Various DDR3 memory kits are often marketed for setting some kind of MHz record. Even video cards carry the overclock (OC) moniker, yet most users don’t really do that with them. But every motherboard seems to advertise overclocking, yet only GIGABYTE hasn’t shied away from this extremely niche market. That’s why they’ve stepped it up by introducing the X58A-OC. It’s a board that is marketed straight to extreme overclockers and excels whether using air, water, or liquid nitrogen for cooling. The goal with this board is to help you overclock the living juice out of your Intel Core i7 LGA1366 processor.
Features and Specifications
The features that power the X58A-OC are what give the board its heart and soul. It uses one of the most efficient VRM component designs in the industry. The board’s orange and black theme are just the crazy icing on a highly overclockable cake, chosen by GIGABYTE’s own in house overclocking champion, Hi Cookie. Yes, that is indeed the man’s name.
In order to give you a close look at this very extreme board, we’ve got another one of our excellent video overviews for you to check out. Grab a Red Bull and tune in below…
While it might seem like the board is a little light on rear IO ports, it wasn’t created to provide a full-on everyday desktop computing solution. This is a race car, not a daily driver. That is something to really keep in mind when if you intend to pick this board up to use for high end gaming or if you simply want to have something that the pros use. You’ll definitely want to find a worthy audio card at the minimum if you intend to put this to use as your main rig. On that note, you’ll also need to cough up $359 US to play, which puts it into GIGABYTE’s G1-Killer Assassin territory, which includes your high end audio, network and other gaming specific bells and whistles.
The goal of our review will be quite simple: Overclock the X58A-OC and see where it takes our Intel Core i7-980XE processor as well as the DDR3 memory. Let’s get down to the configuration system brass tax.
Test System Configuration
The X58A-OC is meant to handle any kind of LGA 1366 Intel processor including the hex-cores with all their pimped out Hyper Threading. While it would no doubt easily take four physical cores to the limit, it just seems more of a statement if we use to use a hexa-core instead. Here’s what has been assembled.
- Processor: Intel Core i7-990XE Gulftown
- Motherboard 1: GIGABYTE X58A-OC (as tested)
- Motherboard 2: GIGABYTE X58A-UD5
- Memory 1: Kingston HyperX 6GB 2250MHz DDR3
- Memory 2: Patriot Memory Division 2 6GB 2000MHz DDR3
- Graphics: ZOTAC Geforce NVIDIA GTX 580
- Storage 1: Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATAII
- Storage 2: Patriot Memory Inferno 120GB SSD
- CPU Cooling 1: Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler (Air)
- CPU Cooling 2: Koolance Exos 2.5 w/CPU-360 Cooling Block (Water)
- Power Supply: Antec Tough Power Quattro 1200 Watt
- OS: Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
Since the CPU needs to stay the coolest at all times, the beast of a Noctua CPU air cooler and Koolance water cooling were chosen. The Koolance also happens to be a higher flow system which does well for carrying away heat that will undoubtedly be produced by the CPU. The only thing we have not touched on is Liquid Nitrogen or LN2 for short, which is typically not a method available to users at home. One of the purposes of this review is to make sure we give home users a good idea of what they get when they do step up to something of this calibre with methods that they can get a hold of.
Benchmark Suite
The primary goal here is to see how well the board overclocks since that’s its sole purpose of being. We’ll be using a few software and gaming benchmarks commonly used that show tangible performance results. A couple have no purpose, but are used within the gaming and overclocking communities for bragging rights. That means we’ll be using Cinebench R11.5, 3DMark11, PiFast, and SuperPi.
Overclocking
I started off overclocking the system using just the Auto VCore CPU voltage setting to see how it manages itself. The top stable OC was 4.5GHz. That’s pretty decent given that most boards are tuned a little more conservatively when using hex cores. The UD5 starts choking at 4.3GHz. Each boards’ results were identical regardless of using air and water cooling.
Next, I applied a solid 1.5 volts VCore with the least amount of voltage droop and a slight PLL/VTT increase. The result was 4.8GHz on the X58A-OC and 4.6GHz with the UD5. Again, the results were the same regardless of the cooling method. This tells us the OC board is definitely better tuned for frequency scaling. Of course, each board could take the CPU a little farther in some benchmarks, but neither were quite 3DMark11 stable using this locked voltage.
Something to keep in mind is that plenty of OC fanatics don’t care if it’s completely 100% stable and often go looking for the hairy edge SuperPi and/or CPUZ validation results just for bragging rights. The board was able to hit 4.9GHz, but it wasn’t able to finish benchmarks. I believe my 990X ES could be the weak link. Still, the OC board could very well have the most logical BIOS settings meant for doing nothing other than overclocking.
