AMD (NYSE: AMD) has announced that its FX processor was overclocked at a frequency of 8.429GHz, a Guinness World Record touted by the company as a "stunning result for a modern, multi-core processor."

This was achieved by using liquid helium as a coolant, which at only a few degrees above absolute zero is not something you want to handle at home. While the merit of running at 8.4GHz is debatable, the company did note that clock frequencies of well above 5GHz were reached using only air or sub-$100 water cooling solutions.

The feat was actually achieved on Aug. 31, though AMD timed the release of the news as an attempted spoiler ahead of Intel's (NASDAQ: INTC) IDF conference today. Ironically, the achievement also served to underscore how the focus has been successfully shifted by Intel away from sheer number of clock cycles. Indeed, users these days really focus more on the processor architecture and number of computing cores, as well as low-power chips for mobile computing.

For more:
- check out this blog post from AMD
- check out this article at PC Mag

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