Overclocking? Check!
The highest reliable base clock speed we could run on the DFI LanParty UT ICFX3200-T2W was 475 MHz, which equals FSB1900 speed! This is almost as much as we were able to hit with a P965 motherboard from Gigabyte, the GA-965P-DQ6. However, we consider products playing in the league of 450+ MHz base speeds (FSB1800+) to be excellent overclockers anyway.
Though there are differences between the various chipsets - the 975X doesn't overclock as well as the other chipsets in the table below - the choice of particular motherboard has become more and more important today. Whether you can reach 450-500 MHz base clock speed is not so much a matter of the chipset used: all three main products (AMD's 580X, the Intel P965 and Nvidia's nForce 680i SLI) are capable of running at these clock speeds.
| FSB OC | 1100 | 1150 | 1200 | 1250 | 1300 | 1350 | 1400 | 1450 | 1500 | 1550 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nvidia 680i | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | Row 0 - Cell 8 | Row 0 - Cell 9 | Row 0 - Cell 10 |
| Intel 975X | x | x | x | x | X | x | x | x | x | x |
| Intel P965 | x | x | x | x | X | x | x | x | x | x |
| AMD 580X | x | x | x | x | X | x | x | x | x | x |
| FSB OC | 1600 | 1650 | 1700 | 1750 | 1800 | 1850 | 1900 | 1950 | 2000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nvidia 680i | x | x | x | x | X | x | x | x | x |
| Intel 975X | x | Row 1 - Cell 2 | Row 1 - Cell 3 | Row 1 - Cell 4 | Row 1 - Cell 5 | Row 1 - Cell 6 | Row 1 - Cell 7 | Row 1 - Cell 8 | Row 1 - Cell 9 |
| Intel P965 | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | Row 2 - Cell 9 |
| AMD 580X | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | Row 3 - Cell 8 | Row 3 - Cell 9 |
These are the maximum FSB speeds we were able to reach in our test lab. Note that only enthusiast-class motherboards will hit the highest frequencies; our findings do not necessarily mean that an individual product may perform a bit better than what we found. They merely represent the maximum observed for each chipset.
