Water cooling MOSFETs necessary to achieve 5 ghz OC on 8700K?

Mortis Angelus · March 25, 2018

7 hours ago, Toysrme said:

I do. Asus has used the same VRM design (4,2,1) across most of it's line for awhile now. It's not a lot of current through the VRM's in the long run until people start breaching 1.7v which is normally what Coffee/Kaby require to be in the >5.6ghz range in the longer term, and at that point it's relatively easy to keep the VRM's cool long-term (they only need minor airflow) VS keeping a CPU cooler without extreme cooling.

Thanks! That is great to hear. Because I kinda fell in love with the yellow/gray/black theme of the mobo, and I really want to build a loop around that color scheme now.

pr0xZen · April 8, 2018

On 22.3.2018 at 10:37 PM, Mortis Angelus said:

[...]
The "problem" is that the mobo that came with the PC is the ASUS TUF Z370 Plus Gaming. Now I know for certain (source 1, source 2), that this mobo can pull off OC at 5 ghz and beyond, but will the VRMs be fine here in the long run, considering the TUF-boards (for some reason) seem to be lacking proper heatsinks. What do you guys think? Should I worry, or just go for it? Or should I buy a new motherboard; I.e. should I invest in a Maximus Hero (or similarily classed mobos)?

[...]

Personally, seeing as there is no VRM heatsink at all on that board and you're planning a "permanent" overclock, I would probably feel more comfortable in the long run with sticking either one heatsink cut to fit, or a couple of smaller ones, on the MOSFETs, and see to it that there is actually a bit of air passing over them. I'm thinking generic heatsinks for smaller components here, not something custom (beyond cutting one to fit perfectly if you want to go that route). Just google "vram heatsink" and you'll understand what I mean if unclear. These can be had in pretty much any shape and size for dirt cheap, and lots of different colors, so finding some that go with your asthetics without needing to paint them, is rarely a problem. I would probably get some 20-30mm tall, if there is no space conflict with CPU cooler etc. Some of them do come with thermal adhesive tape-pads, although quality and adhesive properties of those can be a bit shoddy for the very cheapest heatsinks. For this usecase, I would personally consider using a proper thermal adhesive though (although that does mean they won't be coming off again). And try to make sure that if you go with a heatsink with long fins instead of "individual bars", that the fins are oriented vertically when in place, not horizontal. Heat rising and all that.

This might not stricly be absolutely neccessary, but given how little it costs in both effort and dineros, I would personally feel alot more comfortable with some simple generic heatsinks on those MOSFETs.