Overclocking

For overclocking, I have kept the same procedures I used for Intel's 10th generation. I left the "Gear" setting on auto for memory overclocking. Every board tested so far has used "Gear 2" when pushing past the 3600 MHz XMP speed for my Trident Z Neo kit.


The BIOSTAR Z590 Valkyrie showed a fair bit of headroom for overclocking. I was able to achieve 5.3 GHz at 1.38 V core voltage with my i9-10900K and 5.2 GHz with my i9-11900K sample.

Overclocking is largely limited by temperature because the Intel Core i9 CPUs will overpower any ambient cooling solution. Depending on settings, the system will either crash or severely drop frequency.


For memory overclocking, the BIOSTAR Z590 Valkyrie did well, reaching 4000 MHz stable at XMP timings and voltages on my Trident Z Neo kit with both my 10th and 11th Gen samples.