The second comparison was performed during maximum processor overclocking. This time we disabled extended processor power-saving modes in the mainboard BIOS using “C-STATE” parameter, which limited the maximum processor clock frequency multiplier setting with 22x. In this case the CPU could work at higher base clock than with 26x multiplier, which meant that we ended up with higher resulting performance although it happened at the expense of higher power consumption in idle mode. During the performance tests with overclocked CPU and memory the boards were also split into two groups. Only Asus P7P55D Deluxe, Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 and GA-P55-UD3R could overclock our processor to 3.95 GHz, while all others including Asus Maximus III Formula stopped at 3.9 GHz.
Overall, Asus Maximus III Formula performance in nominal mode and during CPU and memory overclocking is not surprising at all. The performance is mostly at the level with other mainboards with a few rare upsurges and even rarer drops. In any case, the performance difference between our hero and other testing participants in these modes is minimal.