Intel Core i5-13600K: Special BIOS also enables 5.8 GHz on B660M

With the Intel Core i5-13600K, Intel has achieved the hoped-for big hit: The Raptor Lake generation can fully convince in all common benchmarks and, among other things, also has impressive numbers in terms of overclocking – as long as you have the right Z790 or Z690 mainboard . On the other hand, if you have installed a B660 mainboard, you usually look down the drain when overclocking. A special BIOS for the MSI B660M Mortar WIFI motherboard still allows the i5-13600K to be pushed to an impressive 5.8 gigahertz.

Intel Core i9-13900K, i7-13700K and i5-13600K in the test: liberation for the chip giant

Normally, common B660 mainboards only allowed the base clock in the Core i5-13600K to be overclocked by up to almost 103 MHz before a BIOS lock intervened – the clock limit was accordingly 5.25 GHz. With a special BIOS version from MSI, which has the version number E7D97IMS.123U24, this limitation could be broken relatively easily. However, the modified variant is not officially made available for download by MSI.

The modified BIOS allows a BCLK setting of the base clock to 113 MHz, which according to the WCCF Tech portal with auto-voltage leads to a clock rate of 5.76 gigahertz (P core) or 4.4 GHz (E core). The plus of 660 megahertz in the performance cores can therefore even be increased with a slightly higher voltage, so that a clock rate of up to 5.86 GHz can be achieved in the P-core.

Theoretically, the adapted MSI BIOS also works in combination with the two higher-class Intel CPUs i7-13700K and i9-13900K. As wccftech explains, this makes little sense, since the leeway in the BCLK setting is significantly lower due to the already higher base clock – accordingly, the variant with the Core i5-13600K is the most price-efficient.

Source: wccftech via HKEPC