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Overclocking

Six $200-$260 LGA 2011 Motherboards, Reviewed
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BIOS Frequency and Voltage settings (for overclocking)
 ASRock X79 Extreme4Asus P9X79Biostar TPower X79
Base Clock90-300 MHz (1 MHz)80-300 MHz (0.1 MHz)80-300 MHz (0.1 MHz)
CPU Multiplier12x to 60x (1x)12x to 57x (1x)1x to 59x (1x)
DRAM Data Rates800-2400 (266.6 MHz)800-2666 (266.6 MHz)800-2400 (266.6 MHz)
CPU Vcore0.60-1.70 V (5 mV)0.80-1.70 V (5 mV)1.00-1.52 V (10 mV)
Up to +0.54 V Offset
CPU VCCSA0.60-1.70 V (5 mV)0.80-1.70 V (5 mV)0.88-1.82 V (20 mV)
VTT Voltage0.95-1.49 V (7 mV)1.05-1.70 V (6.25 mV)-0.20 to +0.50 V (10 mV)
X79 PCH Voltage0.73-1.91 V (13 mV)1.10-1.70 V (6.25 mV)1.09-1.50 V (12 mV)
DRAM Voltage1.21-1.81 V (13 mV)1.20-1.99 V (5 mV)1.15-2.08 V (12.5 mV)
CAS Latency4-15 Cycles3-15 Cycles3-15 Cycles
tRCD4-15 Cycles4-15 Cycles3-15 Cycles
tRP4-15 Cycles4-15 Cycles3-15 Cycles
tRAS9-63 Cycles4-40 Cycles9-63 Cycles

The TPower X79's fixed and offset Vcore settings can be used simultaneously, boosting its theoretical maximum to 2.06 volts.

BIOS Frequency and Voltage settings (for overclocking)
 ECS X79R-AX
Black Deluxe
Intel
DX79TO
MSI X79A-
GD45 8D
Base Clock50-250 MHz (1 MHz)90-147 MHz (225 kHz)90-200 MHz (1 MHz)
CPU Multiplier12x to 65x (1x)12x to 57x (1x)12x to 60x (1x)
DRAM Data Rates1066-2400 (266.6 MHz)800-2400 (266.6 MHz)800-2400 (266.6 MHz)
CPU Vcore-0.30 to +0.70V (10 mV)1.00-1.92V (5 mV)0.80-1.80V (5mV)
CPU VCCSA-0.30 to +0.60V (10 mV)0.85-1.80V (5 mV)0.85-1.80V (5mV)
VTT Voltage-0.20 to +0.50V (10 mV)1.05-1.80V (12.5 mV)0.85-1.69V (10mV)
X79 PCH Voltage-0.20 to +0.30V (10 mV)1.10-1.50V (12.5 mV)0.90-1.90V (10 mV)
DRAM Voltage-0.30 to +0.50V (10 mV)1.20-1.93V (12.5 mV)1.05-2.45V (15 mV)
CAS Latency3-15 Cycles5-16 Cycles5-15 Cycles
tRCD3-31 Cycles5-16 Cycles4-15 Cycles
tRP3-15 Cycles5-16 Cycles4-15 Cycles
tRAS9-63 Cycles15-75 Cycles10-40 Cycles

Though several of this round-up’s motherboards offer base clock increments of less than 1 MHz, the best overclockers weren’t among them. ASRock’s X79 Extreme4 and MSI’s X79A-GD45 both reach 4.70 GHz. Neither could push our processor to 4747 MHz (which would have been required for 47 x 101 MHz), and the lack of more granular base clock settings results in a tie.

ECS gets excluded from this overclocking comparison because its old firmware did not support our newer C2-stepping CPU. Comparing a C1 overclock to a C2 wouldn't yield a fair result, especially since our C1-stepping chip is afflicted with a bug that prevents proper operation above a certain multiplier (and only Asus has been able to work around it). The new CPU is also less capable of supporting a 1.66x chipset-to-CPU multiplier, which puts the boards employing it at a disadvantage.

Every Sandy Bridge-E processor has a frequency window that includes an underclocking floor. ASRock’s 152 MHz base clock, which is achieved using a 1.66x strap, requires the base frequency be underclocked to 91 MHz, which is roughly the lowest setting this CPU supports.

