Overclocking Intel Processors
Unlocked Intel® Core™ processors let you overclock the CPU for even more gaming power and performance.1
What Is Overclocking?1
Overclocking your unlocked Intel® Core™ processor, RAM, and motherboard is a way to custom tune your PC. You can adjust the power, voltage, core, memory settings, and other key system values for more performance. It helps speed up your components—and your gameplay. It can also help with processor-intensive tasks such as image rendering and transcoding.
Additional Overclocking Guides and Tools
How to Overclock with Intel® Extreme Tuning Utility
Fine-tune and test your overclock from within Windows using Intel® Extreme Tuning Utility (Intel® XTU).
How to Overclock Your CPU from BIOS
This guide will walk you through benchmarking and modifying settings to monitoring your system.
How to Overclock RAM
Overclocking is often thought of in the context of a CPU or GPU, but you can also overclock RAM to boost memory speeds and performance of your PC.
Intel® Speed Optimizer
This new feature enabled within Intel Extreme Tuning Utility is designed to simplify overclocking. Intel ISO changes the P-core and E-core frequency, voltage, and other parameters automatically.
Intel® Extreme Memory Profile
Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (Intel® XMP) helps you overclock RAM, including select Intel® technology-based DDR5/DDR4 memory, unlocking performance that exceeds standard specifications.
Compare Unlocked Desktop Processors
Processor Number |
Processor Cores (P+E)2 |
Processor Threads3 | Intel® Smart Cache (L3) |
Processor Base Power |
Maximum Turbo Power |
P-core Max Turbo Frequency4 | Processor Graphics |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 Processor 285K | 24 (8 + 16) |
24 |
36MB |
125W |
250W |
Up to 5.5 GHz |
Intel® Graphics |
| Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 Processor 265K | 20 (8 + 12) |
20 |
30MB |
125W |
250W |
Up to 5.4 GHz |
Intel® Graphics |
| Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 Processor 265KF | 20 (8 + 12) |
20 |
30MB |
125W |
250W |
Up to 5.4 GHz |
n/a |
| Intel® Core™ Ultra 5 Processor 245K | 14 (6 + 8) |
14 |
24MB |
125W |
159W |
Up to 5.2 GHz |
Intel® Graphics |
| Intel® Core™ Ultra 5 Processor 245KF | 14 (6 + 8) |
14 |
24MB |
125W |
159W |
Up to 5.2 GHz |
n/a |
Compare Unlocked Laptop Processors
| Processor Number | Processor Cores (P+E)2 | Processor Threads3 | Intel® Smart Cache (L3) | Processor Base Power | Maximum Turbo Power | P-core Max Turbo Frequency4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel® Core™ i9-13980HX Processor | 24 (8 + 16) | 32 | 36MB | 55W | 157W | Up to 5.6 GHz |
| Intel® Core™ i9-13900HX Processor | 24 (8 + 16) | 32 | 36MB | 55W | 157W | Up to 5.4 GHz |
| Intel® Core™ i9-13900HK Processor | 14 (6+8) | 20 | 24MB | 45W | 115W | Up to 5.4 GHz |
| Intel® Core™ i7-13700HX Processor | 16 (8 + 8) | 24 | 30MB | 55W | 157W | Up to 5.0 GHz |
| Intel® Core™ i5-13600HX Processor | 14 (6 + 8) | 14 | 24MB | 55W | 157W | Up to 4.8 GHz |
| Intel® Core™ i5-13500HX Processor | 14 (6 + 8) | 14 | 24MB | 55W | 157W | Up to 4.7 GHz |
Product and Performance Information
No product or component can be absolutely secure.
Altering clock frequency or voltage may damage or reduce the useful life of the processor and other system components, and may reduce system stability and performance. Product warranties may not apply if the processor is operated beyond its specifications. Check with the manufacturers of system and components for additional details.
Performance hybrid architecture combines two new core microarchitectures, Performance-cores (P-cores) and Efficient-cores (E-cores), on a single processor die. Select 12th Gen Intel® Core™ processors (certain 12th Generation Intel® Core™ i5 Processors and lower) do not have performance hybrid architecture, only P-cores.
Intel® Thread Director: Built into the hardware, Intel® Thread Director is provided only in performance hybrid architecture configurations of 12th Gen or newer Intel® Core™ processors; OS enablement is required. Available features and functionality vary by OS.
Max Turbo Frequency represents the highest turbo frequency on the processor, which is aligned to the Performance-cores and is inclusive of Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, where applicable.