1st Test

In our first test, each motherboard must achieve the highest overclocking speed with all BIOS settings left at Auto. This means it is up to each motherboard to calculate voltages in order to have an absolutely stable system at the maximum overclocking speeds. Memory dividers and memory/FSB/MCH voltages are also left at Auto. In other words, it's the easiest overclocking approach (for the user) you can achieve.

For this test, we used a retail Intel E6600 with it's CPU multiplier locked at x9 and raised the FSB until we got a perfectly stable system (Orthos2004+PovRay running). An additional 8cm rotating fan was used to help with the cooling.

Both the Asus Blitz Extreme and Biostar TP35DE-A7 Deluxe produced more or less the same overclocking processor speed with Auto settings. The Asus P5K3 Deluxe WiFi was faster with 3.510GHz.

2nd Test

Apart from the maximum overclocking speed, we have to find the maximum possible FSB frequency with our CPU. Again, all BIOS settings were left at Auto and the CPU multiplier was dropped down to 6x. Memory timings and dividers are also left at auto. An additional 8cm rotating fan was used to help with the cooling.

The Asus P5K3 Deluxe WiFi was the top performer in this comparison. The Asus Blitz Extreme is very close behind with 480MHz, while the Biostar TP35DE-A7 Deluxe achieved 450MHz.

3rd Test

Our final overclocking test is to find out how good each motherboard is at overclocking memory. In this test, we used one pair of SuperTalent DDR3-1600CL7 dual memory (2x1GB) with following settings:

• Timings: 8-8-8-24-2T
• Voltage: 2.25V
• FSB:DRAM divider: 1:2
• Additional 8cm rotating fan
• All other BIOS settings left Auto

Raising the FSB, we tested for stability. Both Asus boards easily reached 1850MHz with CL8, while the Biostar TP35DE-A7 Deluxe was slower at 1560MHz.

- Overclocking stability

The Asus Blitz Extreme proved to be a good overclocking performer in this roundup. Just like the P5K3 Deluxe, it will POST after an overclocking failure and will prompt the user to load default settings. On the other hand, the Biostar TP35DE-A7 Deluxe showed a mixed image. Sometimes we were able to POST, sometimes not. In which case we had to manually clear the CMOS and try again. We also noticed that while 450MHz FSB is the ceiling, with some memory dividers, the top FSB was limited to 390MHz. We hope that Biostar will improve the overclocking stability of the motherboard with a future BIOS update.