Intel has released the Performance Maximizer tool introduced at E3 that automatically overclocks open processors with K and KF suffixes. The tool is compatible with Coffee-Lake-Refresh-CPUs of the 9000 series. A motherboard with the Z390 chipset is also required. The software determines the maximum clock pulse using a voltage clock curve.
So far the following processors are supported:
- Intel Core i5-9600K
- Intel Core i5-9600KF
- Intel Core i7-9700K
- Intel Core i7-9700KF
- Intel Core i9-9900K
- Intel Core i9-9900KF
In addition to the CPU and the chipset, the following prerequisites must also be met in order to use automatic overclocking:
- Windows 10 Version 1809 or higher
- Hyper-Threading enabled
- UEFI Boot enabled
- Watchdog Timer Driver (Intel WDT) enabled
- Processor Core Overclocking enabled
- Intels SpeedStep Technology enabled
- Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 activated
Before the maximum clock frequency can be determined, the Performance Maximizer creates a 16 gigabyte partition during installation, which is exclusively reserved for the tool.
According to Intel, it is normal for the system to crash several times during the overclocking process. After that the tool should continue its work automatically until the maximum possible cycle has been determined. In a demo published by Intel, the turbo clock of a Core i5-9600K could be increased from 4.6 GHz to 4.8 GHz.
In the course of the year, further improvements to the tool will allow the clock rate of individual cores to be individually adjusted. Since the cores of a CPU often do not have the same quality, this would enable even higher performance, since the maximum clock frequency of the higher-quality cores is no longer held back by individual cores that cannot be overclocked so highly. In addition to the already available CPUs, Skylake-X should also be able to overclock CPUs.
The Intel Performance Maximizer can be downloaded for free.
