Gigabyte claims 12900k 8GHz OC record; CPU-Z, Der8auer disputes claim

[Spotty]

Summary

After a horrendous year for Gigabyte with exploding power supplies and not one but two ransomware attacks, things were looking up for the Taiwanese company when their partner overclocker HiCookie managed to set an overclocking record on the newly released Intel 12900k hitting 8GHz overclock using Gigabyte's Z690 motherboard. Gigabyte was quick to use the opportunity to promote their motherboards and claim the crown as overclocking king promoting the impressive result on their social media accounts and in a press release statement. That was until CPU-Z validator's developer burst their bubble.

 

Quotes

Quote

GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS Breaks the Overclocking Records of Dual 8 GHz on i9-12900K CPU/ DDR5 Memory

Nov. 3rd, 2021 –GIGABYTE Technology, one of the top global manufacturers of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, announces today Z690 AORUS TACHYON motherboard with the latest 12th generation Intel^® Core™ i9 12900K processor and LN2 liquid nitrogen heat dissipation set the world-leading overclocking records of dual 8GHz, which is 8000MHz on i9-12900K CPU and 8300MHz on DDR5 memories. GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS TACHYON motherboard designed by world-famous overclocker equips with plenty functions exclusively for extreme overclockers, which promise overclockers higher scores with easier operation, establishing GIGABYTE’s leading role in overclocking on the Z690 motherboards.

^{Gigabyte's press release https://www.gigabyte.com/jp/Press/News/1947}

The impressive result was also covered by news outlets, with Tom's Hardware (among others) reporting on the 'impressive' overclock.

Quote

Overclocking maestro HiCookie (courtesy of Aorus Spain's Twitter) has overclocked Intel's flagship Core i9-12900K Alder Lake to an impressive 8 GHz with liquid nitrogen (LN2). And not only that, but he also pushed his DDR5 memory from 4,800 MHz to 8,300 MHz.

Since the overclocker was backed by Gigabyte, it wasn't a surprise that HiCookie used the manufacturer's hardware to achieve the feat. On the motherboard end, the overclocker employed the Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Tachyon, which is tailored to hardcore overclocking.

^{https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-core-i912900k-just-hit-8ghz-along-with-ddr5-8300}

 

 

However CPU-Z Validator developer, the tool used to validate overclocking results, was quick to call bullshit on Gigabyte's claims.

Quote

Doc TB
@d0cTB
Almost everyone reported that 8 GHz overclocking on Alder Lake, supported by screenshots from the CPU-Z Validator. Well, here is why it's very unlikely that this CPU really reached 8 GHz.
PS: I'm the developer of the CPU-Z Validator.

 

Quote

Twitter user Doc TB, the person who developed the CPU-Z Validator, has debunked Gigabyte's 8 GHz world record with Intel's Core i9-12900K processor. The developer believes that Intel's new flagship Alder Lake likely didn't hit 8 GHz at all.

According to the developer, the team started to see fake overclocks spanning from 8 GHz to 12 GHz on early Alder Lake samples. Apparently, a silicon errata exists with the ratio when set above 63. In some cases, the internal CPU PLL fails to stick, so it remains at the previously configured ratio while still reporting the new one.

Doc TB has since provided some statistics on Alder Lake overclocking. Apparently, 7 GHz on all cores is possible , however, the ceiling for single-core overclocks ranges from 7.5 GHz to 7.6 GHz. As a matter of fact, many processors struggle to get to 7.5 GHz, and overclockers were one-upping each other by a few MHz at best. We're talking about 100+ samples. It certainly raised a red flag when Gigabyte started promoting its 8 GHz overclock on social media and in a press release.

^{https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cpu-z-dev-throws-cold-water-on-gigabyte-8ghz-world-record}

 

 

TLDR;

Simplistic explanation is there is a bug in alder lake CPUs where if an overclock fails it will revert to previous safe settings but still report the failed overclock values, which can allow you to validate at much higher clock speed than the CPU is actually running at.

 

My thoughts

Gigabyte just isn't having a good year.

