A clean socket area is the hallmark of an outright overclocking board, and the X99-SOC Force doesn’t disappoint. Both high-end coolers and extreme setups with evaporator pots will be inconvenienced more by the choice of RAM than the area nearest the socket thanks to a dearth of tall capacitors, and as usual the Haswell-E CPU will reward these sorts of cooling solutions.

The new LGA2011-3 socket standard is near identical to prior LGA2011 sockets. The twin levers on the v.3 are angled slightly which may look a little odd but helps upon CPU installation. If you are familiar with this type of socket installation should pose no problems, however the relatively high clamping force means that those new to Intel's enthusiast platform would do well to peruse the manual beforehand to prevent bent pins and broken. GIGABYTE make use of the standard LGA2011-3 socket on the X99-SOC Force rather than a bespoke design as seen on the ASUS boards.



A quick comparison of the pad arrangement of the i7-5960X against the i7-4960X. GIGABYTE’s X99-SOC Force can’t access the additional pads on the i7-5960X but it remains to be seen how much this will affect its overclocking potential.