Asus says its team of extreme overclockers has officially broken the CPU frequency world record by overclocking an Intel Core i9-13900K to over 9GHz. The company announced its achievement, which was recorded on an open-bench system featuring an Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Apex motherboard, on Twitter. 

The CPU hit a maximum clock speed of 9.009GHz and was stable enough to run Pifast for 6.85 seconds and SuperPi 32M for 3 minutes, 3 seconds, and 778 milliseconds. 

Asus’ team disabled all of the Core i9-13900K’s E-cores and disabled hyperthreading, limiting the CPU to only the 8 P-cores and 8 threads. The team used an unusual combination of liquid nitrogen (LN2) and liquid helium for cooling. According to SkatterBencher, one of Asus’ overclockers, the Core i9-13900K is one of the most “well-behaved” CPUs he’s seen under liquid helium: the chip scales very well in an extremely cold environment and runs a very consistent temperature of -250 degrees Celsius, without much fluctuation.

This record is pretty impressive; the 9GHz barrier has been elusive for decades, even for the best CPUs and the most experienced extreme overclockers. The first CPU to come close to hitting 9GHz was AMD’s FX series processors — multiple overclockers scored over 8GHz throughout the years. AMD’s FX lineup may have been one of the worst CPU designs to date, but it was one of the most capable platforms in terms of frequency scaling with LN2 cooling. 

Even now, many FX series processors rank in HWBot’s hall of fame. For example, the Stilt’s 8.722GHz FX-8370 result is now the second highest-clocked CPU of all time —  surpassed by Asus’ record today.