If you are familiar with previous motherboard reviews I have done, we attempt to get a solid 1Ghz overclock on every board we review. In this case the X79 FTW is coupled with an i7-3930K CPU, which has a stock speed of 3.2Ghz, thus making our target goal 4.2Ghz.
The first thing we needed to do was get the memory timings and voltages set as per the manufacturers specs. A 4X4Gb G.Skill RipjawsZ kit at 1866Mhz was used for this build. Once that was done, we turned off all the CPU throttling features such as C1E, EIST, C3, C6, and C7. Our first overclocking attempt was a mild 3.6Ghz, and all that was needed to accomplish this was a slight raise in CPU voltage to 1.225v, and of course, changing the CPU multiplier to 36. We then ran 20 passes of the Intel Burn Test with the stress level set at “Very High”. The X79 FTW flew right through this test without any problems at all.
Next, we went for a 4.0Ghz overclock and set the CPU multiplier to 40. The vCore voltage was set to 1.250v in BIOS with Vdroop disabled. This resulted in the CPU voltage being reported as 1.270v once we got to the Windows7 desktop. Again the X79 FTW easily completed 10 passes of the Intel Burn Test.
Next was a run at 4.2Ghz, which was achieved by raising the vCore to 1.275v in BIOS, which resulted in a little over 1.30v once at the desktop. Because we had Vdroop disabled, the rise in voltage during stress testing is normal. We set the CPU multiplier to 42 and ran another quick 10 pass run of the Intel Burn Test. Once again no problems encountered here either!
Ok, I know….. that was way to easy, so lets try one more overclock! This time we’ll try for a 4.5Ghz speed. This time we set the multiplier to 45 and raised the CPU voltage to 1.30v resulting in a reported voltage of 1.317v at the desktop. Furthermore, we wanted a little longer test to ensure stability, so we ran 20 passes of the Intel Burn Test at the “Very High” stress level. Just like before, the X79 FTW breezed right through the stress testing without errors.
These overclocks were achieved on air cooling using the EVGA Superclock CPU cooler, and the temperatures were always well within the safe zone. There is no doubt that the combination of this CPU and the X79 FTW has a lot more left in it. In fact, we have seen many reports of 4.8Ghz to well over 5.0Ghz being achieved with this combination. Toss some water cooling into the equation, along with the overclocking results we easily achieved, and there is no reason to doubt the capabilities of the X79 FTW.
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