Overclocking
What use is the world's fastest consumer processor if you can't make it the world's fastest and then some?
And that's a key point for a few reasons. Certain second-generation Sandy Bridge chips on an accompanying P67 platform are known to have plenty of overclocking headroom, but the process is limited to K-series parts and even then, you can forget about attempting to crank up the base clock - it's little more than a boost-the-multiplier experience.
X58 provides considerably more room to manoeuvre on all fronts, letting the user fine-tune and tweak both CPU and memory speeds. A bit of a futile exercise on a chip as fast as this? Perhaps, but if you've made a hobby of overclocking you may find yourself clinging to the platform.
Looking specifically at the Core i7 990X Extreme Edition, which remember is now Intel's only multiplier-unlocked hexa-core processor, we were able to quickly and easily hit a stable 4.5GHz by applying a little extra voltage (1.35V) and upping the multiplier to 34x.
The 990X is bundled with an impressive DBX-B heatsink and fan (previously available only with the 980X) but users with more elaborate cooling solutions will almost certainly strike a balance between base clock and multiplier that results in speeds in excess of 5GHz.
With our healthy 4.5GHz overclock in place, we see an instant jump in performance:
