Author: TheMadDutchDude

In the past, when you were chasing after world records, the motherboard played a vital part in the efforts to get you there. It had to have the right specifications in many areas such as the CPU and RAM power circuitry and it had to have a strong North Bridge (wow, old school!) in order to be able to maintain high frequencies. Due to there no longer being a North Bridge on todays’ Intel motherboards, as it is all built into the CPU, it eliminates the motherboard being something which could hold you back. Sure, if it lacks in the VRM department, you’ll struggle to attain anything, but most X99 motherboards are equipped to go the distance.

When it comes to picking a board, many opt for the most reputable from previous a generation. It is therefore no surprise that the ASUS Rampage V Extreme tops the charts with almost three times the amount of results compared to the next ranked motherboard that is the MSI X99S SLI Plus. Dominating the charts by a considerable distance, the Rampage V Extreme is accountable for 35.40% of all X99 results which is huge when you consider that the X99S SLI Plus is at 13.31%. That’s a 22.09% difference between the top two motherboards currently in use at HWBOT. The EVGA X99 Classified is a close third at 12.26%, and the rest speaks for itself in the chart below.

At the time this was written, there were 10851 overclocking results which have been submitted by a total of 720 overclockers. Out of the 39 motherboards from five manufacturers that are currently on the market, 36 motherboards have been used to produce some stunning results.

The most commonly used motherboard for LN2 users is without doubt the ASUS Rampage V Extreme. The GIGABYTE X99-SOC Champion is quickly becoming a favourite amongst extreme overclockers, or so it seems, but it is hard to tell as it isn’t available on a global scale yet. The ASRock X99 OC Formula is next on the list which is followed by the GIGABYTE X99 SOC Force. To finish off, the MSI X99S XPower AC is the final contender on our list of five motherboards.

It’s probably no surprise that the Intel Core i7-5960X is the most popular CPU on the X99 platform as it provides users with an unlocked 8 core 16 thread beast to tear through multithreaded 2D benchmarks and the physics aspect of 3D benchmarks. The Core i7-5820K is a six core chip which is the cheapest of Intel’s X99 CPU product line, and it has proven itself popular who want to get on to the X99 wagon but cannot afford the near triple cost of the i7-5960X. Bizarrely, one of the most expensive CPUs to ever hit the market is fourth on our list, and it is the Xeon E5 2698 V3 – a 16 core 32 thread server chip which would set you back a wallet stinging $3300+ if you can find a retailer. Fifth on the list is the Xeon E5 2687W V3 which has 10 cores and 20 threads.

Whether you’re an enthusiast, rookie or extremist, you want to make sure that your CPU(s) remain cool enough to avoid a meltdown. When we are pushing extreme clock speeds, there’s nothing quite like Liquid Nitrogen, which accounts for 15.16% of X99 submissions, to take the heat away. Well, there’s always Liquid Helium (LHe), but LN2 is the most common one due to a variety of reasons – think extremely flammable and expensive to get you started. The most common way to cool an Intel X99 system according to our records is with Custom Water Cooling. Over half of the submissions seen on HWBOT.org are done with water cooled systems, 60.00% in fact. That leaves us with three on the list. They are the Single Stage users who make up 10.64% of the results, the Air Cooling users which count for 9.34% of the submissions and of course our newly added All-In-One water coolers which make up the remaining 2.09% of cooling methods on the Intel X99 platform.

It’s time for some statistics about our overclockers and teams! There’s one member on HWBOT who holds over 10% of the Haswell-E results all by himself. He goes by the name of NATA 58 (1160 results). It almost goes without saying that his team, HW Legend OC (1399 results), has the most results on out of any team at the moment. It is the United States (2375 results) who currently hold the most Haswell-E results in the country rankings. That’s hardly surprising, though, given that the USA has the largest amount of overclockers in the world.

An overclocker from the Australian planes going by the name of Dinos22 has used the most CPUs as a single user. He has used 4 CPUs thus far. The team who has used the most LGA 2011-3 CPUs is currently Overclock.net (go team!) with 7 CPUs to their name. The record for the most CPUs used goes to Australia again with 6 CPUs being used.

Given that this article started out as a motherboard statistics page, it only feels right to end it on such a note too. A Romanian overclocker called Bruno has currently used the most Intel X99 motherboards. He holds 5 mainboards to his name which is very close to the two teams Australia and Overclock.net who both hold 8 mainboards each. However, now we can go back to the United States who has used a grand total of 28 mainboards out of the 36 that are currently on the market.

Haswell-E is still a relatively new product to the consumer, so we expect these numbers to continually change. For now, though, this is the current outlook on HWBOT.org. Perhaps the cheaper GIGABYTE X99-SOC Champion or the ASRock X99 OC Formula will surpass the ASUS Rampage V Extreme in time to come, but no one can be certain.

Source: HWBOT forum