Image Editing, Video Encoding and Multitasking

Real world applications benchmarks such as the ones below are a great way to see the benefits an overclock provides for everyday PC use. As you can see below, the Gimp image editing test responded well to the 4.1GHz overclock with the time taken to complete the test dropping by almost a full two minutes.

The multi-threaded video encoding test loves the eight process threads of Core i7, and responds particularly well to overclocking. With the Core i7 running at 4.1GHz the test was finished a massive 133 seconds faster than at stock speeds.

Multitasking also saw an improvement if not by such a huge margin, and finished a little over 23 seconds faster with the board overclocked.

As you'd expect from the higher CPU frequency of the Gigabyte, it's the faster of the two reasonably priced Core i7 boards in the Gimp and HandBrake tests. However, the MSI at 3.9GHz is still faster than the Gigabyte at 4.1GHz in the multitasking test. This test is a system-wide one, and again hints that the MSI is more efficient at moving data around than the Gigabyte.