Editing Clock rate (section)

==Historical milestones and current records==
The first fully mechanical digital computer, the [[Z1 (computer)|Z1]], operated at 1&nbsp;Hz (cycle per second) clock frequency and the first electromechanical general purpose computer, the [[Z3 (computer)|Z3]], operated at a frequency of about 5–10&nbsp;Hz. The first electronic general purpose computer, the [[ENIAC]], used a 100&nbsp;kHz clock in its cycling unit. As each instruction took 20 cycles, it had an instruction rate of 5&nbsp;kHz.

The first commercial PC, the [[Altair 8800]] (by MITS), used an Intel 8080 CPU with a clock rate of 2&nbsp;MHz (2 million cycles per second). The original [[IBM Personal Computer|IBM PC]] (c. 1981) had a clock rate of 4.77&nbsp;MHz (4,772,727 cycles per second). In 1992, both Hewlett-Packard and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) exceeded 100&nbsp;MHz with [[RISC]] techniques in the PA-7100 and AXP 21064 [[DEC Alpha]] respectively. In 1995, [[Intel Corporation|Intel's]] [[P5 (microarchitecture)|P5]] [[Pentium (brand)|Pentium]] chip ran at 100&nbsp;MHz (100 million cycles per second). On March 6, 2000, [[Advanced Micro Devices|AMD]] demonstrated passing the 1&nbsp;GHz milestone a few days ahead of Intel shipping 1&nbsp;GHz in systems. In 2002, an Intel [[Pentium 4]] model was introduced as the first CPU with a clock rate of 3&nbsp;GHz (three billion cycles per second corresponding to ~ 0.33 [[nanosecond]]s per cycle). Since then, the clock rate of production processors has increased more slowly, with performance improvements coming from other design changes.

Set in 2011, the [[Guinness World Record]] for the highest CPU clock rate is 8.42938&nbsp;GHz with an [[Overclocking|overclocked]] AMD FX-8150 [[Bulldozer (microarchitecture)|Bulldozer]]-based chip in an [[Liquid helium|LHe]]/[[Liquid nitrogen|LN2]] cryobath, 5&nbsp;GHz [[Air cooling|on air]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/98281-highest-clock-frequency-achieved-by-a-silicon-processor|title = Highest clock frequency achieved by a silicon processor}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Marco |last=Chiappetta |date=23 September 2011 |url=http://hothardware.com/News/AMD-Breaks-Frequency-Record-with-Upcoming-FX-Processor/ |title=AMD Breaks 8&nbsp;GHz Overclock with Upcoming FX Processor, Sets World Record with AMD FX 8350 |publisher=HotHardware |access-date=2012-04-28 |archive-date=2015-03-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150310020437/http://hothardware.com/News/AMD-Breaks-Frequency-Record-with-Upcoming-FX-Processor |url-status=dead }}</ref> This is surpassed by the [[CPU-Z]] [[overclocking]] record for the highest CPU clock rate at 8.79433&nbsp;GHz with an AMD FX-8350 [[Piledriver (microarchitecture)|Piledriver]]-based chip bathed in [[Liquid nitrogen|LN2]], achieved in November 2012.<ref>{{Cite web |title=CPU-Z Validator – World Records |url=https://valid.x86.fr/records.html}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=8.79GHz FX-8350 is the Fastest Ever CPU &#124; ROG – Republic of Gamers Global |url=https://rog.asus.com/articles/crosshair-motherboards/8-79ghz-fx-8350-is-the-fastest-ever-cpu/}}</ref> It is also surpassed by the slightly slower AMD FX-8370 overclocked to 8.72&nbsp;GHz which tops off the [[HWBOT]] frequency rankings.<ref name=James>{{cite news |last=James |first=Dave |date=16 December 2019 |title=AMD's Ryzen rules overclocking world records… but can't beat a 5 year-old chip|url=https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/cpu-overclocking-world-records |work= pcgamesn |access-date=23 November 2021}} </ref><ref name=HWBOTranks>{{cite web |url=https://hwbot.org/benchmark/cpu_frequency/rankings#start=0#interval=20 |title=CPU Frequency: Hall of Fame |website= hwbot.org |publisher=HWBOT |access-date=23 November 2021}}</ref> These records were broken in 2025 when an Intel Core i9-13900KF was overclocked to 9.12 GHz.<ref name=Nasir>{{cite news |last=Nasir |first=Hassam |date=12 January 2025 |title=Intel i9-14900KF overclocker clinches CPU frequency world record at 9.12 GHz — Wytiwx joins Elmor as the only person to push a CPU past 9 GHz
|url=https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intel-i9-14900kf-overclocker-clinches-cpu-frequency-world-record-at-9-12-ghz-wytiwx-joins-elmor-as-the-only-person-to-push-a-cpu-past-9-ghz |work=Tom's Hardware |location=}}</ref>

The highest [[Dynamic frequency scaling|boost clock]] rate on a production processor is the [[Raptor Lake|i9-14900KS]], clocked at 6.2&nbsp;GHz, which was released in Q1 2024.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Products formerly Raptor Lake |url=https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/codename/215599/products-formerly-raptor-lake.html |access-date=2024-07-05 |website=www.intel.com}}</ref>