Overclocking

Overclocking with the ASUS P9X79_Deluxe was very easy indeed, with the ASUS P9X79 Deluxe board outclocking our ECS sample by a full 200 MHz. We were also able to push our memory further, all the way up to 2400 MHz, but stress testing proved that combined with the memory high 2400 MHz clocks, the system would enter thermal throttle, but still remained stable. Lowering the memory speed to 2133 MHz fixed the throttle issue, as this allowed us to lower both the System Agent and VTT voltages back to their stock settings.

Overclocked Performance Summary

Cinebench provided a substantial performance increase when over clocked, something that resounds true through the entire series of Intel-based products.


Likewise, SuperPi 32m results proved the same as Cinebench, with substantial performance increases that are also noticed on previous Intel platforms, but the SB-E CPU core design does limit the increases available in SuperPi.


WPrime 1024M numbers further the results, showing that there is true power available when overclocking the ASUS P9X79 Deluxe, dropping the final result by a full 30 seconds when overclocked.


For a bit of 3D action we fired up CodeMaster's F1 2010 to be impressed with the performance boost offered compared to the other products. This does highlight that finally, with the Intel X79 platform offering quad-channel memory support, we are already at near optimal performance in this application, even at stock, while with P67 and Z68 products, we managed to notice quite significant gains in 3D performance that is just not noticed here, as the end result did not even increase by a full FPS. With that, we can say that the Intel X79 Express platform, at stock, is enough to push Codemaster's titles to the max, which is pretty impressive, to say the least.


With Codemaster's F1 2010 starting to show it's age, and proving less reliable in showing performance increases, we've added the Shogun 2 DirectX 9 CPU benchmark to our testing suite. In the months to come, it will get added to the main testing section, but for now, it does show a very large increase in performance when run on the overclocked ASUS P9X79 Deluxe, being highly sensitive to single-threaded CPU performance. The final result increased by almost 50%, much higher than we had expected.