A Simple, Easy, and Effective Tool for Automated Overclocking, But Only for a Select Few Processors

Intel today is launching the Intel Performance Maximizer (IPM), a new utility that gives users one-click overclocking of their recent high-end processors. The Intel Performance Maximizer is targeted at new and less experienced PC enthusiasts, who want to squeeze a bit more performance out of their CPU despite a lack of comfort with manual overclocking.

The good news is that IPM is free. The relative bad news is that it’s currently limited to just a handful of Intel’s most recent 9th Gen Core desktop processors:

You’ll also need a motherboard with a Z390 chipset, at least 8GB of RAM, 16GB of available space on an internal drive, and Windows 10 1809 or newer. Intel provided us with a pre-release copy of the tool, and we were able to test it on a 9900K-based system. Here are our impressions of the new Intel Performance Maximizer.

Intel Performance Maximizer Overview

First, a brief overview of how the Intel Performance Maximizer works. Like other automatic overclocking solutions from companies such as ASUS, ASRock, and Gigabyte, IPM automatically increases clock speeds in small steps, testing after each change to ensure stability. It repeats this process until there’s a crash or error, at which point it drops back down to the previous clock or multiplier setting, tests for stability again, and then starts to tweak other factors such as voltage. This repeats until the tool establishes a maximum safe overclock. Depending on your CPU and system setup, the process can take an hour or more.

All of this is handled automatically by the IPM, so the user just needs to sit there and let it do its thing. This contrasts with other overclocking tools like the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, which gives the user access to a plethora of overclocking configuration options, performance status, and stress testing that must all be manually tweaked or executed.

Intel Performance Maximizer Setup

Once you’ve verified that you meet the minimum hardware requirements listed earlier, you may also need to prepare your system prior to running IPM. The layout and terminology of each motherboard’s UEFI/BIOS varies depending on the manufacturer, but Intel reports that you’ll need to find and configure a few important settings:

Processor Core Overclocking must be enabled

All Processor cores must be enabled

Hyper-Threading, if supported on the processor, must be enabled

Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 mode must be enabled

Boot mode must be UEFI

Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology must be enabled

Intel Watchdog Timer Driver (Intel WDT) must be enabled

Assuming that’s all configured properly, you’ll then download and install the Intel Performance Maximizer from Intel’s website. Doing so will install the basic IPM end-user GUI along with custom drivers for your CPU. You’ll find the drivers listed in Device Manager > Software Components, with one entry per processor thread.