ROG Overclockers Show the Power of Alder Lake with ROG Maximus Z690 Apex

2021/11/05

SYDNEY, Australia, November 5, 2021 — ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced that overclockers have broken a gamut of world records using ROG Maximus Z690 Apex motherboards with 12th Generation Intel® Core™ processors.

Each jump to a new microarchitecture brings a host of challenges that overclockers face as they try to understand and adapt to the new hardware. But the transition from the 11th Gen (Rocket Lake) to the 12th Gen (Alder Lake) was huge, particularly with the split between performance and efficiency cores. ROG overclockers could internally reach single-core frequencies as high as 8.2 GHz with Alder Lake, but enabling more cores drastically reduced maximum overhead, and this is especially true of the e-cores.

So when ASUS overclockers froze a 12th Gen CPU with liquid helium, they turned off the e-cores to see just how far the p-cores could go. During an intense validation run in early October, ‘elmor’ clocked in at 7543.95 MHz on all performance cores with an Intel Core i9-12900K processor socketed into a ROG Maximus Z690 Apex motherboard. In that same session, ‘elmor’ also shaved the PiFast world record down to just over eight seconds, and ‘safedisk’ turned the e-cores back on to take 16-core first places in Cinebench R20 and Geekbench 3.

Since then, ‘safedisk’ has made many more achievements with both Intel Core i9-12900K and i5-12600K processors. Running both platforms through a gauntlet of all-core and p-core-only runs has brought him 16 global and hardware first-place scores across a variety of benchmarks: Cinebench R20, Geekbench 3, GPUPI for CPU, HWBot x265, and y-cruncher.

One of the records that the most eyes are on this generation is seeing how fast DDR5 memory can be driven. Overclocker ‘Hocayu’ showed just that by tuning a G.Skill DIMM all the way up to 8704 MT/s, handily exceeding even the best clocks reached on the venerable DDR4 standard.

Last, but certainly not least, ‘Rauf’ and the ‘OGS’ team brought their 3D benchmarking prowess again this generation, dominating across the 3DMark suite and in Unigine Heaven. In the process, eight world records were broken, including several scores those very overclockers set on legacy benchmarks with Rocket Lake.

All of the records and first place scores are shown below for reference. Note that the asymmetrical core structures required some changes to overclocking scorekeeping. Starting with this generation, validation and ranking site HWbot decided to track records on hybrid chips both for their full core amount as well as performance cores only. As such, for the multi-core benchmarks, results are broken down as follows:

  • Intel Core i9-12900K benchmarks are separated into all-core (16x) and p-core only (8x) categories.
  • Intel Core i5-12600K benchmarks are similarly separated into all-core (10x) and p-core (6x) categories.

Overclocker

Category

Score

Distinction

elmor

Intel ® Core ™ CPU frequency (8x core)

7543 MHz

Hardware First Place

Hocayu

Memory frequency

8704 MT/s

World Record

elmor

PiFast

8.06 sec

World Record

safedisk

Cinebench R20 (16x core - all cores)

15021 cb

Hardware First Place

safedisk

Cinebench R20 (8x core - p-cores only)

10825 cb

Global First Place

safedisk

Cinebench R20 (10x core - all cores)

10100 cb

Global First Place

safedisk

Cinebench R20 (6x core - p-cores only)

8011 cb

Global First Place

safedisk

Geekbench3 - Multi Core (16x core)

112639 pts

Global First Place

safedisk

Geekbench3 - Multi Core (8x core)

81929 pts

Global First Place

safedisk

Geekbench3 - Multi Core (10x core)

76692 pts

Global First Place

safedisk

Geekbench3 - Multi Core (6x core)

61754 pts

Global First Place

safedisk

GPUPI for CPU - 1B (16x core)

47.357 sec

Hardware First Place

safedisk

GPUPI for CPU - 1B (8x core)

60.444 sec

Hardware First Place

safedisk

GPUPI for CPU - 1B (10x core)

70.142 sec

Global First Place

safedisk

GPUPI for CPU - 1B (6x core)

81.826 sec

Hardware First Place

safedisk

HWBot x265 Benchmark - 4K (8x core)

34.980 fps

Global First Place

safedisk

HWBot x265 Benchmark - 4K (6x core)

26.077 fps

Global First Place

safedisk

y-cruncher - Pi-1b (8x core)

17.298 sec

Global First Place

safedisk

y-cruncher - Pi-1b (6x core)

21.409 sec

Global First Place

elmor

3DMark CPU PROFILE MAX (8x core)

11457

Global First Place

OGS

3DMark Vantage - Extreme (1x GPU)

142166 points

World Record

Rauf

3DMark Vantage - Performance (1x GPU)

180560 points

World Record

Rauf

3DMark Time Spy (1x GPU)

26191 points

Global First Place

Rauf

3DMark Fire Strike - Extreme (1x GPU)

37843 points

Global First Place

Rauf

3DMark Fire Strike - Ultra (1x GPU)

19783 points

Global First Place

Rauf

3DMark Fire Strike (1x GPU)

60860 points

Global First Place

Rauf

3DMark11 - Performance (1x GPU)

73800 marks

World Record

Rauf

3DMark06 (1x GPU)

93368 marks

World Record

Rauf

3DMark05 (1x GPU)

123770 marks

World Record

OGS

3DMark03 (1x GPU)

456481 marks

World Record

Rauf

Heaven Benchmark - Extreme (1x GPU)

14208.06 marks

World Record

About ROG Maximus Z690 Apex

The ROG Maximus Z690 Apex is a streamlined motherboard designed to let enthusiasts break the limits of 12th Gen Intel Core processors and DDR5 memory for record-smashing performance. Beyond its dual-DIMM design and its massive twenty-four stage VRM, it features a pair of PCIe® 5.0 expansion ports and the top one is attached to a new Q-Release button for hassle-free building and upgrading. Similarly, storage installation is easy with the included PCIe 5.0 M.2 add-on card and a DIMM.2 attachment, both of which come with sizable heatsinks. And as a gift to enthusiasts, ROG Maximus Z690 Apex motherboards come with a complementary USB oscilloscope called the ROG True Voltician to help monitor system voltage.

To learn more about the ROG Maximus Z690 Apex, as well as the new line of ASUS Z690 motherboards, visit the series page at https://www.asus.com/microsite/motherboard/Intel-Alder-Lake-Z690-H670-B660/