Cinebench R11.5 Record Broken After 12 Years
A veteran Intel Core i5 processor has reclaimed a spot in the overclocking record books after an expert enthusiast pushed vintage hardware to its limits using liquid nitrogen cooling.
Radwan AbdulhadiEditor and technology writer
Shattering a 12-Year Milestone
Overclocking enthusiasts continue to demonstrate that cutting-edge equipment is not always required to achieve remarkable feats. Recently, an overclocking expert broke a record that had stood for over a decade in the competitive PC benchmarking community. According to reports from [Tom's Hardware](https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/overclocking/cinebench-world-record-that-stood-for-12-years-gets-toppled-oc-expert-scores-10-8cb-in-cinebench-r11-5-using-an-intel-core-i5-4670k-at-6-3-ghz), overclocker Luumi knocked the previous quad-core record holder off their perch after 12 years by achieving a multicore score of 10.8 cb.
This milestone was accomplished utilizing vintage components from the Haswell era rather than modern silicon. The accomplishment serves as a reminder that the competitive landscape tracked by communities like [new HWBot world record](https://hwbot.org/benchmarks/cinebench_-_r11.5/submissions/6081541) remains open to creative and technical prowess across various generations of computer architecture.
Inside the Record-Breaking Haswell Rig
The hardware configuration behind the successful benchmark run relies on a classic desktop setup featuring older Intel architecture. At the heart of the system is the Intel Core i5 4670K, an unlocked four-core and four-thread processor built on a 22-nanometer manufacturing process with a stock base and boost frequency ranging from 3.4 GHz to 3.8 GHz, an 84W TDP, 6MB of cache, and integrated Intel HD 4600 graphics.
To facilitate extreme overclocking, the CPU was mounted on an ASRock Z97 OC Formula motherboard. The setup was outfitted with a modest 4GB of DDR3 RAM supplied by XPG, while a Corsair AXi 1600 power supply delivered ample electrical power to the components throughout the rigorous testing procedure.
Pushing Frequencies with Liquid Nitrogen
Achieving a score capable of toppling a 12-year-old record required pushing the vintage silicon far beyond its original thermal and electrical design limits. Validation files indicate that the Intel processor was subjected to liquid nitrogen cooling, allowing it to sustain a clock speed of 6,301.00 MHz during the benchmark execution.
Additionally, the test bench was operated using Windows 7 64-bit Pro. While many older benchmarking tools encounter compatibility roadblocks on modern operating systems, older versions of Cinebench continue to function without major interference on legacy software environments.
A Refreshing Break for the HWBot Community
The successful benchmark run drew positive reactions from the wider enthusiast community. Several members noted that it was a refreshing change of pace to see a prominent achievement on the platform that relied neither on ultra-high-end modern processors nor expensive current-generation graphics hardware.
While modern multi-core laptop processors can easily surpass the raw performance figures of a heavily overclocked Haswell desktop chip under standard conditions, the appeal of vintage overclocking lies in squeezing every ounce of performance out of legacy silicon.
Sources
- Tom's HardwareCinebench world record that stood for 12 years gets toppled
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