The 1.25x strap is far easier to use, and the top three boards to employ it all reach 134 MHz. This capability is particularly useful to owners of locked processors like the Core i7-3820, since they’re still be able to increase their CPU’s frequency up to 34% beyond its highest multiplier.

Asus does wonderful things with memory overclocking, which is why we often use its products as our reference platform in memory reviews. Intel follows closely behind, though it isn’t able to effectively use its DDR3-2133 setting when all eight slots are filled. Pushing past the possible DDR3-2400 setting would require far-more-aggressive voltage adjustments than we’re comfortable using.

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  • 4 Hide
    Anonymous , February 27, 2012 5:00 AM
    I like Asrock boards. I have an 880GM-LE mATX and a Z68 Pro3 Gen3 ATX and both are good performance and price-performance wise.
  • 2 Hide
    hellfire24 , February 27, 2012 5:36 AM
    Asrock is dominating both high end and mid range market.extreme3/gen3 1155 is awesome and cheapest pci-e 3.0 sli capable mobo.Asrock FTW!!!
  • 0 Hide
    Achoo22 , February 27, 2012 6:02 AM
    Quote:
    Quite simply, the costs associated with Sandy Bridge-E are higher, in part because of Intel's prices and also because the boards are more difficult to design.


    Since the boards all have vastly superior profit margins, your statement is misleading. Why is everyone too afraid to reveal the truth about motherboard pricing?
  • 4 Hide
    bartholomew , February 27, 2012 6:38 AM
    ASRock has come a long way!
  • 6 Hide
    AlexIsAlex , February 27, 2012 6:43 AM
    Would it be possible, in future motherboard reviews, to include a measure of the cold boot (POST) time? This is something that different bioses can be differentiated on, and UFEI offers the potential for very fast boots if manufacturers take advantage of it properly.

    A comparison of the time between the power button being pressed and the installed bootloader starting would be very interesting to me. I was thinking it might be easiest to measure this by having no OS on the boot media and measuring the time to the "please insert boot media" message, but I'm sure you can think of other ways of doing it.

    I'm also informed that on some boards the boot time varies dramatically dependent on whether any Overclocking is enabled, as compared to the stock settings - that would also be worth knowing.
  • 3 Hide
    americanbrian , February 27, 2012 7:47 AM
    your feature table says the asrock extreme 4 comes with an 8 phase voltage regulator, but the text of article says 10 phase...which is it ?
  • -7 Hide
    crisan_tiberiu , February 27, 2012 7:49 AM
    ASRock = ASUS :) 
  • 9 Hide
    KT_WASP , February 27, 2012 8:24 AM
    crisan_tiberiuASRock = ASUS


    not anymore, asrock is no longer affiliated with Asus and is owned by Pegatron Corp.
  • 7 Hide
    memadmax , February 27, 2012 9:34 AM
    I wish tom's would do a "best motherboards for the money" or something close to that.
  • 3 Hide
    Anonymous , February 27, 2012 11:37 AM
    Pegatron sounds like a merger between PegASUS + Megatron (or something like that).
  • 1 Hide
    wysiwygbill , February 27, 2012 12:40 PM
    I'd like to see one of these x79 motherboards mounted in a case with a rear mounted 120MM radiator. I'm concerned that the memory slots might be blocked by a thick radiator + 120MM fan inside the case.
  • 1 Hide
    ubercake , February 27, 2012 12:47 PM
    Great informative article.

    But I'm wondering why AMD continues the ATI brand on the ASrock motherboard? Seems odd. They had everyone replace the CCC as soon as they rebranded and here we are looking at the ATI logo on the ASrock board.

