Introduction

When a new processor makes its way into my testbed, I like to take the time to see what kind of performance increase the overclock we use day in and day out gives us when compared to its stock speed.

With our new GIGABYTE EX58-UD5, I've taken the time to have a bit of a play and find a rock solid speed that can be used for many graphics card reviews over the coming months.

Being the optimist I am, I thought I would go straight to 4.2GHz (hey, it's worth a try) and while it got into Windows without too much drama, firing up prime found us quickly greeted with a BSOD. Dropping to 4GHz increased stability, but since the system must be 100% stable, a further drop to 3.8GHz was the perfect point.

So, with that all said and done let's have a closer look at our testbed today and see what kind of performance difference we get when moving our i7 920 from 2.67GHz all the way up to 3.8GHz.