Anyone did intel skylake non-k overclocking on MSI z170A TOMAHAWK AC ?

[Safire]

Hello, I want to buy MSI 170A TOMAHAWK AC to overclock my i5-6400. I want to ask you is it still possible to do that on old bios ? Ive heard that someone had problem with overclcoking non-K intel cpu, even on older bios, is there anyone who is running or tried non-k oc on that board ?

And i would like to ask you, is there bios difference between MSI Z170A Tomahawk AC and Tomahawk ? They are completly the same boards, just AC have added wifi.

Thanks !

 

[chenuki]

I had success with MSI Z170M Mortar paired with i3-6100 3.7@4.7Ghz. Still use it daily. It's faster than my i5 on just about everything except video encoding. BCLK OC is not as simple as multiplier OC, but if you're patient and willing to learn then you'll be rewarded.

There's good reason to believe Tomahawk AC will work too. If you go to the BIOS download page you'll see AC version uses exact same BIOS as regular Tomahawk, so you're good. I use the Z170M BIOS released on 1/27/2016. Newer ones may work but I haven't found reason to update again since everything works.

Hope this helps

 

[Safire]

Thank for your answer. Did you have any problems with a new windows update and microcode ? (Ive heard you need to delete some intelupdate file in Sys32 folder, because wind wont boot while overclocked)

And lastly more important question, ive got i5 6400 with batch number from the last week of 2016, its almost a year after intel fixed nonk overclock with an microcode, do you think i should worry that the new nonk batches are fixed internally so i wont be able to overclock it even with an old bios ? (i mean that intel putting some codefix into cpu code or changes the manufacturing process or whatever to stop overclocking completly) One guy overclocked i3-6100 made in july2016 and it went OK so it shouldnt be the case right, im just paranoid because you can read lot of misunderstanding news on the internet

 

[chenuki]

No problem. Happy to help. I have no issues with Windows Update. This update was issued to board makers to implement in newer BIOS, so older ones work fine. I rechecked my BIOS it's A.6 and not A.3 from 1/27, though that one worked too.

Afaik the Windows update borking the Pentium anniversary edition chip was eventually fixed and is unrelated to this. This one's not through Microsoft, so maybe Intel soured things with Microsoft with all the backlash from that fiasco... who knows. I think you're safe with the 6400 though since Intel's already moved on to Kaby Lake. A little paranoia and caution's not a bad thing

 

[Safire]

Okay chenuki thanks I will go with an z170 mortar then because its is 20€ cheaper than tomahawk or i will take ASROCK Z170M Pro4S, ive heard that they are better at nonk overclock Okay so i hope the new 2016 batches have the same overclock capabilities as the 2015 ones im buiding my pc next week so ill be in touch if something went wrong