Test setup and Overclocking
Test setup
Corsair H100i
Intel Core I7 4770k CPU
MSI Z97 Gaming AC
MSI R9 290X Gaming Edition
Kingston HyperX Predator 2400Mhz
Corsair AX860i
Above is the hardware we will be working with. We haven’t reviewed a lot of boards, but we will be doing a direct comparison between the new MSI Gaming 9 AC and our test bench board (Gigabyte Z87X-OC). We also did our tests with different settings,including Stock/Auto, XMP and then finally overclocked. Below is a breakdown of the settings for each test that will be included in the graphs.
Stock/Auto
Our stock/auto settings are aimed basically taking the parts and slapping them together and not touch any bios settings (bar booting options) This is a straight baseline performance for the board and what it will offer with the 4770k without touching the settings.
XMP
The XMP test is where we simply get the RAM running at its rated speed. For this instance we have Kingston Hyper X Predator 2,400MHz RAM. As we can see above, the RAM is running at those speeds ( 1,200MHZ x 2).
Overclocked
We managed to get our 4770k up to a nice stable 4.6GHz running @1.3v. Just to note, we could only get 4.5GHz with the same amount of volts on the Gigabyte board with the same chip. So straight away we can see a cleaner and more stable power getting to the CPU and better overclocks because of it.
4. Test Setup and Overclocking
