Overclocking

For Overclocking, I have kept the same procedures that I used for Intel's 10th generation. I have left the "Gear" setting on auto for memory overclocking. Every board tested so far has used "Gear 2" when pushing past the 3600 MHz XMP speed for my Trident Z Neo kit.


The ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E showed a fair bit of headroom for overclocking, at least for short runs of wPrime. I was able to achieve 5.3 GHz at 1.38 V core voltage with my i9-10900K sample, and 5.2 GHz with my i9-11900k CPU. Overclocking is largely limited by temperature because the Intel Core i9 processors will overpower any ambient cooling solution. Depending on settings, the system will either crash or severely drop frequency.

Note that the ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E conforms strictly to Intel's power restrictions at stock settings. To get the most out of your overclock, be sure to raise all power limits to their maximum in the BIOS.


For memory overclocking, the ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E did well, reaching 3900 MHz on my 10th Gen sample and 3800 MHz on my 11th Gen sample at XMP timings and voltages on my Trident Z Neo kit.