Overclocking
Unfortunately, there isn’t much to say about overclocking the 9900KF. Overclocking the 99900KF is precisely like overclocking the 9900K. The only differences are basically the same differences one encounters overclocking multiple examples of the same CPU. It varies by motherboard slightly, but the test CPU I had simply required 1.30v to achieve a 5.0GHz overclock. This CPU would do 5.1GHz most of the time at 1.32v, but sadly, it wasn’t fully stable. I have misplaced the screenshots for CPU-Z on this one, but again, that’s the nature of doing a review based on a CPU we received on loan vs. one that we own. Ordinarily, I would just obtain more.
One thing I do need to address is the idea that the 9900KF overclocks better than the standard K series CPU’s. That hasn’t been my experience if this CPU is any indication. I could get it to post at 5.1GHz, but that was never stable. Thermals were also borderline at 5.0GHz under water cooling. If anything, this 9900KF is worse than the 9900K we’ve been using in all of our testing. The 9900KF requires slightly more voltage than our 9900K test CPU. The 9900K we have requires 1.28 – 1.3v rather than 1.32v required by the 9900KF.
5.0GHz is the standard for these CPU’s which isn’t much over their standard turbo boost clocks. However, I had hoped for 5.1GHz or better out of this CPU and didn’t get it. Honestly, if you want that, you’ll likely have to spring for the 9900KS, which is something we’ll have to address separately.