The question is did Gigabyte know that its overclocking result was likely a bogus result or were they not aware of the issue? I'd wager they weren't aware of the issue and the moment the overclocker announced their impressive overclocking results Gigabyte's PR team ran with it.

 

Edit: The more I look in to it, the more likely it is Gigabyte knew that the 8GHz result was not valid.

 

Der8auer has also done a video discussing Alder Lake extreme overclocking and also called out Gigabyte for using invalid results.

Discussion starts around the 14 minute mark.

 

 

Sources

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cpu-z-dev-throws-cold-water-on-gigabyte-8ghz-world-record

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-core-i912900k-just-hit-8ghz-along-with-ddr5-8300

https://twitter.com/d0cTB/status/1456253859228045314

https://twitter.com/AorusOfficial/status/1456025963855327235

https://www.gigabyte.com/jp/Press/News/1947

 

Edited November 7, 2021 by Spotty
Added der8auer video

[Lightwreather]

More Than Gigabyte, whose rep is pretty much in taters. I'm more concerned about the OCer themself. To quote Tom's Hardware

Quote

If Gigabyte's overclock ends up having been a PR stunt, it'll not only hurt the company's credibility, but also tarnish HiCookie's (who is one of the more respected personalities in the extreme overclocking scene) reputation.

 

[RejZoR]

It maybe hit 8GHz, but wasn't validated. So, it basically didn't hit the clock. Der8auer also called them out on it.

[Spotty]

8 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Der8auer also called them out on it.

Here's the video for anyone interested. Discussion about the bug with the OC results and Gigabyte's OC results starts at around 14 minutes.

 

[Skiiwee29]

Sounds similar to the Ryzen windows bug on waking from sleep early on and the massive reports of CPU clock speeds in CPUz. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Well as long as i dont buy new stuff or atleast the psus i think ill stick with gigabyte, better than this pos p5q that gets beaten by my g31m s2c in max fsb (540 p5q, 542 g31m), not to mention this g31 is prob not even at its limit yet, once i voltmod it then itll just smush the p5q

 

I wonder what horrendous things lay ahead of gigabyte thatll really trash their reputation, or maybe next year theyll have a good year and theyre reputation will improve

 

im gonna bet on the next thing for gigabyte is another pr trashing incident cause they have had a pretty bad time this year

[CommanderAlex]

Gigabyte has too many corrupted gigabytes. 

[Arika]

Why would Gigabyte claim something so stupid and so easily debunkable?

[MultiGamerClub]

Gigabyte shooting itself in the foot..

 

Why they does this move when their rep is already bad.. Don't understand that company

[Spotty]

19 minutes ago, Arika S said:

Why would Gigabyte claim something so stupid and so easily debunkable?

They need to sell a lot of motherboards to pay their latest ransomware ransom.

[Beerzerker]

This may also be in part an issue with the board too, I've seen boards report weird stuff before when really pushed to the limit and in Gigashiite's case I woudn't doubt it.
In any case it was being pushed hard to even take a shot at this, time will tell and reveal more and if there really is an issue with the board instead of it all being on the CPU itself.
Errata isn't anything new and it's no suprise here - What is (Not?) is that Gigashiite just ran with it, screaming from the hill tops it's board made it all possible without doing some checking of their own to at least pump the brakes on this before making a huge deal about it.

Yeah, the marketing/sales guys have alot of say and influence about anywhere you go and they really dropped the ball on this one concerning PR for the company.

[Guest]

Sounds like the same old issue on a new chipset and cpu. 

 

I'll repeat that this type of thing isn't new to the OC industry.

 

Like some competitive overclockers, some people aim to cheat, not claimed by accident.

[greenhorn]

I bet all those engineers at Gigabyte are stuck in a constant facepalm motion and that blunder was probably due to some PR people.

[Beerzerker]

2 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Sounds like the same old issue on a new chipset and cpu. 

 

I'll repeat that this type of thing isn't new to the OC industry.

 

Like some competitive overclockers, some people aim to cheat, not claimed by accident.

