An enthusiast with the pseudonym Skatterbencher overclocked the AMD Ryzen 9700X processor to 6.3 GHz using liquid nitrogen, and it turned out to be faster than the flagship Intel Core i9-14900KF processor overclocked under the same conditions to 7.1 GHz in the OCCT performance test. An overclocker using an eight-core AMD processor based on Zen 5 architecture set a new performance record in the OCCT AVX benchmark, scoring 269.35 points.
Image Source: YouTube/Skatterbencher
The record was set when the Ryzen 7 9700X processor was running at just 6318 MHz. To overclock, SkatterBencher didn’t just change the processor frequency multiplier and voltage settings. He used a combination of techniques including fine-tuning the BCLK bus, Precision Boost Overdrive, AMD Curve Optimizer and Curve Shaper to allow the Ryzen Precision Boost algorithm to operate above 6 GHz under liquid nitrogen.
With a final score of 269.35 points, the overclocked Ryzen 7 9700X outperformed the 7.1 GHz Core i9-14900KF (also using liquid nitrogen) in the same test. Intel’s flagship scored 14 points less, even though its frequency was almost 800 MHz higher.
However, in the SSE version of the OCCT test, the Ryzen 7 9700X processor was not so strong. It couldn’t beat the Core i9-14900KF and scored only 127.79 points, which is 8.76 less than the Intel Raptor Lake chip.
In CPU-Z, the overclocked Ryzen 7 9700X scored 1003 points in the single-threaded performance test and 10,805 points in the multi-threaded performance test. Skatterbencher was also able to overclock the Ryzen 7 9700X to 6.8 GHz, but disable SMT (multi-threading). In the single-threaded Geekbench 6 test, the AMD processor overclocked to 6.3 GHz scored 3902 points, and in the multi-threaded test – 21,135 points.
Our test lab deemed the Ryzen 7 9700X a failure, but acknowledged the merits of the Zen 5 architecture itself. The SkatterBencher overclocking result demonstrated the power of the AMD Zen 5 architecture, even though it required the use of liquid nitrogen. Zen 5 is the first AMD architecture to support AVX with a full 512-bit data path. Intel Raptor Lake (13th generation Core) and Raptor Lake Refresh (14th generation Core) processors, in turn, do not have any support for AVX-512, which forces the same Core i9-14900KF to use AVX and/or AVX2 instructions for the OCCT test. This is by far the main reason why the Ryzen 7 9700X was able to beat it even with such a serious clock speed disadvantage.