TEST SETUP

Cooling NZXT Kraken X62
Motherboard ASUS PRIME X299-A
Memory 32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz
Graphics Radeon RX 480 8GB
Storage Kingston HyperX 240GB
PSU Corsair RM 1000 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU
Monitor AOC U2879VF
Capture Device Epiphan AV.iO 4K

BENCHMARKS

Cinebench R15 – CPU/OpenGL Score
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA – CPU & Memory benchmarks
POV-RAY – CPU benchmarks
TrueCrypt – CPU benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks & Memory
PCMark 8 – Home Suite & Photoshop
3DMark FireStrike – 3D Benchmark
Games – Rise of the Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER

OTHER SOFTWARE

Temperature Analysis: RealTemp
Stress Testing Software: AIDA64 Stability Test
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Performance Monitoring: MSI Afterburner

OVERCLOCKING

Much like previous generations of Intel platforms, the X299/LGA2066 allows us to apply overclocks to unlocked processors easily. Many variables can be adjusted including BCLK and ratios.

Our current record for the best overclock with Core i7-7740X is 5.2GHz. Unfortunately, sadly the ASUS board was only able to achieve 4.8GHz. To reach this point we had to modify the CPU voltage to 1.34v. Moving beyond 1.34v (regardless of the temperature) prevented us from nudging beyond 4.8GHz – nevertheless this is still a reasonable result.

For a look at the ASUS BIOS, please check out the next page for a video tour of the interface.