Overclocking and power-draw
Bumping up the voltage to 1.4V in the BIOS and increasing the multiplier until failure, we managed an easy-as-pie overclock to 4GHz. Remember, the processor was kept in check by an AKASA AK-965 cooler, and we're adamant that it would go comfortably higher with, say, watercooling.
Here are our DivX, CINEBENCH and Quake 4 benchmarks with the overclocked QX9770 thrown in for good measure.
The extra clockspeed provides around 25 per cent extra performance, clearly.
Power-draw
Our look at the QX9650 highlighted the under-load power-saving benefits of the 45nm Penryn over the 65nm Kentsfield core - around 40W on a clock-for-clock basis.
The combination of extra clockspeed and voltage for our engineering-sample QX9770 gives back most of the power gains. But who really cares about a few watts at this end of the market?
