Gigabyte X99 Gaming 5 (LGA 2011-3) Motherboard Review

Overclocking

We knew our Haswell-E chip could do 4.2GHz Prime95 stable but we also knew pushing a little further was possible. With Gigabyte’s X99 Gaming 5 4.5GHz was possible with 1.35 volts on the VCORE. That’s a lot of voltage given the stock voltage is around 1.05-1.15v, but it is needed to keep 4.5GHz stable. Even then, 4.5GHz was not Prime95 stable but it was stable in everything else we used during our extensive benchmarking session. With 1.35 volts things get pretty toasty, our H100i was struggling to keep things south of 80 degrees and it isn’t surprising given the Core i7 5960X at 1.35 volts has a TDP of around 250W. Just like on Z97, X99 is more CPU-limited than motherboard limited. It is sad, but when Intel starts building VRM controls onto the CPU die it will always be the case. For most X99 users it is good news because it means entry level boards like this one from Gigabyte can easily match higher end offerings that are significantly more expensive.