Overclocking an Intel C2D/Quad processor is not very easy and a good motherboard could make a huge difference. For our tests, we decided to follow the easiest overclocking procedure, leaving the voltage settings in the Auto mode and pushing each motherboard as high as we can. Each motherboard has to make its own adjustments and give us the highest possible result.

In the first test, the Gigabyte P45-DS3R got the second place with 3.262GHz following the Asus Blitz Formula. Using manual voltage settings could further improve the overclocking margins.

Let' s now see the maximum FSB achieved with a Quad Core processor.

The Gigabyte EP45-DS3R had an impressive 450MHz top roof with the Intel Q9300 processor. Remember that all settings were left to auto, using manual settings could further improve performance.

- Overclocking stability

In general the Gigabyte EP45-DS3R showed a very good behavior, being able to post back after a bad overclocking attempt. Of course you have to turn off the PSU and power back to achieve this. There are not any on-board CMOS reset buttons, like the ones you will find in other much higher-priced models. The Easy Tune 6 software makes your life very easy, since you can control almost all settings under Windows.

However, every time we overclocked under Windows, the system locked. The solution to this was to slightly pre-overclocked the system under the system BIOS. Then, the Easy Tune 6 software worked great even at very high frequencies.