mode
• Set Additional Turbo Mode CPU Efficient Core Group0 and Group1 Voltage to 1.400

Leave the Specific Efficient Core submenu

Set DRAM Frequency to DDR5-7600. I had to do this because this particular kit was not stable at the rate XMP-7800 frequency. Note that we still rely on the XMP timings and voltages even though we’ve reduced the frequency by one step.

Enter the DIGI+ VRM submenu.

Set CPU Load-line Calibration to Level 6. This configures the load-line for the VccIA voltage rail which powers all the compute tile DLVRs, including the P-cores, E-core clusters, and Ring. I manually set a relatively flat load-line because I want the input power to be relatively stable across all workloads.

Leave the DIGI+ VRM submenu

Enter the Thermal Velocity Boost submenu

Set TVB Voltage Optimizations to Disabled. This prevents the CPU from automatically reducing the operating voltage when the CPU is operating at a lower temperature.

Leave the Thermal Velocity Boost submenu

Enter the Max Voltage Limits submenu. Intel has imposed strict voltage limits for their CPUs for the first time. By default, the voltage limit is +200mV over the default maximum VID. We can increase this to +300 mV. For my CPU, that yields a new voltage limit of 1.45V for the P-cores and 1.40V for the E-cores.

• Set P-Core Max Voltage Limits to 1.450
• Set E-Core Max Voltage Limits to 1.400

Leave the Max Voltage Limits submenu

Enter the Performance Core V/F Point Offset submenu. Here we want to set all P-core V/F Point Offsets to 0.

• Set V/F Point Present Mode to All Core Mode
• Set V/F Point Voltage Control Mode to Manual Mode

Leave the Performance Core V/F Point Offset submenu

Enter the Efficient Core V/F Point Offset submenu. Here we want to set all E-core V/F Point Offsets to 0.

• Set V/F Point Present Mode to All Core Mode
• Set V/F Point Voltage Control Mode to Manual Mode

Leave the Efficient Core V/F Point Offset submenu

Enter the Tweaker’s Paradise submenu

Set High d2d cold boot workaround to Enabled. This helps fix some booting issues when the CPU-D2D is overclocked.

Leave the Tweaker’s Paradise submenu

Set Max. CPU Cache Ratio to 44. That increases the Ring frequency by 600 MHz from the default 3.8 GHz.

Set NGU Ratio to 32. That increases the NGU frequency by 600 MHz from the default 2.6 GHz.

Set CPU D2D Ratio to 36. That increases the CPU D2D frequency by 1.5 GHz from the default 2.1 GHz.

Set Actual VRM Core Input Voltage to Manual Mode

Set CPU Core Voltage Override to 1.525

Set Ring DLVR Voltage to Adaptive Mode. That enables us to set an adaptive voltage mapped to the Ring’s “OC Ratio” which is defined by the Ring ratio. That means the Ring has an adjusted V/F curve that goes up to the set adaptive voltage and specified Ring ratio.

Set Additional Turbo mode Voltage to 1.300.

Set CPU System Agent Voltage to Manual Mode. This dynamic voltage rail powers several parts of the SOC dielet, including the NGU, IMC, and NPU. By setting it to manual mode, we can set a static output voltage from the voltage regulator.

Set CPU System Agent Voltage Override to 1.300.

Set VNNAON 0.77v Voltage to Manual Mode. This static voltage rail powers several internal voltages, including the D2D interfaces. The VnnAON voltage is pretty important for Arrow Lake CPUs as it is part of the voltage multiplexer for many IP blocks, including the cores and ring, typically serving as the floor voltage in power-saving scenarios.

Set VNNAON Voltage Override to 1.000.

Then save and exit the BIOS.

Core Ultra 5 245K Overclock Performance Improvement

We re-run some benchmarks to ensure everything works as intended and check the performance increase compared to the default settings. Higher is better, and all are higher.

The highest Core Clock reported in the operating system is 5633 MHz.

When running the OCCT CPU SSE Stability Test, the average CPU P-core effective clock is  5471 MHz with 1.353 volts and the average CPU E-core effective clock is 4989 MHz with 1.333 volts. The average CPU temperature is 97.0 degrees Celsius. The average CPU package power is 264.1 watts.

And that’s it. Thank you for watching and the patrons for their support, and see you next time!