Test Setup
CPU Intel Core i5 3570K (3.40GHz) Ivy Bridge
Cooling Alpenfohn K2 – Mount Doom
Motherboard GIGABYTE Z77X-UP5TH
Memory Corsair Vengeance 8GB 2133MHz CL11 DDR
Graphics XFX R7970 Black Edition
Storage Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD
PSU OCZ Fatal1ty 750W
Cooling Alpenfohn K2 – Mount Doom
Motherboard GIGABYTE Z77X-UP5TH
Memory Corsair Vengeance 8GB 2133MHz CL11 DDR
Graphics XFX R7970 Black Edition
Storage Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD
PSU OCZ Fatal1ty 750W
Benchmarks
Cinebench 11.5 – CPU Score
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA 2012 – CPU & Memory benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks
3DMark 11 – DX11 3D Performance and Extreme preset
Games – DIRT 3, Skyrim and Battlefield 3
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA 2012 – CPU & Memory benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks
3DMark 11 – DX11 3D Performance and Extreme preset
Games – DIRT 3, Skyrim and Battlefield 3
Other Software
Core Temp
LinX stress Test
CPU-Z
LinX stress Test
CPU-Z
Overclocking
As previously mentioned in our Intel Core i5 Sandy Bridge Roundup – overclocking with Ivy Bridge is identical to Sandy Bridge. It is achieved by altering the multiplier rather than the BCLK. So the BCLK stays at 100MHz and the multiplier is modified. So if we have 100MHz on the BCLK and 40 for the multiplier this will obviously output 4GHz.
For this section of the review the maximum overclock was achieved by using the Intel Core i5 3750K and monolith CPU cooler – Alpenfohn K2 with 2x 120mm and 1x 140mm fans. We’ve seen in previous reviews how the 3570K usually responds well to a vcore of 1.40v so instead of starting at a lower frequency I pushed the Z77X-UD5H WiFi to establish the best results. 4.8GHz is the best overclock we have had with this chip and to make things realistic we never push the 3570K beyond 1.40v since this will reduce the longevity of the chip. With 48 (4.8GHz) and 1.40v the system would POST but on entry into Windows the system unfortunately locked up. I also tried altering the BLK to 102/3MHz and having the multiplier set to 47 but this resulted in a BSOD. So against my better nature I pushed the vcore up to 1.42v in an attempt to reach the milestone but this did not alter anything.
So I then nudged the frequency back to 47 (4.7GHz) and this booted no problem and was stable after a thorough test using LinX. So establishing that 4.7GHz was possible I then began nudging the voltage back but 4.7GHz required 1.4v, anything lower would just BSOD – the temperatures at full load with these settings, using LinX revealed temperatures of around 80C.
This maximum overclock will be used throughout our benchmarks – as well as stock 3570K frequency with turbo boost enabled.
