8600k Overclocking Dud

[Techmo]

A few months ago, I decided to finally upgrade from my FX 8320 to an i5 8600k. Judging from everything that I had read online, most, if not all, 8600k processors should be able to overclock to somewhere near 5GHz. I even found these statistics here from siliconlottery for the 8700k, but didn't think the 8600k would be much different.

 

The parts arrived, and the system was assembled. I paired the 8600k with an MSI Z370-A Pro, a 1070, and a Noctua NH-D15 for cooling. I have to say, the 8600k was a massive upgrade from my old system, but as a pc guy, I wanted to do some overclocking. Relatively speaking, i'm an overclocking noob. All I dare to mess with is the core and memory voltage. I started out at 1.28 volts and 4.6GHz with a -2 avx offset, and got a black screen. I set llc to mode 4, then 3, then 2, still nothing. After setting the voltage to 1.35, I was able to get to 4.6GHz, but no more. I've tried voltages all the way up to 1.45, but nothing could make the system stable. During the tests the temps never exceeded 75c after delidding.

 

I'm not complaining, it's still a great processor, and makes short work of anything I need to compile. But I have to wonder, did I just get really unlucky with this chip, or am I missing something? Maybe the motherboard is the cause of my problems? Everyone else seems to be hitting 5GHz effortlessly.

[Zando_]

Must've got a bad chip, IDK even what I'm doing but I hit 5GHz on my 8600K rig that I'm selling pretty easily, it'll pull 1.37v at max IIRC, but usually stays at around 1.35-36 which is perfectly safe for everyday use (max you want to push is 1.4v and that's apparently not good for daily use). Just set the voltage and plugged in 50 for the core multiplier or whatever on the ASUS Prime Z370-A it's on and bam 5GHz. It can push 5.1 or 5.2 but like I said I'm not a tweaker and it's not 100% stable and pulls more voltage than I'd like. 

[xg32]

probably missing something like a vccio or vccsa, or some other voltage setting specific to the motherboard, either this or u got lottery level unlucky with the chip, i lean toward the former.

 

Edit: just to stress that it's REALLY REALLY unlikely to have a chip that bad to fall out of the 4.8-5.3 range.

[jiyeon]

I am noticing a weak amount of power phases on that motherboard, it's entirely possible that your motherboard is a bit weak, but it is still a heavy possibility that it's a bad chip.

 

That's concerning for sure. I'm doing 4.6GHz on 1.15V on an Asus Z370-P and an Arctic Freezer 33 eSports One. I've done 5GHz no problem on 1.35V and got 70°C max. Tried ballsing straight to 5.2GHz but Windows repair came up and I shit myself so no more than that.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Have you updated the BIOS to the latest version?  Some Z370 boards had some issues with voltage management.

[Techmo]

The bios is the latest version, I just updated it today. Right now, I think it's most likely the motherboard. I've been looking around, and saw some other posts about bad overclocks with this board. I knew that going in, but I never thought it would be this bad. I was expecting to at least hit 4.8 or 4.9.

[xg32]

3 minutes ago, Techmo said:

The bios is the latest version, I just updated it today. Right now, I think it's most likely the motherboard. I've been looking around, and saw some other posts about bad overclocks with this board. I knew that going in, but I never thought it would be this bad. I was expecting to at least hit 4.8 or 4.9.

I just saw that the board is the msi-a, thought it was the prime-a...ya...not worth it to swap mobo just for the gains, at least ur chip will run cool. the fps scaling is like half of clock speed, so you are missing at most 5% max fps.

[Techmo]

Seems reasonable, I don't do much gaming on this thing, and when I do, everything runs great. I'll probably just hold on to the board for now, and upgrade sometime down the road. Until then, i'll try playing around with vccsa and vccio to see if I can get this thing running a bit faster.