[section_title title=Overclocking]
Overclocking
Overclocking on a miniature board is probably not the first thing on your mind as it is a design that is ultimately geared towards saving. Creating a mini ITX rig is a great way to build a machine with the smallest possible foot print while still giving you the performance of a bigger ATX (or E-ATX) motherboard. However, that’s exactly what it is like. You can get overclocks that are just as good, if not better, than a larger motherboard. The reason is simple, shorter tracks means reduced latency which means more performance. That’s the basics of it all. I’m sure many of you remember the Maximus VII Impact, ASUS’ best ITX motherboard for Z97. It was and is used for multiple records because it is just that good. I’m hoping that ASUS have transplanted the DNA of the Impact into this motherboard so that it can overclock like no one’s business, just like the Impact. Of course it takes more than just making components smaller, but let’s see how the Z70I PRO GAMING managed to overclock the Core i7-6700K of ours.
The first thing to note is that as this motherboard has a big nine phase power design, it should be able to handle a lot of heavy loading. I therefore anticipated that the voltage allowances in the BIOS would be pretty high, and that they were. Luckily, the maximum voltage that you can set is far beyond what anyone on air or water cooling would ever need. So, with that in mind, I began setting about my typical ways and pushed the CPU to its limits that had been discovered on previous motherboards. With a 47x multiplier, 1.4 volts and XMP loaded, it was time to hit F10 and boot the machine. It went straight into Windows without any issues, which is when the testing began.
I have not long finished taking a look at the ASUS Maximus VIII Hero, and I am very pleased to say that the overclocking experience that I became accustomed to on that motherboard carries straight through to the Z70I PRO GAMING. The lack of an LED poster does make pushing the boundaries a little more challenging, but it doesn’t mean that it is impossible as there is something else that comes to the rescue in the case of a failed overclock. It comes in the form of a few LED’s dotted around the motherboard which will hang in an on position if that is the component that is failing to boot. For exaple, if you push your RAM too high and it can’t boot, the DRAM LED will remain lit, and that’s what gives you a clue that it is the RAM that isn’t happy. It does make it a little more difficult for the people who are not as competent with the whole ordeal, but it can only be a set number of things that are wrong. The way to solve it is by going through a set of methodical steps which eliminate what is causing the overclock to fail.
Just like in our other reviews, I use Intel’s Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) to gauge whether or not the overclock is stable, and to gather some information about the increased performance to see how the motherboards compare against one another when under different frequency levels. Unfortunately for the Z170I PRO GAMING, it was no match for its bigger rival, the Maximus VIII Hero. While the reasons are unclear, smaller does not necessarily mean better. Optimisations are key and this benchmark really takes a hammering when the components aren’t all in tune with one another. This isn’t however a massive issue as the Z170I PRO GAMING performed well in any stretch of the imagination. The fact that it was able to maintain a full overclock without downclocking, that tells me that it should hopefully be able to take more if you’ve got a better CPU than I have here.
The maximum overclock that the Z170I PRO GAMING was able to achieve was the same as that of all of the other motherboards, and it managed to make sure that the CPU stayed at that clock without downclocking and without massive voltage fluctuations thanks to ASUS’ Load Line Calibration (LLC) options. Just like on the Hero, the LLC options go up in levels, and add 0.025 volts to your core voltage when you are using ‘level 6’ in the settings. It was easy, quick and efficient … what more could you possibly want out of a motherboard?
