Benchmarks: Overclocking
Our conversations with industry partners suggests that Core i9-7900X overclocking potential varies significantly from one sample to another. Our chip is doing well and manages 4.7GHz across all cores, though it's worth noting that while the same speed was achieved using 1.24V on the Asus Prime X299-A, the MSI X299 SLI Plus required 1.27V to maintain stability.
X299 as a platform offers good overclocking potential, and both of the motherboards on show had no trouble running our Corsair memory using the built-in 3,200MHz XMP profile. The only caveat is that Core i9-7900X becomes hot and hungry when voltage is increased. Our chip could possibly go higher with 1.3V, but temperature soars to 100°C, resulting in unwanted throttling.