We overclock the Xeon 678X 48-core processor up to 5300 MHz in 5 minutes or less using the ASUS Pro WS W890-Sage SE and water cooling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqzWpAhPmoQ

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 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 ASUS MultiCore Enhancement to Enabled – Remove All limits (90°C). That will unleash the Turbo Boost 2.0 power limits and let the CPU run at unlimited power indefinitely, while still maintaining a maximum temperature of 90 degrees Celsius.

Set CPU Core Ratio to By Core Usage. That allows us to configure the overclock for different scenarios ranging from 1 active core to all active cores and enables us to run the cores significantly faster when there’s more performance headroom.

Enter the By Core Usage sub-menu. That gives us access to the Turbo Boost 2.0 ratio configuration.

• Set Turbo Ratio Limit 1 to 4 to 53
• Set Turbo Ratio Limit 5 and 6 to 52
• Set Turbo Ratio Limit 7 and 8 to 51

Leave the By Core Usage sub-menu

Set DRAM Frequency to DDR5-6400MHz. That keeps the memory frequency the same as the base frequency of DDR5-6400.

Enter the DRAM Timing Control submenu.

Enter the Memory Presets submenu. That gives us access to memory-tuning presets for specific memory ICs. The presets will adjust the memory timings and voltages. Unfortunately, there’s no dedicated preset for 8x64GB which we’re running in this system, but we can try any of the other profiles.

• Select Load Hynix 8000 1.4V 8x32GB DR.
• Select Yes.

Leave the Memory Presets submenu.

Leave the DRAM Timing Control submenu.

Set Global Core SVID Voltage to Adaptive Mode. In Adaptive Mode, the P-cores rely on its factory-fused voltage-frequency curve to use the appropriate voltage at a given ratio. Each core has its own V/F curve. We can use the global adaptive voltage to set the maximum voltage for each core in one go. This voltage is mapped to each core’s “OC Ratio” which usually is the highest configured ratio. For this system, that’s 53X for every core, following our By Core Usage configuration.

Set Additional Turbo Mode CPU Core Voltage to 1.235. That defines the highest V/F Point for every core’s voltage-frequency curve to 53X at 1.235V which is about 150mV higher than the default maximum voltage for most P-cores.

Then save and exit the BIOS.

Xeon 678X: 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.

When running the OCCT CPU SSE Stability Test, the average CPU core effective clock is 4425 MHz with 1.008 volts. The average CPU temperature is 90 degrees Celsius. The average system power is 849.8 watts.

And that’s it. Thank you for reading, the Patreons and the YouTube Members for their support, and see you next time!