Gigabyte G1 Assassin Review

Test Setup

Both of our test setups were identical except for a CPU and a GPU change which I’ll get to in a second.

Gigabyte G1-Assassin X58 Motherboard
Intel Core i7-950 @ stock and overclocked. Also Intel Core i7-980X @ 4.8GHz
12GB Corsair Vengeance. 3x4GB @ 1600 7-8-7-24
Zotac GTX580 AMP! Single card @ stock, SLI @ 900MHz Core
2x256GB Kingston V+ in Raid 0
XSPC Rasa 750 Water-cooling Kit
Mushkin Joule 1200w PSU

As you can see from our test specifications this is very different from our normal OC3D bench rig setup which has left us with a bit of a quandary as to what to compare it to. We really haven’t run a similar specification system and so what we’re gonna do is run the i7-950 tests like we normally do, but also dig the monster i7-980X and pair it up with the Zotac GTX580s in SLI to really see what you can do with almost unlimited cash.

Because of the rather unique nature of the testing today we aren’t putting it against a single system throughout all the graphs, but against a few different things. So pay attention.

Overclocking

Starting off as we always do by seeking the highest BCLK available we find the Assassin is exceptionally good, giving us a 220MHz BCLK.

With a rather serious 1.55v on the vCore the Assassin helps our i7-950 up to a monstrous 4.6GHz.

      

Of course 1.55v is a bit high to run as a 24/7 overclock so backing things off to 1.44v on the CPU Core we end up with a clock speed of 4.5GHz.

This is all kept nice and cool with the XSPC water-cooling doing a sterling job. The maximum core temperature reached a relatively cool 78°C. Given that this is a Prime95 temperature it shows how well the XSPC Rasa 750 works.

      

The other CPU we’re using today is the Core i7-980X, and the Gigabyte G1.Assassin gives us the highest overclock we’ve achieved from this processor of a spectacular 4.8MHz.

If it’s processor records that the Assassin is aiming at then it’s hitting nothing but bullseyes.