Breaking a world record is no easy feat, especially when the platform is as small as the Raspberry Pi. However, Jeff Geerling broke all world records in his latest Raspberry Pi overclocking experiment. Jeff's CPU clocked in at 3.4GHz and achieved the highest single-core and multi-core scores in Geekbench6. The previous highest score was held by Thomas Kaiser, with a single-core score of 1037 points and a multi-core score of 2137 points.

Jeff's main frequency reached 3.3GHz, with a single-core score of 1092 points and a multi-core score of 2163 points, thus breaking the record. However, achieving these clock speeds is no easy task. Although Jeff hit 3.14GHz at Pi Day a few months ago, the Pi5 cannot easily reach above 3.0GHz due to voltage limitations. With the release of new firmware and NUMA emulation patches, this no longer seems to be a matter of pushing the envelope.

With custom code and some voltage adjustments, Jeff was able to maintain a frequency of 3.3GHz at around 1.07 volts, but achieving a stable 3.4GHz frequency was much more difficult. After many failed attempts, Jeff resorted to various cooling methods, including Peltier cooling and a custom Noctua fan that fed air directly to the Pi.

Before the cooling method was adopted, the RaspberryPi5 would remain stuck, and even though the voltage had reached around 1.08V, the hardware could not successfully complete the Geekbench6 test. After adding some cooling methods, Jeff hit a single-core score of 1094 at 3.3GHz.

Reaching over 1100 points and 3.4GHz was a bigger challenge because his system frequently suffered from memory errors. However, installing another heatsink under the Pi board and increasing the voltage to 1.08V worked perfectly. Not only did the Pi5 hit 3.4GHz, but it also scored 1121 single-core points and 2219 multi-core points, beating his previous record.

Despite this incredible achievement, Jeff doesn't recommend trying it at home. To him, it was just a "fun" experiment that resulted in only minor improvements. Considering that RaspberryPi5 consumes up to 20W at 3.4GHz frequency, this is not practical for ordinary users.

Still, he was lucky enough to get this excellent piece of silicon from Wafer Chip, which is one of the reasons he was able to achieve such high clock rates and Geekbench scores.