Successful overclocking of Intel Core i5-12400. 5.2 GHz and 33% higher performance

It seems that combining the most efficient motherboards based on the Z690 chipset with processors outside the K family makes sense. This is demonstrated by the successful Intel Core i5-12400 overclocking, which resulted in a 33% performance increase in multithreading operations.

How was the overclocking of the Intel Core i5-12400?

Let’s start with the fact that the Intel Core i5-12400 processor overclocked in the video below is an example of a 6-core and a 12-thread chip. Theoretically, its overclocking should not be possible, but it can be done by manipulating the BCLK parameter, which is the bus speed. Intel has made such fun in Alder Lake actually easier, because now the BCLK only affects the clocking of the processor, memory and cache memory, and not, for example, PCIe interfaces, as it used to be.

Thanks to this, playing with overclocking processors outside the K family, i.e. those marked with a TDP of 65 watts, only requires increasing the BCLK parameter (to about 130 MHz), and then lowering the DDR5 memory clock speed to the recommended XMP level and the cache coefficient from 40 to about 33. Additionally, a higher voltage should be provided to the processor (up to 1.35-1.37 V). Unfortunately, this requires an advanced Z690 motherboard with an external clock generator (eg ROG Maximus APEX Z690) and a list of these is currently not available.

Also read: Novoo 296Wh test. What can a portable energy station do?

In practice, overclocking the Intel Core i5-12400 ended with a boost to 5.24 GHz and a performance increase in Cinebench R20 by 33% in the case of a multithreaded test. In tests, the processor consumed 138 watts at its peak, and its cores warmed up to 96 degrees Celsius. The games also saw huge gains (375 vs 330 FPS), which in the case of the Battlefield 2042 allowed the overclocked i5-12400 to beat all CPUs (including the i9-12900K).