Home / Component / APU / Intel Core i7-4790K overclocked to 4.50GHz with passive cooling

Intel Core i7-4790K overclocked to 4.50GHz with passive cooling

Earlier this week Intel Corp.’s Core i7-4790K “Devil's Canyon” central processing units already demonstrated their impressive overclocking potential when overclocked by professionals with advanced cooling systems. As it turns out, the chip can work in overclocked state at 4.50GHz even with passive cooling.

At the Computex Taipei trade-show this week Intel demonstrated a passively cooled system with Intel Core i7-4790K “Devil’s Canyon” (4.0GHz default clock-rate, 4.40GHz maximum Turbo Boost frequency) inside. The processors worked without any problem when overclocked to 4.50GHz with all four cores and the HyperThreading enabled during demonstrations, reports SweClockers.

While it is obvious that the demonstrations were not run non-stop for hours, it is still remarkable that the chip could handle the 4.50GHz clock-rate without throttling while being cooled passively.

intel_core_i7_passively_cooled_overclocked_system_devils_canyon_sweclockers

At present boutique PC makers sell factory-overclocked personal computers with the Core i7-4770K processors inside that are clocked at 4.20GHz – 4.40GHz and are cooled-down using closed-loop liquid-cooling solutions.

If commercial versions of the i7-4790K behave the same way as the samples that Intel demonstrated at Computex do, it looks like high-end PC makers will offer rather interesting solutions featuring the “Devil’s Canyon” microprocessors later this summer.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Keep in mind that the passive cooling in general heavily depends on environmental temperatures, hence it is not really suitable for any serious overclocking. The fact that Intel could show a chip capable of running at 4.50GHz inside a special fanless case that acts like a huge cooler itself does not mean that you should try something like this at home. What Intel wanted to show with the demonstration is that the new “Devil’s Canyon” CPUs are good overclockers in general.

Become a Patron!

Check Also

Senior Intel Engineer Explains the Radical Shift in CPU Design

When Intel launched Lunar Lake (Core Ultra 200V) in 2024 we gave you the technical details and followed up with a review of the Asus Zenbook S 14 which has incredible battery life. In the following month we discussed Intel Arrow Lake (Core Ultra 200S) and how we considered it was unfit for review in a situation that was not resolved until February 2025. On the one hand we have Lunar Lake which we like, while on the other hand we have Arrow Lake which is troubled, yet both families of processors run on Lion Cove P-cores and Skymont E-cores and have a huge amount in common.

We've noticed that you are using an ad blocker.

Thank you for visiting KitGuru. Our news and reviews teams work hard to bring you the latest stories and finest, in-depth analysis.

We want to be as informative as possible – and to help our readers make the best buying decisions. The mechanism we use to run our business and pay some of the best journalists in the world, is advertising.

If you want to support KitGuru, then please add www.kitguru.net to your ad blocking whitelist or disable your adblocking software. It really makes a difference and allows us to continue creating the kind of content you really want to read.

It is important you know that we don’t run pop ups, pop unders, audio ads, code tracking ads or anything else that would interfere with the KitGuru experience. Adblockers can actually block some of our free content, such as galleries!