First, I ran NVIDIA’s System Stability Test, which stresses the CPU, RAM, PCE-E Bus, hard disk and video card, for thirty minutes.  Stressing the system in this fashion, which simulates the environment a computer would encounter while running a game, helps determine how well the motherboard, as the center of the system, performs under the stressful conditions gamers impose on their computers every day.  The System Stability Test passed with flying colors, holding true to the NVIDIA marketing strategy that labels the 680i LT chipset as one for hardcore gamers. 

Then I ran the Tune System utility, which takes a lot of the time, arcane knowledge and guesswork out of overclocking by adjusting the speeds of the memory, front side bus and PCI Express bus over a period of three hours until it comes up with fastest stable combination.  Although this method, like any other overclocking method, relies on the stability of all the major components in your computer to achieve results, it is by far the most efficient way to test the overclocking capabilities of this motherboard. 

As you can see from the screenshots below, the Tune System utility made some small adjustments to the front side bus speed and memory timings, but also increased the PCI Express bus speed by an incredible fifty-one percent, from 2500 MHz to 3775 MHz.  Even with the imposition of a locked multiplier on Intel CPUs limiting how much you’ll by able to boost the speed of your system, knowing that – with stable hardware on the far side of your bus connections – you’ll be able to pull such sweet performance gains from your rig speaks volumes about the abilities of this motherboard.