MAINGEAR Vybe Gaming PC Review – Intel Core i7-6700K & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti

Vybe Z170 I7-6700K Overclocking

MAINGEAR offers a service that will overclock a system to it’s fullest potential. They are specifically trained in how to squeeze the most performance out of a system. We asked them not to overclock the Vybe so we could evaluate the ease of overclocking the Intel i7-6700K. We began by doing a simple overclock by adjusting the Multiplier, at the base settings it was perfectly stable at multiplier 46x (4.6Ghz) and some crashes at 47x (4.7Ghz). At this point, we adjusted the CPU voltage to until we were able to complete all benchmarks without any issues. At 1.39V, the system was once again 100% stable, and we were able to complete all benchmarks and gaming tests without any issues. Further overclocking might be possible with some other tweaks, however we wanted to keep the overclocking as simple as possible.

FireStrike Ultra is the most intensive of the 3DMark tests, designed for 4K gaming. While the CPU was overclocked, we received a score of 4082, which is a 144 point increase in performance compared to the base clock. 3DMark doesn’t show much of an improvement when overclocking the CPU, with only a 3.6% increase.

Testing Cinebench R15 we begin to see an advantage in overclocking. Going from a score of 925 at stock speeds to 1028 when overclocked to 4.7Ghz that provides us an 11% boost in performance for Cinebench.

Overclocking the CPU makes a difference with the X264 HD Encoding Benchmark. At 4.0GHz, we received 99.215FPS, at 4.7GHz that increased to 111.83FPS; close to a 13% increase in performance. The 2nd pass received a 22.15FPS while overclocked, compared to the 20.355FPS at base clock speed; an 8.8% performance boost.

Taking a look at POV-RAY while the CPU was overclocked, we found that it received a score of 2217.92PPS. Approximately 321PPS difference between the two tests; around a 17% difference in performance.

Overclocking Results: The MAINGEAR Vybe Z170, using the MSI Z170A KRAIT Gaming motherboard, and the Intel i7-6700K was easily overclocked to 4.7GHz. Doing some fine tuning, further overclocking should be possible. Of course results will vary depending on a number of other factors. This is where MAINGEAR’s overclocking service comes in, they know how to fine tune the system to squeeze every little drop of performance out of it. If purchasing a processor capable of overclocking, there is no reason not to use the capability and get an additional 10% and 20% performance.