Intel’s extremely limited edition i7-8086K processor is a six-core, 4GHz (5GHz turbo) chip, of which only 8086 exist. What’s the fascination with the number 8086? Well, Intel is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first CPU based on the 8086 architecture and what better way to drive the point home than to overclock the dickens out of it?
Seasoned overclocker Roman “der8auer” Hartung had a chance to play around with the processor at this year’s Computex and, after a quick delidding (removal of the metal heat-spreader to allow better contact with the silicon itself), Hartung tossed it into a motherboard, along with some liquid nitrogen and ramped the clock speed all the way up to 7243.92MHz.
Now, 7.24GHz sounds pretty darn fast, but it’s not the record-holder for the highest overclock. It’s not even Hartung’s best effort, hitting 7562.25MHz on a i7-7740K in 2017. According to CPU-Z, Andre Yang still leads the pack, when he clocked an AMD FX-8350 up to 8794.33MHz.
That said, the 8086K is a six-core chip, compared to the two-core of the FX-8350, so it’s still a respectable achievement. The only thing we’re a bit sad about is that Hartung wasn’t able to hit 8086MHz, which would have been icing on the LN2 cake.
Unfortunately, if you were hoping to get your hands on an 8086K, Intel’s giveaway window has closed. There’s always eBay, I suppose.
[YouTube, via Windows Latest]