Overclocking
Disclaimer: Overclocking is never guaranteed, so that the results may vary depending on certain conditions and various hardware configurations. I am not recommending overclocking if you do not know what you are doing. High voltages may damage hardware, and it will not be covered by the warranty.
CPU overclocking is clearly limited by the used CPU and even more by its heat. Even though we were using an AIO cooler with a 360mm radiator, then we couldn’t stabilize our i7-11700K at all cores, at more than 4.8GHz. This was the limit without turning off AVX instructions. Once we disable AVX-512 and set more strict limits for AVX, then we can pass 5GHz
The motherboard clearly can work with the CPU above 300W but it’s hard to keep it below the throttling point. Optimal in our case was any setting with the CPU at about 260-270W so mentioned 4.8GHz at all cores with all instructions enabled and without any limits, or 5.0-5.1GHz with slightly lower voltages and disabled AVX-512.
More fun we can have while overclocking RAM. Our HyperX Predator 2x8GB DDR4-4600 CL19-26-26 memory kit could reach DDR4-5200 at CL21-27-27 and 1.60V. We could say it’s high voltage but the memory kit comes with a 1.50V XMP profile and motherboard QVL include memory kits up to 1.65V with the same Hynix DJR memory IC. It’s also the first platform that shows so good results at relaxed memory timings.
ASRock Z590 Extreme still has early BIOS, even though stable. I assume we will see even more optimized BIOS in a couple of weeks. The motherboard clearly has overclocking potential and is worth recommending to users who expect good results at a reasonable price.
Our results are higher than most users will even try to set. This proves that the B550 Extreme4 is a solid platform for all users, even overclockers. For sure, gamers will have a lot of fun with this motherboard as it perfectly meets their needs and is cheaper than some other models with similar specifications and features.
