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: Synthetics

It’s a little surprising to see minimal performance differences in 3DMark, since this benchmark has a CPU test. The differences seen in the chart below are almost as small as those of actual games!

PCMark appears to have a preference for Intel’s Hyper-Threading (HT) technology, handicapping our highest overclock slightly.

With HT disabled, the 5 GHz overclock appears to be a completely different processor in Sandra, and not in a good way.

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.