Overclocking can produce some impressive performance gains, but it usually comes with risks. These risks seem to have been mitigated for some Chinese customers as some ‘IPO' systems go on sale.

The practice of overclocking can pull a lot more performance out of your PC, but it comes with several risks. Overclocking puts a far greater strain on the hardware, along with producing a lot more heat, stressing cooling systems. Usually, overclocking will void your warranty, unless you are a customer in China with a new IPO-optimized system.

Intel Performance Optimization program kicks off in China

IPO stands for Intel Performance Optimization, a program that was announced by Intel for the Chinese market. IPO systems would be sold with overclocking already enabled. These pre-built PCs have been modified with a ‘moderate' level of overclocking to offer greater performance whilst maintaining stability.

The changed settings include higher voltages, higher power limits, and higher memory and CPU clocks. The power limiters are already recognised as significant drivers of improved performance, but it is often also the cause of instability problems. In this case, the IPO systems are tested and certified and remain covered by warranty.

Boosted settings across the board

One example of the optimisations is the MaxSuns settings used for a Core Ultra i7-265K CPU:

• CPU PCORE: 5.4G (FROM 5.2G)
• CPU ECORE: 4.9G (FROM 4.6G)
• CPU RING: 4.0G (FROM 3.9G)
• CPU NGU: 3.1G (FROM 2.6G)
• CPU D2D: 3.1G (FROM 2.1G)
• CPU PL1: 280W (FROM 125W)
• CPU PL2: 350W (FROM 250W)
• MEMORY: 8000 XMP FREQUENCY: 8400 (FROM 8000)
• MEMORY TIMINGS TUNED: E.G., 65536 TREFI (FROM XMP TIMING ~1xxxx)

As reported by VideoCardz, these IPO systems are now officially on sale in China. One retailer has noticed a gaming performance of 10% over stock models, and also pointed out that IPO systems are covered by a 5-year warranty. We don’t yet know whether this program will be extended to other regions.

There is one notable caveat, however. These IPO systems are not using the latest Arrow Lake processors. They are instead utilising the older Raptor Lake CPUs. These CPUs have previously had issues with degradation, which resulted in notable performance drops.

About the Author

Rebecca Hills-Duty

Writing and journalism experience at VRFocus, UploadVR, The Escapist, HTC, PC Gamer, Tech Radar+ and Dexerto. Can sometimes be found playing with retro tech.