Some people want more performance out of their processors but are too lazy to overclock. Intel understands that, which is why it has released the Intel Performance Maximizer (IPM) for automatic, one-click overclocking. IPM works with the following CPUs:
- i9-9900K
- i9-9900KF
- i7-9700K
- i7-9700KF
- i5-9600K
- i5-9600KF
According to a product brief, IPM doesn’t just look at a processor’s speed; it also examines its “individual performance DNA.” The tool is also dynamic in that it adjusts performance over time.
Marketing materials suggest the tool can take the Core i7-9700K from 4.6 GHz to 4.9 GHz, which isn’t a bad improvement for idle types. But manual overclocking, unsurprisingly, still wins.
This is quite evident in PC Perspective’s i9-9900K benchmarks, which show IPM results falling short of manual OC.
As the benchmarks show, it’s possible to achieve a further small increase in performance over the IPM result with just very basic manual overclocking, with larger increases obtainable via practice and experience in most situations. But if learning to manually overclock isn’t an option, the Intel Performance Maximizer is arguably the best one-click solution of its type, as long as you have one of the few compatible processors, of course.