So, will we be able to replicate the same overclocking results on MSI X48 Platinum mainboard? We tried, and we failed. Theoretically, we could make the board work with our CPU at 455MHz FSB and even passed the tests, but during system rebooting the board would often loop and sometimes report CPU over-overclocking. So, it is hardly possible to use the processor in this work mode. So, after our numerous attempts we had to admit that the maximum Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocking achieved on MSI X48 Platinum was 450MHz FSB, which is 4.05GHz clock frequency.

The next screenshot proves that power-saving technologies do work on MSI X48 Platinum even during overclocking. It shows that the processor core voltage, unlike frequency, gets just a little bit lower, which will not harm its stability.

5MHz FSB is not a dramatic difference between MSI X48 Platinum and ASUS Maximus Extreme, so you shouldn’t really worry about it. However, then we discovered that MSI X48 Platinum works not so well with the memory. Unlike ASUS board that was also running at a little higher frequency, we failed to reduce the memory timings, so we had to set CAS Latency 8 instead of CL 7 on ASUS Maximus Extreme to ensure fair comparison. Moreover, Command Rate 1T/2T adjustment didn’t work at all on MSI X48 Platinum: no matter what you set it to in the BIOS, the mainboard would still work at 2T Command Rate. But this is not all yet. ASUS Maximus Extreme mainboard allowed lowering Performance Level to 7, while MSI X48 Platinum didn’t let us do the same and it stayed at 9 all the time. Compare the memory timings on both mainboards side by side and you will understand that even with identical frequency settings, MSI X48 Platinum had absolutely no chance to outperform ASUS Maximus Extreme.

 

MSI X48 Platinum (left) and ASUS Maximus Extreme (right)

MemSet utility shows that both mainboards work at 2T Command Rate, however, this report is wrong. ASUS Maximus Extreme in fact works at 1T Command Rate, which was confirmed by the performance numbers.

However, MSI X48 Platinum managed to score better than ASUS when we checked out the maximum frequency obtained with lower clock multiplier, at which the overclocked processor remained stable. ASUS Maximus Extreme failed to get past 530MHz, while MSI X48 Platinum ran absolutely stably at 540MHz. since the multiplier was dropped to x7.5, it turns out that MSI X48 Platinum overclocked the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor to the maximum frequency of 4.05GHz – the same as the frequency we obtained with the nominal multiplier of x9.

However, we had to lower the memory frequency even more, but nevertheless couldn’t change the memory timings. Besides, the Performance Level increased and became different for the two channels again. As a result, MSI X48 Platinum couldn’t catch up with ASUS Maximus Extreme in performance.