Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H (Z77) Motherboard Ivy Bridge Review

Overclocking was something we were especially keen to see, and I’m sure that we’re not the only ones, as we all want to see what the i7 3770k processor can do and how far it can be pushed, especially on the Z77 chipset, as a lot of rumours have been floating around about the new Ivy Bridge processors and how far they can be pushed.

Looking back at how far we had the i7 2700k Sandy Bridge processor, we were feeling hopeful for this board and what it could do. The i7 2700k gave us 5.2GHz at 1.528V which is a fantastic accomplishment in its own right. Sadly under Ivy Bridge, we only saw 4.9GHz at 1.425V, and wasn’t keen to push it much further for a 24/7 overclock.

We did try a few things to increase the speed, including the BCLK, which we ended up at 104.74MHz, but things didn’t want to go much further than that, without extreme voltages being used.

We have been told, that Ivy Bridge processors will tend to clock better on a clock for clock basis under LN2, when looking at the 2nd generation Sandy Bridge chips, but for water and air, we pretty much pushed it to its limits, within reason.

4.9GHz is still a good strong overclock, but we know that some people may feel let down, knowing that the magic 5GHz barrier was within sight but not quite broken.