Gigabyte has taken advantage of the new Core i7 architecture to demonstrate the performances made possible with this new processor technology (even though the product will only be available from mid-November), combining it with the new motherboards based on the Intel X58 chispet. They managed to reach the 5GHz mark in overclocking and beat 3D Mark’s world record.

In order to reach that mark, an Intel Core i7 965 processor was used. The processor was the best version on the new series, belonging to the “Extreme Edition” label and hence without no frequency multiplier block. Gigabyte used a EX58-UD5 motherboard, which isn’t even among the best X58 motherboard series. For the graphic section, Gigabyte used 3 NVidia GeForce GTX280 connected in TripleSLI mode.

The frequency reached by the processor, in overclocking, was 5016MHz, with a 33x multiplier, 1.52V voltage (standard 1.172V) and CPU bus at 152MHz. This CPU’s standard frequency is 3.2GHz. The RAM was set into a 1.888V voltage value (standard 1.5V), and the graphic cards had a 710Hmz GPU frequency and 1230MHz RAM frequency (Standard were 602MHz and 1107MHz respectively).

Configured in this way, the system was tested with the 3DMark Vantage benchmark, and it obtained 32884 points (GPUScore), while the CPU registered 29572 (CPU Score), for a combined result of P31998. It was, indeed, a world record with 3DMark Vantage.