Gigabyte G1 Assassin and Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition Review – 5ghz

Overclocking the board proved to be a painless experience and there are many options in the bios to help increase stability of the system. We slowly increased the system speeds, to 4.4ghz then onwards checking for stability with every multiplier increase.

Settling on a final figure just above 5ghz, we managed to get 100% stability by changing the load line calibration to Level 2, which is classed as a moderate VDroop adjustment. Voltage needed to be cranked to 1.5volts which is a borderline figure for long term use. Core temperatures only rose to 73c under extended load, so we feel it would be safe enough. QPT/VTT Voltage was increased to 1.215volts and the CPU PLL was also increased to 1.860 volts.

System validation is available over here

We did manage to the get the system booting at up to 5.3ghz, but we weren't willing to push the core voltage any higher without something more exotic to cool the processor. Still we achieved our own goals set out before the system build, which was to reach a stable clock speed of 5.0ghz from a mainstream cooler. This is certainly a testament to the new Antec Kuhler H20 620 cooler, and our full review of the product will be published in the coming weeks.

The overclock to 5ghz reaps massive rewards when it comes to multithreaded rendering – as shown by the Cinema 4D engine tests above. The score rises from 9.21 to 12.13, which is an incredible increase.

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