Overclocking

Overclocking with the Gigabyte Z77X-UP7 can be difficult. It's not for the timid and I could not get true stability with some DIMMs that work fine on other boards, even though playing with memory is my most favorite thing ever. At the same time, the board reacted very well once I used the right DIMMs and actually did better than I had expected. Admittedly, I do clock with four DIMMs installed, and running just two should be easier, but I was not able to replicate memory overclocking in the same way as with other products.

I have spoken to Gigabyte about specific problems I ran into, and I was provided with a specialized BETA BIOS that is now available for download via Gigabyte's website. Although this let me run one set of my DIMMs without issue, I still feel that some improvements are needed. Fortunately, looking at what BETA BIOSes are available right this instant for the Gigabyte Z77X-UP7, I see several other revisions have taken place already, so there is no doubt that Gigabyte is actively working to get that issue resolved. Otherwise, things were great.

Even though memory overclocking was difficult, I have to say that it is clear why. The following results you are going to see were obtained with a different set of sticks than previously tested boards and, even though these sticks are fundamentally slower, the Gigabyte Z77X-UP7's performance still managed to hang out with the other boards, albeit somewhat hobbled. That, to me, is a good thing, as when it comes time to clocking, and perhaps squeezing a few more points out of a benchmark, per-clock efficiency nearly always plays a major role in how good of a result is achieved. And boy, is this board efficient. Just take a look at the results to see for yourself.

Overclocked Performance Summary

I have really changed how I do my overclock testing with motherboards. Every single test you see in the main section is repeated in the section that follows, including power consumption. As I test more products, a good picture of overclocking efficiency should emerge, which should prove interesting when it comes to those products that are 100% overclocking-oriented. I have grouped the results into sections here, and all Intel products are tested with 4.6 GHz CPU speed. Memory speeds vary depending on the platform's ability.


Power usage when overclocked was a bit higher than other products, but only marginally so. It is only a few watts behind the others even though this board features so much functionality, never mind the PLX PEX 8747 chip that is known to "run hot".

AIDA64

CPU OC Performance

3D-Oriented OC Performance