Clock Frequencies and Boost Clock Analysis

Most modern processors feature a capability called "Boost" or "Turbo" that automatically overclocks the CPU beyond the nominal clock frequency provided certain conditions related to thread count, power draw, and temperatures are met. Our testing on this page investigates what actual real-life frequencies can be achieved in such scenarios. The data below presents the minimum, maximum, and average clock frequency of a given core/thread-count combination for a typical heavy workload. We start with one thread and go all the way up to the CPU's maximum thread count while at the same time measuring the average clock frequency for these timed testing runs.


Our i5-9600K sample showed good Turbo clocks in all states, even with all cores fully loaded—where it still ran at 4.3 GHz despite a base clock of 3.7 GHz, which really never seems to be active in regular real-life operations.

When idling, the Core i5-9600K ticks at 800 MHz.