Intel’s 14th Gen desktop processors aren’t good for much but are a treat for overclockers. Enthusiasts have overclocked the Core i9-14900K to 9GHz+, netting averages of over a thousand FPS in Counter Strike 2. These configurations aren’t stable for 24×7 use but give us an idea of what the finest samples are capable of. German overclocker der8auer tried to emulate this feat only to discover that the 14900K runs into a GPU bottleneck at 7.8GHz using the fastest graphics card.
The overclocking setup consisted of a Core i9-14900K, an ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Apex Encore, and a GeForce RTX 4090. More than 2 liters of liquid nitrogen was used to cool the power-hungry CPU, and the results were worth it. The P-cores attained a stable all-core overclock of 7.4GHz, up from 5.8GHz at stock.
Counter-Strike 2 averaged 801 FPS with all the P-cores running at 6GHz, while the 7.4GHz (all-core) overclock boosted it to 956 FPS. Further overclocking the CPU to 7.8GHz resulted in an average frame rate of over 1,000 FPS. At this point, the GeForce RTX 4090 started to bottleneck the performance, preventing any further gains no matter the CPU clocks.
A peak CPU clock of 8.1GHz was attained, but the game remained GPU bottlenecked, preventing further FPS gains north of 1,000 FPS. Counter-Strike 2 is a well-optimized title, as very few games come close to fully saturating the GeForce RTX 4090, or the Core i9-14900K, for that matter.
