When it comes to the Raspberry Pi, users in the community love pushing the boundaries of what this tiny computer can do. Today we’ve got a maker who’s demonstrated this effort in his latest hack with some notably impressive results. Ivan Kuleshov, aka Merocle, has deliddled (removed the integrated heat spreader) a Raspberry Pi CM4 and managed to overclock it to reach a maximum speed of 2.5 GHz. Overclocking any model of Raspberry Pi is possible, it just need the correct config, and plenty of cooling.
According to Kuleshov, he not only overclocked the CM4 but also managed to maintain a good degree of performance stability. The only caveat for ensuring the performance is managing the heat. Kuleshov explains that the temperature must be kept under 6 degrees Celsius (42 degrees Fahrenheit). You can find a detailed look at the overclocking benchmarks over at pibenchmarks.com.
Delidding the SoC is not for the feint of heart. Requiring a steady hand and a sharp blade to carefully remove the lid and get access to the SoC below.
From a software point of view, the overclock is essentially five lines in a config.txt file. The real skill is in keeping the Pi cool.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a maker overclock the Compute Module. Last year we covered another overclocking project put together by maker Claude Schwarz who managed to reach 3 GHz with the CM4. Both of these overclocking efforts are impressive as they both at least double the initial processing speed of the Raspberry Pi CM4 which usually caps out at 1.8 GHz.
If you want to recreate this Raspberry Pi project or just get a closer look at how it operates, check out the original thread shared to Twitter and be sure to follow Kuleshov for more cool Pi projects.
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Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.
