AMD’s incoming Zen 4 flagship has already broken CPU world records using standard liquid cooling, outperforming previous records that have used exotic cooling (like liquid nitrogen or similar).
The Ryzen 7950X set the records for the rankings on HWBOT, with two overclocking experts – Sampson and Blueleader – achieving four new all-time highs using just a Corsair H115i all-in-one liquid cooler (with the 7950X running in a number of different X670E high-end motherboards).
The specific world records set were in Cinebench R15, R20, R23 and 7-Zip, as Hot Hardware (opens in new tab) reports (via VideoCardz (opens in new tab)), with the likes of Splave losing the top spot in these rankings as a result.
What’s also notable is that the 7950X, which is a 16-core processor, hit 5.4GHz to 5.5GHz boost speeds across all cores in this testing, with temperatures ranging from 87C to 108C – and power usage running up to 244W at maximum.
Analysis: The best is yet to come
For a chip using a (relatively) simple liquid cooler to beat the likes of Splave’s previous records in these rankings is seriously impressive. As mentioned, Splave (and others populating the very top of these benchmark charts) used the likes of liquid nitrogen for cooling. Obviously that’s not something that is feasible for an everyday PC, or the average enthusiast, but a Corsair H115i certainly is within reach of those folks.
Naturally, this makes us wonder exactly what the Ryzen 7950X will be able to achieve when it does get some exotic cooling and the overclocking ante truly ramps up. It’s likely already going to nab a slot among our ranking of the best processors, after all.
Some skeptics are asking questions, such as what the ambient temperature in the room for these records was, but there’s no denying this is an eye-opening feat – and one that hopefully points the way to some seriously power-efficient processors further down the Ryzen 7000 range, where most people will be buying.
With Zen 4, then, we could be looking at some attractive CPUs for both average users and overclocking fiends alike. Indeed, in recent times we’ve also been hearing a lot about how Intel’s next-gen Raptor Lake is set to be a really good performer for overclocking – already reaching 8GHz with the flagship – so it seems that the entire sphere of next-gen processors could be a tempting place for enthusiasts. Raptor Lake, however, when really pushed, won’t hold that same efficiency level…
