The 5 GHz, Six-Core Project: Core i7-980X Gets Chilly

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Tom’s Hardware has been ringing the 5 GHz bell for years, yet those efforts have never yielded a practical daily-use solution. Today we take a look at how far off-the-shelf parts can take us with an ambitious 5 GHz, six-core overclocking project.

Benchmark Results: Productivity

Even the CS4 version of Photoshop appears to be limited to six or fewer threads, since disabling HT has no noticeable impact on the 5 GHz configuration’s performance leadership.

One of the first programs we saw to take advantage of four CPU threads, 3ds Max doesn’t appear to use more than six. Our 5 GHz configuration holds its lead at 47% over stock.

AVG benchmark doesn’t work right in Windows 7, and we still haven’t figured out why. At least the 1% difference pointed in the expected direction.

The 5 GHz machine’s performance gain drops to “only” 32% in file compression.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.