P55 Overclocking Showdown - ASUS, Gigabyte, and EVGA at the OC Corral (Page 6 Updated)
by Rajinder Gill on November 6, 2009 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
We utilize a fresh Windows 7 installation for each phase of testing to minimize variance in benchmark scores. Although Windows 7 is not ideal for benchmarks like SuperPi 32M or early 3DMarks, it does give us some indication of what is possible in terms of processor speeds on each board and allows us to utilize our normal benchmark test suite.
Two high-end 4GB DDR3-2200 kits from Corsair and GSkill were used throughout testing. Until our next memory review, we can safely say that the Corsair can run tighter latencies at lower voltages, while the G.Skill provides higher bandwidth capabilities on this platform. The choice of kit depends on your particular needs but either one is simply superb for overclocking. Both kits allowed us to max out the memory controllers of each test processor on all the boards we have tested to date.
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Rajinder Gill - Saturday, November 7, 2009 - link
For max BCLK testingPCI/e speeds were increased (where required) to 115MHz or so (the highest the CPU's I had could run were between 115-118MHz). I tried changes to RTL, memory dividers and all voltages were also changed. Subtiming ranges were shifted out to near maximums to see if that helped and also matched between the best and worst boards in the tests just to make sure something was not creating a hurdle.regards
Raja
dingetje - Friday, November 6, 2009 - link
wow the p55 platform is totally screwd if this problem persists...any overclocker still oc'ing the hell out of their p55 must be either brave, rich or (michael jackson voice on:) ignoraaaantdingetje - Friday, November 6, 2009 - link
oops, this was supposed to be a comment, not a reply...damn UI :Pdingetje - Friday, November 6, 2009 - link
now if we could only edit our posts I would so happypetergab - Friday, November 6, 2009 - link
What about any MSI boards? I know they may not count to the "extreme" OC but I think they should have a representative in such reviews.Rajinder Gill - Friday, November 6, 2009 - link
The MSI board was due to be included but left out becasue of CPU damage that occurred during the socket burnouts. This left no real way of cross comparing the prior results with the MSI boards abilities on the same CPU. At that point I decided to run with what I had at the time rather than starting afresh thus delaying the article even further.regards
Raja
spiderbutt - Friday, November 6, 2009 - link
Are you planning to include the MSI boards at a later date? I am curious to see how they compare to the other boards.Thanks for your hard work Raja it is appreciated!
Rajinder Gill - Friday, November 6, 2009 - link
Hi,There will be some MSI P55 board reviews coming, although those were planned in more typical usage scenarios. I guess what I can do is use a different CPU in the E657 EVGA board for cross compare to any high-end P55 MSI offering we review to see how things stack up.
regards
Raja
1stguess - Friday, November 6, 2009 - link
Wow. This is a bold article. Does anyone dare OC their P55 setup? Madness.jav6454 - Friday, November 6, 2009 - link
I've been looking at these P55 boards and somehow I always thought high of the EVGA. However these results have proven my gut feeling right.Bad thing of the EVGA boards is sometimes their higher price tag.