Yep - It's not like all that's never happened before. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Beerzerker said:

Yep - It's not like all that's never happened before. 

Pretty much just about every release of new hardware (cpu/chipset) and why I ALWAYS take the pre-release leaks for a grain of salt.

 

Would this be the right time to admit we've done this also, just without submitting it?

[da na]

2 hours ago, Spotty said:

They need to sell a lot of motherboards to pay their latest ransomware ransom.

They don't have enough money for toner to print 500 pink slips for their PSU department

[NumLock21]

For a company to immediately boast about their product claiming "world record" without fact checking or verifying themselves says a lot about them.

[Jito463]

I still prefer Gigabyte motherboards, but they have been doing some really stupid things lately.

[OneOfYas]

" The developer believes that Intel's new flagship Alder Lake likely didn't hit 8 GHz at all."

 

Likely

 

Non objective. Not fact. Not debunked.

 

 

That's not debunking.

 

Tired of the misinformation being presented as facts, no one has a real clue, but lets shit on a company and kick them whilst they are down because why not?

It's like the sibling when you are younger who gets the blame for things not even their fault and not in their control.

 

Even worse, experienced and long time users on this site seem to lack basic understanding of logic.

 

[RejZoR]

8 hours ago, Skiiwee29 said:

Sounds similar to the Ryzen windows bug on waking from sleep early on and the massive reports of CPU clock speeds in CPUz. 

But there you knew it's a bug because there is no way any CPU can run at 6GHz on air cooling or water cooling. Anyone who has ever done any overclocking can and will know that. Here it was running in LH (Liquid helium) even and you kinda expect it to actually go very high, but the question is if it's just a boot or actual bench. You can often boot at stupid clocks, but as soon as you put any load on it it's gone and crashes.

[OneOfYas]

3 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

For a company to immediately boast about their product claiming "world record" without fact checking or verifying themselves says a lot about them.

 

16 minutes ago, OneOfYas said:

" The developer believes that Intel's new flagship Alder Lake likely didn't hit 8 GHz at all."

 

Likely

 

Non objective. Not fact. Not debunked.

 

 

That's not debunking.

 

Tired of the misinformation being presented as facts, no one has a real clue, but lets shit on a company and kick them whilst they are down because why not?

It's like the sibling when you are younger who gets the blame for things not even their fault and not in their control.

 

Even worse, experienced and long time users on this site seem to lack basic understanding of logic.

 

Pot and kettle calling each other black or something...

[Skiiwee29]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

But there you knew it's a bug because there is no way any CPU can run at 6GHz on air cooling or water cooling. Anyone who has ever done any overclocking can and will know that. Here it was running in LH (Liquid helium) even and you kinda expect it to actually go very high, but the question is if it's just a boot or actual bench. You can often boot at stupid clocks, but as soon as you put any load on it it's gone and crashes.

Right, but they manually tweak every last little number in the BIOS to get there scores, so they had to know without a doubt what numbers they set and had. 

[CarlBar]

6 hours ago, OneOfYas said:

 

Pot and kettle calling each other black or something...

 

That fact no one else has been able to get within more than around 400mhz of the claimed overclock however makes it exceedingly unlikely in the extreme. My guess is HiCookie himself just hadn't heard of the bug when he posted the results and Gigabyte then ran with it without waiting for the kind of feedback and intercommunication that goes on with somthing like this amongst the OC community.

[HenrySalayne]

17 hours ago, Arika S said:

Why would Gigabyte claim something so stupid and so easily debunkable?

That's quite easy:

- There is no such thing as bad publicity.

- Gigabyte advertises their "record speed" (see picture below, taken 21-11-08)

- It can be easily blamed on CPU-Z and is not at all and never has been the fault of Gigabyte.

- What are the consequences? There will be most likely none at all.

 

 

[leadeater]

17 hours ago, Arika S said:

Why would Gigabyte claim something so stupid and so easily debunkable?

Never underestimate the ability to not know anything about the situation, never assume a company PR/Marketing team is aware of or checked anything when you see something from them.

 

Ignorance is almost always the answer.