Test Setup



Benchmarks


Other Software


Overclocking

The introduction of Z87 brings a return to BCLK overclocking. This will in turn deliver more flexibility for Overclockers compared to previous generations where the BCLK was locked to 100MHz and only the ratio could be adjusted. As many of you will know, Haswell CPUs get very hot with little voltage increase therefore the flexibility and headroom for overclocking can be limited.

We managed to squeeze 4.6GHz out of the 4770K with Maximus VI Formula. We also managed to get 4.7/8GHz to boot but sadly under LinX stress test it failed after a short period of time, even with 1.4v. we tried to push for 4.7GHz which is the current stable limitation for the chip we are using but in order to maintain stability we required 1.4v which pushed the temperatures beyond 95C which we were not prepared to withstand since it can degrade the longevity of the chip. Therefore we moved to 4.6GHz, but interestingly we didn’t require as much voltage as we usually do and the minimum necessary for 4.6GHz was just 1.32v. This in return means lower temperatures when under maximum load, usually our 4.6GHz milestone will exceed 90C but not with Formula.



With the 4.6GHz overclock being our best, we will take this into our benchmark suite and test both stock and overclocked results on the subsequent pages. Our comparison results will obviously grow in the forthcoming weeks as we review more and more Z87 motherboards.