The latest overclocking milestone has been achieved by the Colorful iGame team, pushing AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D to 7335.48 MHz—a new world record for the processor's single-core peak frequency.
The accomplishment, verified through CPU-Z validation and HWBot registration, surpasses the previous record of 7313 MHz set by Taiwanese overclocker Hicookie in September 2025.
Chinese overclocker "Hero," a member of Colorful's competitive overclocking team, executed the record-breaking feat using the newly launched Colorful iGame X870E Vulcan OC V14 motherboard.
The achievement marks a marginal but significant 22 MHz improvement over the previous holder, demonstrating that even incremental frequency gains represent meaningful victories in the extreme overclocking community where every hertz counts.
The Colorful iGame X870E Vulcan OC V14 motherboard proved instrumental to this success. Purpose-built for overclocking enthusiasts, the board features an 18 phase voltage regulator module (VRM) design with 110A DrMOS components, dual 8-pin CPU power connectors, and a two-DIMM slot configuration optimized for memory overclocking.
The dual-DIMM layout, known as 1DPC (one DIMM per channel), enhances signal integrity and stability at extreme frequencies. Colorful engineers claim the motherboard supports DDR5 speeds exceeding 10,000 MT/s, though such capabilities vary depending on the processor generation and system configuration.
To achieve the 7335.48 MHz frequency, Hero implemented aggressive voltage overclocking, pushing the CPU to 1.688V—a voltage substantially higher than conventional safe operating parameters and far exceeding what standard air or liquid cooling could tolerate.
The 1.688V setting represents a dramatic overvolt compared to the stock voltage specifications, underscoring the extreme nature of competitive overclocking. At this frequency, the uncore (fabric) frequency also reached 2399.2 MHz, a secondary metric that influences memory access performance and overall system responsiveness.
The overclocker achieved this result using liquid nitrogen (LN2) cooling, a prerequisite for reaching such extreme clock speeds. Liquid nitrogen reduces CPU temperatures to approximately -196°C, far below the freezing point of water, allowing the silicon to accept higher voltages and frequencies while suppressing the electromigration process that would ordinarily damage the processor at room temperature.
Under such cold conditions, the thermal limitations that constrain conventional overclocking become moot, though other stability factors—bus frequency sensitivity and voltage headroom—become the limiting factors.
The CPU-Z validation data reveals that Hero employed a core multiplier of 72 and elevated the bus speed to maximize frequency while maintaining stability. Unlike traditional overclocking approaches that rely primarily on multiplier adjustments, extreme competitive overclockers also adjust the bus frequency (BCLK), a more aggressive technique that can introduce complications but yields marginally higher frequencies when properly tuned.
The 9800X3D's eight cores remained active throughout the benchmark, though simultaneous multithreading (SMT) was disabled to prioritize stability at the extreme frequency.
This record arrives as AMD prepares to unveil its next-generation X3D processor lineup at CES 2026, with the anticipated 9850X3D expected to succeed the 9800X3D in the company's gaming-focused CPU hierarchy. The 9800X3D, which launched in late 2024, has already established itself as the predominant choice for single-threaded gaming performance, leveraging 96 MB of 3D V-Cache technology stacked directly above its compute cores.
The Ryzen 7 9800X3D maintains a 120W TDP and stock boost frequency of 5.2 GHz, yet its silicon proves remarkably receptive to extreme overclocking efforts, a characteristic that has made it a favorite among competitive overclockers seeking frequency records.
The progression of 9800X3D overclocking records underscores the competitive nature of extreme overclocking. Hicookie's previous benchmark of 7313 MHz, established with a Gigabyte X870 AORUS Tachyon Ice motherboard, held the record through late 2025.
That achievement itself represented a significant leap, incorporating a voltage of 1.631V and bus speed of 101.57MHz with the multiplier fixed at 72. The incremental nature of successive records reflects both the silicon lottery—where individual chip samples possess varying overclocking potential—and the highly specialized expertise required to push processors beyond manufacturer specifications.
Practical performance metrics under extreme overclocking conditions reveal the architecture's strengths. When testing the 9800X3D at a slightly reduced frequency of 6.64 GHz (still far above stock speeds), Hicookie achieved a Cinebench 2024 single-core score of 1733 points, compared to approximately 1352 points for the processor running with Precision Boost Overdrive enabled at stock settings.
This represents a 29.5 percent performance uplift, validating that extreme overclocking delivers tangible computational improvements despite the impracticality for daily computing.
The achievement holds significance primarily for competitive overclocking leaderboards and benchmark validation databases rather than practical consumer applications.
Sustaining such extreme frequencies and voltages outside laboratory conditions with liquid nitrogen cooling would damage the processor within minutes, rendering extreme overclocking records more as engineering demonstrations and silicon viability tests than applicable performance optimization techniques.
The record nonetheless illustrates the continued headroom within modern processor designs and the collaborative synergy between CPU manufacturers, motherboard producers, and specialist overclockers who drive the boundaries of semiconductor performance.
As the overclocking community awaits the next generation of processors, the 7335.48 MHz benchmark established on the Colorful platform serves as a testament to both the 9800X3D's final potential and the X870E platform's capability to facilitate such extreme tuning efforts.
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