Asrock X58 Extreme3 Review
For our test setup today we're going to be using a fairly standard setup that is probably common across most peoples systems. We could of course populate this with extremely high-end components, but as it's a motherboard based upon good value and high performance, we're following that ethos.
CPU : Intel Core i7 920 @ Stock and 4GHz OC
RAM : 6GB Corsair Dominator @ 1600MHz Stock and 1900MHz OC
GPU : XFX HD5870 XXX
PSU : OCZ Z1000M
Storage : 64GB SSD and DVD-RW Optical
OS : Windows 7 64 Bit
Motherboard : Asrock X58 Extreme3
Everest is a great suite that tests both the memory and CPU without relying too heavily on the other elements of your system. The increase we can see from the overclock is in line with what we'd expect to see and around the average for a stock system too.
When overclocking the Asrock Extreme3 there is a balancing act between going mad with the CPU but keeping the memory in check, or going mad with the memory. The insane score improvement we can see from the memory, especially in the copy test, really make us wish that we could have got it stable at its rated 2000MHz.
Sandra uses Dhrystone and Whetstone tests to rate the computational speed of the processor. Our results here are a mixed bag with the stock speed giving fairly disappointing results, and the overclocked result being quite good. Fair to middling shall we say.
The Processor Multi-Media test has the Extreme3 give a much better showing of itself. However despite our 33% increase in clockspeeds we only see around a 25% increase in the results. That's quite an overhead especially given the increased RAM speeds too.