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The ECS Z170-CLAYMORE uses very standard Turbo profiling at default. Should you seek a bit more performance, adjusting things in the BIOS is most definitely possible, although your options might not be as comprehensive as with some other products.

Automated Overclocking

I am not impressed with ECS's advertised auto-clocking routine. Setting 1.5V+ and a custom turbo profile to the CPU that varies from 4.4 GHZ to 4.9 GHz based on load might allow a fair number of chips to reach these clocks, but the voltage is so high it might cause damage to your precious CPU. I do not recommend using it.


That said, I did run some benchmarks, and my own chip did survive since the CPU dropped to 4.4 GHz under high loads, or, at times, even lower due to thermal throttle. This is rather interesting since ECS might have set it so high that throttle initiates long before the voltage can do any damage, which may keep the current load on the chip low. But that doesn't feel very reassuring to me!