New Overclocking Features

Responding to stiff competition from AMD, Intel sought to make Rocket Lake a cooler toy to have for PC enthusiasts and overclockers by introducing new ways to tweak these chips and bringing a degree of overclocking to more users. For starters, Intel introduced memory overclocking for the mid-range H570 and B560 chipset motherboards. Earlier, mid-range Intel chipsets were infamous for not just lacking overclocking capability of any kind, but also capping memory frequency. While you still can't overclock your processor with these mid-range chipsets, the memory is unlocked when you use an 11th Gen K-series processor, so you can go ahead and pair it with a fast memory kit.

Staying with memory, Intel introduced a groundbreaking new feature, real-time memory frequency settings. This allows you to change your PC's memory frequency on-the-fly within Windows without rebooting. This should be particularly useful for overclockers who are trying to find the highest stable memory frequency on their machine, as it avoids wasting time on reboots.

Yet another feature introduced with the Rocket Lake memory controller is Gear 2 mode. This feature lets you run your memory controller and DRAM frequency in a 1:1 ratio (as was the case all these years);or gear down to a 2:1 ratio, which runs the memory controller at half the DRAM frequency. This grants additional stability and headroom for overclockers to push up memory frequencies. Since memory frequencies well above DDR4-4000 were possible with Comet Lake, Gear 2 mode should in theory let you crank memory frequencies up past 8000 MHz (DDR) with Rocket Lake. Engaging Gear 2 mode by design enables the 2N command rate. Throughout this review, we will present performance numbers for both modes.

Intel also introduced a couple of settings related to the AVX2 and AVX-512 instruction sets that overclockers will love. For starters, the new AVX-512 offsets let you effectively uncouple the AVX frequency scaling of your processor with your overclock, so AVX workloads don't destabilize your machine. Also introduced is the ability to completely disable AVX. When toggled in the BIOS, this feature makes the processor report to the OS that it's incapable of AVX, which forces the software to use a non-AVX execution path.

Intel Adaptive Boost Technology

Intel Adaptive Boost Technology (ABT) is a new feature exclusive to the Core i9-11900K and i9-11900KF processors, which works to significantly improve multi-threaded performance. To understand ABT, you'll have to understand the three frequency boosting technologies already available to these processors. The i9-11900K/KF feature a nominal clock speed of 3.50 GHz. When all the cores are stressed, the chip can afford an all-core boost frequency of 4.80 GHz, provided factors such as the workload being non-AVX, the chip not having exhausted its power level time, etc. Classic Turbo Boost 2.0 technology drives frequencies up to 5.10 GHz on lighter workloads, for all the cores. Turbo Boost Max 3.0 adds another bin for two of the processor's favored (best-performing) cores, running them at 5.20 GHz. If the cooling performance checks out, Thermal Velocity Boost adds the final 100 MHz to the favored cores, taking the frequency all the way up to 5.30 GHz.

Adaptive Boost is similar to ASUS's "Multi-core Enhancement"—it helps achieve higher clock frequencies when multiple CPU cores are loaded. Unlike the ASUS solution, which is brute-force, static, ABT takes into account not just power limits, thermals, and the cooling efficiency of your machine, but also your motherboard's CPU VRM solution. If the VRM is up for the job, additional power is drawn to elevate all the cores on the processor to higher boost states, improving performance for multi-threaded workloads. The above slide shows you exactly how much clock speed is added. The onus is on the motherboard vendor to design their products such that they can offer ABT, and the motherboard BIOS should report to the processor that its VRM can handle adaptive boosting.

What makes ABT special is that it follows the CPU's clock-voltage curve, making it 100% crash-proof—it just works. The price you're paying is higher heat and power consumption. This feature sounds great, and throughout this review, we will test the performance impact of Adaptive Boost.