If I had just set a new world record for GPU overclocking, I'd surely be making a lot more fuss about it than AMD has
My first serious attempt at overclocking a graphics card was about 26 years ago, getting a whopping 190 MHz on an Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra, which normally ran at 150 MHz. I was so pleased with myself that I told everyone and anyone about my achievements. So when I learned that AMD and a top overclocker managed to hit 4,769 MHz on a little Radeon chip, I certainly expected something more noteworthy than a brief video and nothing else.
The video in question is on YouTube, the AMD Gaming channel, and runs for less than two minutes. It features the efforts of AMD's Bill Alverson and Allen 'Splave' Golibersuch, the latter being a giant in the overclocking world.
Using a Radeon RX 9060 XT graphics card, stripped of its standard cooler to allow for a liquid nitrogen sink, the pair seemingly hit the aforementioned clock speed with ease, if the video is anything to go by. Which can't be right, because as anyone who has tried to do serious clocking will know, it's fraught with challenges.
Not that AMD's marketing division appears to be aware of this, or if it is, then it doesn't consider it to be all that important. How exactly was that 4.77 GHz clock reached? What tests and benchmarks were used to measure stability and performance? What stopped the team from getting any higher? Why does the video show a GPU-Z screen for an RX 7600 XT and not an RX 9060 XT?
All important questions in the world of competitive overclocking and all of them unanswered.
Please don't think for one moment that I'm dismissing the efforts of Alverson and Golibersuch, because I'm genuinely impressed by how they managed to squeeze an additional 52% out of the Navi 44's clock speed. That's an enormous overclock, by any metric you care to use.
It's AMD's marketing that I'm disappointed by. Partly because, as far as I can tell, there are no official world records stored anywhere for GPU overclocks. CPUs certainly are (e.g. HWBot), but the humble graphics processor seems to be generally ignored. So without any kind of 'official' method of ratification, we only have AMD's word that it's a world record.
But no matter whether it is or isn't a record, it's still a hugely impressive achievement and one that highlights not only the skills of the overclockers but also the capabilities of AMD's hardware. In other words, it deserves to be thoroughly promoted, not relegated to a brief video on one of AMD's subsidiary YouTube channels. There's not even a hint of this in AMD's Newsroom page.
Well, in the words of the mad titan himself, I'll do it myself. Oh wait, I just have. You're welcome, AMD.