To be fair we don’t usually cover motherboard reviews on the front page too often, but once in a while a motherboard review happens that overclockers might actually care about, this one is great example of that. It comes from Buildzoid, the captain of /r/overclocking, a team that originates from an overclocking Reddit group. Buildzoid has a flair for technical detail that I’m sure most Overclockers would appreciate. Here’s a sample from his review of the GIGABYTE 990FX-Gaming:

“The VRM on the 990FX-Gaming is strong offering 320A to the core and 80A to the CPUNB as long as you keep the VRM cool. On LN2 that is not a problem as the LN2 pot will be cooling down the entire motherboard. However on air and watercooling the VRM will need some extra cooling because during my short testing with minimal airflow the VRM heatsink was reaching into the 90s with core voltage at 1.55V.”

“Direct airflow from a fan quickly got the temperatures under control however without it I'd expect the IR 3564's OTP to kick and either throttle the CPU or shutdown the VRM. So if you plan to bench this board with an air or water cooler I recommend you stick a fan on the VRM heatsink(which recommend for most AM3+ boards anyway). You might also want consider attaching some small heatsinks on the back side of the PCB in this area:”

Check out the full review on the Actually Hardware Overclocking blog here.