    Also, even though there is so little difference when comparing boards using the same architecture, why no BF3 in the gaming section of the review? I thought this was one of the games mentioned in the 2012 goals for Tom's when reviewing gaming performance?
  • 0 Hide
    josejones , February 27, 2012 1:00 PM
    I'm looking forward to the review of several z77 motherboards. The x79's are far too expensive.
  • 0 Hide
    csm101 , February 27, 2012 3:03 PM
    i realy dont see a reason why i should go for a X79 from my X58 board. even with the next gen vga for AMD is out that say PCI 3.0 compatible, (assume same for the nvidia as well) i can put those cards on my board. so thats leave the quad channel and the more efficien i7 gen 2 cpu's. still will i see a huge FPS gain in games. i dont think so. so i think i can safely leave out this whole year without upgrading my mobo. in fact since i have a i7 950 im actually wating it to go down in the CPU hirearchy one more level.
  • 0 Hide
    Crashman , February 27, 2012 5:14 PM
    americanbrianyour feature table says the asrock extreme 4 comes with an 8 phase voltage regulator, but the text of article says 10 phase...which is it ?
    Eight, thanks
    ubercakeGreat informative article. But I'm wondering why AMD continues the ATI brand on the ASrock motherboard? Seems odd. They had everyone replace the CCC as soon as they rebranded and here we are looking at the ATI logo on the ASrock board.Also, even though there is so little difference when comparing boards using the same architecture, why no BF3 in the gaming section of the review? I thought this was one of the games mentioned in the 2012 goals for Tom's when reviewing gaming performance?
    New benchmarks are considered when a new chipset is launched. Keeping the old benchmark means you can compare current results with former results of previous roundups.
  • 0 Hide
    bigdragon , February 27, 2012 5:49 PM
    I like this review. It's good to see that most of the motherboards perform about the same with nobody sticking out or lagging behind for the most part. There's such a wide variety of prices for the LGA 2011 platform that I certainly didn't want to wind up with an overpriced POS.

    I settled on the ASRock Extreme4-m. I did have to wait for a new BIOS chip to arrive in order to make use of it though. They overnighted one to me last week and I got my system up and running over the weekend. So far so good. I've been quite happy with it now that it's working. I can't say that I've tried the overclocking features.

    wysiwygbillI'd like to see one of these x79 motherboards mounted in a case with a rear mounted 120MM radiator. I'm concerned that the memory slots might be blocked by a thick radiator + 120MM fan inside the case.

    With the ASRock Extreme4-m the memory slots and CPU 8-pin power connectors are very close to the radiator. I went with the Intel liquid cooler for my build. It's a 120mm fan and radiator. I placed these in a Silverstone FT03 as exhaust from the top of the case. It's important to pick out RAM that doesn't have any crazy fins or spikes on it. I went with some Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600 4x4GB that were on the official support list. There is a 4 to 5 mm gap between the RAM and radiator. it is plenty of room for the 8-pin wires to clear without touching the RAM or radiator. It's tight, but it works. I originally was going to buy GSkill RAM that was $20 cheaper, but there's no way the big red fins on those sticks would have fit.
  • 0 Hide
    tiger6k , February 27, 2012 5:56 PM
    I really wish Tom's Hardware would do more reviews of mid-range components. Especially with Ivy Bridge being compatible with Socket 1155, why wouldn't they do a review on some good z68 boards out now that will do well with Ivy Bridge, if you're looking to get a cheap rig now (G630/G860) and then upgrade later. All this 2011 stuff though are there really that many people that spend $600+ on a CPU?
  • 1 Hide
    bigdragon , February 27, 2012 5:59 PM
    ubercakeAlso, even though there is so little difference when comparing boards using the same architecture, why no BF3 in the gaming section of the review? I thought this was one of the games mentioned in the 2012 goals for Tom's when reviewing gaming performance?

    I don't blame them for skipping BF3. Since the most recent video drivers I've been having all sorts of issues with BF3. It's the only game on my machine to display a "Something went wrong" error and crash the entire system. I'd imagine it's hard to benchmark such an unstable game. My Extreme4-m, i7 3820, and Radeon 7950 system has no trouble with Just Cause 2, GTA IV, Crysis, and others, but BF3 has this remarkable capability to come up with the most ridiculous of error messages and strange behavior. That game still has issues.
  • 1 Hide
    Crashman , February 27, 2012 6:12 PM
    Tiger6kI really wish Tom's Hardware would do more reviews of mid-range components. Especially with Ivy Bridge being compatible with Socket 1155, why wouldn't they do a review on some good z68 boards out now that will do well with Ivy Bridge, if you're looking to get a cheap rig now (G630/G860) and then upgrade later. All this 2011 stuff though are there really that many people that spend $600+ on a CPU?
    Z68 has been covered fairly well, and Z77 will be next. Manufacturers will provide the information on Ivy Bridge compatibility for their Z68 motherboards.
  • 0 Hide
    xtreme5 , February 27, 2012 6:19 PM
    asrock look fast....
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