Overclocking
When I started my overclocking venture with this motherboard, I decided to give the EasyTune software a go first. It was interesting to watch the stability testing and the software automatically adjusting system parameters and then re-testing the overclocks for stability. Now software overclocking in the past has been hit or miss, but I am pleased to report that this iteration of EasyTune was pretty darn close as far as the expected clocks and voltages were concerned. I was pretty stunned with the software to say the least. Here is EasyTune’s Auto Tune result:
The EasyTune software managed to push my i7 4770K to 4.7GHz! Unfortunately, my processor is in the weaker percentile and requires right around 1.5v to stabilize at this frequency. However, let me reiterate how amazed that I am that this auto-tuning software could be so close to my own manual tuning numbers. Throughout the entire auto-tuning process, I did not experience even one hiccup or crash. I think GIGABYTE is onto something pretty special here with the new and improved EasyTune software.
After my own manual tweaking, I was able to reach the best voltage/frequency ratio for my particular processor:
This overclock may not set a world record; however for my particular chip I consider it great. My previous Z87 motherboard could only push this processor to 4.2GHz; and with higher voltage I might add!
Here are some overclocked benchmarking results with this new frequency.
Super PI Mod 1.5 – OC – 4.4GHz
wPrime v1.55 – OC – 4.4GHz
CINEBENCH R15 – OC – 4.4GHz
AIDA64 Engineer v4.5 – CPU QUEEN – OC – 4.4GHz
And with that exciting round of overclocking, we must bring this review to a close. Read on to the conclusion and verdict section of this review!
