Did I lose the silicon lottery with my 9900K?

[Force Gaia]

So due to accidentally killing an 8700k during some maintenance, I've upgraded to a 9900K on my Asus Maximus X Hero motherboard.

 

I didn't overclock the old chip due to some overheating issues, which I now believe was due to Asus' auto core voltage setting after having the same-but-worse issue with my 9900K. The temperatures were spiking to 75c-ish for moments just when starting things like chrome or discord. The old 8700k wouldn't spike, but it wasn't shy at touching 95c under sustained load, the 9900k touched 100 and would throttle back.

 

The issue seems to be that the chip was running at around 1.38v core at stock clocks with auto voltage. I've managed to get the voltage down to 1.27v and it's stable.

 

Now I've tried to overclock it, but it seems i may have lost the silicon lottery, as I can't give it a modest 100Mhz bump to 4.8ghz (i am right in thinking it's stock at 4.7ghz, right?) without having to go over 1.3v and thus it turning into a furnace, and even then it's not stable.

 

My cooling could be described as overkill, as it uses three rads of 420x45, 120x30 and 240x45 with a D5 at full pelt to cool the 9900K and a 2080 super.

I'm looking for either confirmation of my suspicions that this chip is no overclocker, or some further things to try to get my chip to overclock at all. 5ghz would be nice, but i just want to see 4.8 to start with if possible.

 

Any info asked for will be supplied, i just don't know what other info may be useful to know, as this is my first foray into overclocking at all.

[Kilrah]

Needing more than 1.3V for an overclock is pretty normal, but if your crazy cooling can't deal with it there's something wrong with your loop/block.

 

What's your package power on HwInfo at full load? Are those numbers with the GPU fully loaded as well or idle?

[xg32]

17 minutes ago, Force Gaia said:

.

isn't the maximum x the one where asus really cheaped out on the vrm (iirc it's a 4+2 with doublers)? make sure it's not overheating,  even the worst 9900k should do 4.8-4.9.

[Mateyyy]

6 minutes ago, xg32 said:

isn't the maximum x the one where asus really cheaped out on the vrm (iirc it's a 4+2 with doublers)? make sure it's not overheating,  even the worst 9900k should do 4.8-4.9

It's got eight 50A power stages, that's more than enough for a stock 9900K. It's not horrible but still quite disappointing for a Maximus board, and they did the same on Z390.

[xg32]

6 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

It's got eight 50A power stages, that's more than enough for a stock 9900K. It's not horrible but still quite disappointing for a Maximus board, and they did the same on Z390.

it was the xi/z390, my mistake. 

 

 

disappointing is an understatement. 

[Force Gaia]

42 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Needing more than 1.3V for an overclock is pretty normal, but if your crazy cooling can't deal with it there's something wrong with your loop/block.

 

What's your package power on HwInfo at full load? Are those numbers with the GPU fully loaded as well or idle?

GPU is idle, and even under load the GPU isn't overheating. I've already replaced the paste on the cpu monoblock. This loop is also rather recently drained, cleaned (including blocks opened and gunk brushed out), assembled, filled and bled. So I'd be at a loss as what could cause the cpu block not to work while the gpu is clearly cooled adequately.
Hwinfo says my CPU package power while running folding@home (that's currently what i have running, i can give a better load later), is 135-140W

What temps would you consider "can't deal with it"? as currently folding with my 1.27v and stock speeds, core temps are 70-82 and package temp is 83

[Guest]

Your voltage and clocks match up for 14nm chip. 

5ghz roughly 1.35v is normal just as 4.7 at 1.3v is within normal.

 

The cooling solution is holding you back.

Most decent custom loops should be able to handle up to 1.4v respectively. 

Maybe you have high ambient summer temps?

[Tristerin]

What CPU block?  Do you have the flow correct for the CPU block?  I know with higher end blocks the fin pattern of the block itself is made to flow a specific way and if you have your inlet and outlet tubes swapped in the wrong way it creates a lot of resistance and heat issues.

[Kilrah]

48 minutes ago, Force Gaia said:

What temps would you consider "can't deal with it"? as currently folding with my 1.27v and stock speeds, core temps are 70-82 and package temp is 83

For me as long as it doesn't throttle i.e. 100°C I'm OK with it... but obviously a custom loop should be able to push 250-300W+ before reaching that and have no problem at 5GHz all core.

 

You must have something wrong either in the way you made your tubing between your components, as someone mentioned block flow wrong, or shitty block altogether...

[Force Gaia]

34 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Maybe you have high ambient summer temps?

I'm in the UK, so that's unlikely.

24 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

What CPU block?  Do you have the flow correct for the CPU block?

This is my monoblock, and i have just double checked the inlet-outlet config, and it's correct

https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-fb-asus-m9h-monoblock-nickel

[Force Gaia]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

For me as long as it doesn't throttle i.e. 100°C I'm OK with it... but obviously a custom loop should be able to push 250W+ before reaching that and have no problem at 5GHz all core.

That's my impression as well, and as my old chip was under the same block with the same issues. It makes me wonder if this block is hot trash.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Force Gaia said:

That's my impression as well, and as my old chip was under the same block with the same issues. It makes me wonder if this block is hot trash.

Lap the nickel off the cpu block. Nickel is bullshit for heat transfer.

[Force Gaia]

6 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Lap the nickel off the cpu block. Nickel is bullshit for heat transfer.

What would i need to do lapping properly? As i know what it's supposed to do, I just don't have the kit.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Force Gaia said:

What would i need to do lapping properly? As i know what it's supposed to do, I just don't have the kit.

You make your own kit.

Automotive wet sanding paper. 

Mirror, thicker is better.

Scotch tape.

Tape the paper to the mirror tight and flat.

Start at 600 grit. 1500 to 2000 grit is ok for finishing up. Can go high if you want.

Figure 8 motion is best.

 

I'm sure there some videos on YouTube you could investigate also.

[Force Gaia]

So i'm becoming more convinced my monoblock is actually the issue here, as i realised my temps on my old 8700k weren't as great as they should have been either under this block. So i think my monoblock has been an issue from the get-go. yet it is out of warranty now and i've had the block open, so i either need to fix it, or deal with the loss and buy a generic cpu waterblock and just air cool my VRMs