MSI X58 Platinum Review

The i7 runs at 2.66GHz and only needs around 1v to work at this frequency, a pretty impressive feat. Getting it up to 3GHz was simple enough, all it took was to bump the base clock up from 133 to 150MHz. Then things started to get a bit complicated and required some, actually a lot, of trial and error. Since I am using a processor with a locked multiplier I started by decreasing it and finding the highest stable BCLK. The highest I could hit was 215MHz, although it was only stable up to 204MHz. The MSI board dealt reasonably well with failed overclocks, it would turn on for about ten seconds and then shutdown and so on until I manually shut it down and turned it back on myself. Never did I have to make use of that nifty clear CMOS button on the back. Now that I knew how high the board could clock and already knowing the limits of the RAM, I set off to find out how high the MSI X58 Platinum could drive the i7 920. Tweaking core and QPI voltage properly was absolutely necessary to make the overclock stable. I needed +0.18V on the processor and another +0.15 on the QPI link, any more than that and temperatures got out of control, but it was enough to get a not too shabby 3.646GHz overclock. The memory modules we're kept at 1212MHz 7-7-7-20 and the other voltages were left on the Auto setting.