The Overclocker 9 (Special Edition) is out now!

Hi all,

Issue 9 is with us. It's a bit different in that the main feature is an academic, scientific study on overclocking. It won't be for everybody, but all skill levels should be able to learn something. I'd be interested in what you think???

Because of it's size, a few regualr sections are missing but we do have the following...

We 'interview' Team PURE

Look at overclocking in India, thanks to Harshal

Interview Deanzo - without mentioning sheep or any Kiwi stereotyping whatsoever.

Youngpro also examines H55, Clarkdale and tests the heck out of SATA 3.

Hope you like!

Link is here... Issue 9


Bestest,

Nick

http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/6250/cover9.jpg

Cooooolll gonna read it in the next few minutes \O/ !

Excellent review of motherboard power circuitry in the article "OVERCLOCKING MOTHERBOARDS THE SCIENTIFIC WAY" on pages 12-33. It's a rare sight these days for someone to do such an in depth test.

Gigabyte boards look to have best overall mix of efficiency and performance against some admirable competition in EVGA, ASUS, DFI & MSI

Some quotes from the conclusion:

“Gigabyte puts “durable” in the name of the motherboard and has designed its systems for higher efficiency to keep temperatures down. At 24 phases, the Gigabyte EX58A-UD7 had the highest efficiency at overclocked current levels of 100A and above. Both Gigabyte boards offer good performance and good efficiency at the expense of complexity. The CPU power circuitry in both Gigabyte boards is significantly larger than other tested boards, with the exception of the Asus board, which is similarly large.

Asus also catered to the overclocking community when designing the Rampage II Extreme, and the board does fairly well overall, falling just behind the Gigabyte EX58A-UD5 in terms of performance and efficiency.”

…........…

“The better performing boards, the Gigabyte EX58A-UD7, EVGA Classified 760 and ASUS II Rampage Extreme were more stable when overclocking, allowing for higher speeds.
The best overclocking board, the Gigabyte EX58A-UD5 turned out to be more stable with our processor at the highest speed measured, allowing for a 4.426GHz clock with air cooling. Overall, this board had a good showing in the transient testing, one of the highest efficiencies over the whole useful range, and gave the best overclocking results, so it is the clear winner of this test.”

I like :D :up:

By far and away the best publication on voltage regulation I have seen condensed into a singularly useful style. Massively great job here.

nice review of the ram, only thing that made me queezy was the busted up toe on the last page:shock2: :up:

lol - I made it into the issue!

try and find me - same day avatar photo was taken ;)

Amazing motherboard test, really great work! :up:

@TGE: I found you already! :D The pic was taken during the meeting at kingpin's place, right?

Really great motherboard comparison, indeed. Just a bit odd UD5 came on top over UD7.

Awesome magazine man...:cool:

Good job im impressed :clap:

excellent article there about the mobos! Confirms a lot of my own, non - scientific findings, without me ever having been sure on the whys...this test answers a lot of questions!

But I want to add, that even though I 100% agree that the Gigabyte EX58's boards are THE best OVERALL motherboards out there - I want to note that under XTREME conditions, the EVGA Classified can push to limits that no other board can, at least the boards that I have "played" with. Air and easy sub-ambient temps - the Gigabyte EX58s truly shine brightly! LN2 the EVGA rules in terms of max CPU clocks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zalbard

Really great motherboard comparison, indeed. Just a bit odd UD5 came on top over UD7.

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I believe there is still a bit of variation even within the same model boards, and maybe that's why some results might be slightly skew'd. But overall I think this review hits the just of things.

Allright! Thanks alot Nick!

Thanks a bunch. Great read!

great article, i have one minor suggestion, the charts starting on page 22 are obviously done with excel since its close to the standard format, i think spending 5-10 minutes playing around with colors and shapes and shadows and other crap can really make the difference, and help you come to your own standard theme that people will eventually recognize as yours.

Each issue better than the last. Thank you.

Sweet, so with the UD5 you will get better overclocked results over the UD7 _AND_ you save some money in the process? Sounds good to me!

Great work as usual guys!

Also who is that in the picture? I rate it an A+

Read in the article about country OC ratings where is this list of country rankings?

I'm glad you guys liked it. I wish I had more time to work on it to include ln2 testing (I did some, but things were inconsistent and boards were finicky).