CineBench R11.5 – Single and Multi-Core Tests
Since this is an all CPU intensive benchmark, the overclock result is pretty clear. If you’re willing to feed your CPU more than 1.5 volts, you’ll reach near 12 on the multicore test. On LN2, you’ll make our score look silly, but may also be looking for a new board after if you do the single use “hero run”.
3DMark11 – Performance Settings
The OC’s ability to overclock higher helps the system move faster and faster down the 3D pipeline as the CPU frequency goes up. The increase is pretty noticeable in the results. Again, on LN2 or Phase Change cooling, you’ll push some much higher scores.
SuperPi
While not a very popular benchmark among reviers, SuperPi is however popular amongst the overclocking community. It’s a simple calculation that utilizes a huge bulk of the CPU’s performance. The lower the times, the better the score.
Naturally, it’s expected to see the times drop as more and more frequency is forced out of the CPU. While we’re looking for the fastest time from overclocking the CPU, the score can heavily be influenced by memory frequencies as well. This score was achieved with 2000MHz DDR3 at CAS 8 timings.
WPrime
Again, this benchmark is used heavily among the overclocking community. It is fully multicore capable and contains a range of work loads that measures CPU performance in decimal time tables. The lower the time, the better the score.
This benchmark was a little pickier on the stability of the CPU. After some simple tweaks, the results are very evidence that the OC board is much better tuned. Frequencies ramp up much quicker when working with the board.
Sisoft SANDRA – CPU Math & Media Benchmark
SANDRA is a huge synthetic benchmark used by some high end engineers. It will test just about everything within a computer or server right down to the network. We’re using the CPU benchmarks here to show you what higher frequencies offer.
Fast doesn’t quite say it when compared to another board alone. My once favorite X58A-UD5 just doesn’t have the heart and circuits of the X58A-OC. These are impressive scores to say the least.
Bad Company 2
Even though this is a crazy cool overclocking platform, it runs video games perfectly fine if not better. Frame rates are extremely smooth and down right fanatical even with the highest possible graphics and driver settings. One could easily game and get their clock rates on with the X58A-OC.
Power Consumption
Given the purpose of the motherboard, it seems a little moot to present you with the consumption observed in the lab. However, even with the highly tuned VRM and PWM components, the X58A-OC still doesn’t consume much more power. This is a testament to the detail put in to its design and implementation. The G1-Killer Assassin actually consumes more power to put a little more perspective on it. This is likely due to the extra bells and whistles like the Killer Networking and Creative audio solution.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
The GIGABYTE X58A-OC is an overclocking work of art. Its design, while not typical of GIGABYTE’s regular colour palette, is unique for a serious full sized ATX motherboard. This was likely the work of our overclocking friend, Hi Cookie. The VRM speaks volumes to the engineering and planning put into its construction. The HI-C caps and driver MOSFET circuitry are of the highest quality. They sit so low, it will be extremely easy for LN2 and Phase Change overclockers to prep the board for some fanatical high voltage, extreme frequency overclocking.
The X58A-OC is designed to make it super easy to use inside and especially outside any computer cases. There’s extra power ports to help offload any potential voltage burdens that might arise as you go searching for a world record. However, you may not find the IO sufficient if you need analog audio ports for day to day use. As a platform for users who want to game, you’ll want to add a decent audio card, maybe even gaming oriented networking, which steers you right toward’s GIGABYTE’s own G1-Killer series at around the same price point. More mainstream users may consider GIGABYTE’s X58A-UD7 motherboard which offers even a bit more headroom than our UD5.
Here’s the heart breaker. The X58A-OC has only been shipped in extremely limited quantities as GIGABYTE continues to scale back for future chipsets. If you happen to buy one of these rare gems from places like Amazon or Newegg, you’ll be shelling out close to $359 US/CA to own what is arguably the extreme overclocking standard. That’s why it earns our “High Performance Award” for an all out assault on overclocked performance.
Pros
- Engineering work of art
- Highly capable, stand alone overclocking platform
- Nearly unlimited tweakable BIOS settings
- Extremely overclockable
- Unquestionable high quality
Cons
- Extremely limited availability
- Limited audio ports for gamers
Overall Rating: 9.5 / 10.0
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GIGABYTE X58A-OC LGA1366 ATX Extreme Overclocking Motherboard – Photo Gallery
