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Overclocker Elmor pushed an Intel Core i9-7900X to 5,755 MHz for a Cinebench R15 run that scored 3,181 points, and to 5,785 MHz for a Cinebench R11.5 run that scored 34.79. HotHardware reported both results on May 31, 2017, during Computex, using liquid-nitrogen cooling. They are historical record claims, not confirmation of the processor’s current benchmark standing or a target for an ordinary desktop PC.
What records did the i9-7900X set?
HotHardware reported two separate benchmark runs. Their scores belong to different Cinebench versions and should not be compared as if they used the same scale.
| Benchmark | Reported frequency | Reported score | Previous score cited by HotHardware |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cinebench R15 | 5,755 MHz | 3,181 points | 3,137 points |
| Cinebench R11.5 | 5,785 MHz | 34.79 points | 33.86 points |
HotHardware described these as world records in its May 31, 2017 report. Overclock3D’s June 1 coverage also listed the two Cinebench results among five 10-core records achieved at Computex 2017, alongside results in wPrime-32m, wPrime-1024m, and XTU. That wording describes the contemporary claims; current standings are not established by these reports.
Read the headline’s “5.7GHz” as a rounded summary, not one exact clock shared by both tests. The R15 run was reported at 5,755 MHz; the R11.5 run at 5,785 MHz.
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How was the record run cooled and configured?
HotHardware said Elmor used liquid nitrogen (LN2), an ASUS Rampage VI Apex X299 motherboard, and G.SKILL Trident Z DDR4 memory. The setup also included a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, which the report said did not contribute to the CPU benchmark records.
The i9-7900X was described in the report as a 10-core, 20-thread processor with a 3.3 GHz base clock and Turbo Boost Max 3.0 frequency up to 4.5 GHz. Those are launch-era specifications, included to put the 2017 overclock in context—not a present-day recommendation or evidence that a retail chip can reproduce Elmor’s result.
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What does 5.7 GHz mean for ordinary users?
Very little about an LN2 benchmark run predicts a sustainable overclock on conventional desktop cooling. The reported result depended on liquid nitrogen and documents a record attempt under extreme conditions. It does not establish everyday stability, continuous all-core performance, or the likely overclock of another i9-7900X sample.
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A separate Tom’s Hardware experiment published June 8, 2018, offers context rather than verification: its author, Jean-Michel “Wizerty” Tisserand, wrote, “The highest stable frequency we reached that’d still run Cinebench R15 was 5800 MHz.” That was a different LN2 test, not Elmor’s 2017 run; Tisserand also cautioned that LN2 testing is difficult to repeat.
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How to compare the reported results
- Keep the benchmark version attached to its score: 3,181 is the reported Cinebench R15 result; 34.79 is the reported R11.5 result.
- Keep the clock attached to its particular run: 5,755 MHz for R15 and 5,785 MHz for R11.5.
- Keep the date and attribution attached to “record”: the claims were reported in 2017 coverage of Computex, not verified as current rankings.
Sources: HotHardware, May 31, 2017; Overclock3D, June 1, 2017; Tom’s Hardware, June 8, 2018.
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