[SOLVED] Z490 10700k to 10900k Manual Overclocking guide?

edo101

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Jul 16, 2018
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Hi guys, just moved from i7-930 to a 10850K. Is there guide on how to manually overclock these Rocket Lake CPUs? I watched a gamer nexus video about not letting your mobo auto OC your CPU. I want to manually do it myself and in fact find a way to leave it at a 5.0 all core or dial it down to like 4.6 when I am not planning on gaming.

Back when I got my i7-930, there was a sticky for i7-920s and even for the motherboard I had.

I know motherboards are different but I figured that the UEFI settings are generally the same.

I don't know how to OC these new processors and RAM but I'd like to learn
 
Solution
Lol I've been out for 10 years. I better get 5Ghz. Even if the temps stress testing go up to 90C. My 45nm has dealt with worse over the years and survived

Well, good luck with that. Unfortunately, that was a CPU with a much larger die configuration and entirely different architecture/node. What could be tolerated PHYSICALLY by CPUs back then, for long periods of time or over the long haul, is completely different from how things are now. This AIN'T your granddaddy's CPU, so to speak.

10th Gen CPUs are much smaller in terms of physical components inside, from many generations of die shrinks, and it's well known that there are issues with thermal damage in ways that were not present on past generations such as cracking and...
8th, 9th and 10th gen overclocking guidelines, and nomenclature, are nearly identical with very few changes. As you surmised, even across different brands of motherboards MOST of the nomenclature is either the same or very similar, again, with few changes. Anything that IS different can pretty much be found with a minimum amount of searching for cross references in terminology.

That being the case, this guide is one of the best out there for Coffee lake, and should mostly be the same for Coffee lake refresh and Comet lake as well.

https://www.tweaktown.com/guides/8481/coffee-lake-overclocking-guide/index.html


And although I realize you have at least some experience with overclocking, some of the guidelines in my guide especially when it comes to testing criteria might be helpful as well.

 
One might want to see what temps are seen at assorted all-core processor loadings under stock settings first, before thinking lots of thermal headroom exists for any adventurous overlocking...(apparently, 99% of the Intel K-series CPU-owning population has convinced themselves the past 3-4 years that anything under 5 GHz does not just not sound impressive enough, and, that getting that last 50 MHz out of it is somehow worth the 90-95C temps)

If not below 80C in CPU-Z/bench/stress CPU, I'd not bother looking for more, as your cooling headroom should be deemed insufficient...
 
One might want to see what temps are seen at assorted all-core processor loadings under stock settings first, before thinking lots of thermal headroom exists for any adventurous overlocking...(apparently, 99% of the Intel K-series CPU-owning population has convinced themselves the past 3-4 years that anything under 5 GHz does not just not sound impressive enough, and, that getting that last 50 MHz out of it is somehow worth the 90-95C temps)

If not below 80C in CPU-Z/bench/stress CPU, I'd not bother looking for more, as your cooling headroom should be deemed insufficient...
100% correct.
 

edo101

Honorable
Jul 16, 2018
249
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10,585
One might want to see what temps are seen at assorted all-core processor loadings under stock settings first, before thinking lots of thermal headroom exists for any adventurous overlocking...(apparently, 99% of the Intel K-series CPU-owning population has convinced themselves the past 3-4 years that anything under 5 GHz does not just not sound impressive enough, and, that getting that last 50 MHz out of it is somehow worth the 90-95C temps)

If not below 80C in CPU-Z/bench/stress CPU, I'd not bother looking for more, as your cooling headroom should be deemed insufficient...
100% correct.
Lol I've been out for 10 years. I better get 5Ghz. Even if the temps stress testing go up to 90C. My 45nm has dealt with worse over the years and survived

Anyways for me it would have been dissappointing. my 930 hit 4ghz back in 2010. The 10850K I have has to hit 5Ghz in 2021 and it did. Waiting for the EK AIO i got to see if I can do 5.1 and call it a day. but I did 5.0 and tested it on air
with Cinebench
Realbench
X264 stress test
I would run Blender but I don't know how to do it @Darkbreeze @mdd1963
 
Lol I've been out for 10 years. I better get 5Ghz. Even if the temps stress testing go up to 90C. My 45nm has dealt with worse over the years and survived

Well, good luck with that. Unfortunately, that was a CPU with a much larger die configuration and entirely different architecture/node. What could be tolerated PHYSICALLY by CPUs back then, for long periods of time or over the long haul, is completely different from how things are now. This AIN'T your granddaddy's CPU, so to speak.

10th Gen CPUs are much smaller in terms of physical components inside, from many generations of die shrinks, and it's well known that there are issues with thermal damage in ways that were not present on past generations such as cracking and other issues. If you read the Intel data sheets you will find explanations as to why, and there are other sources on this as well. Overall this is MOSTLY preventable via the specific boost profile technologies and frameworks used by Intel which reduces frequency and voltage on cores to avoid exactly such problems however that all goes out the Window when you start overclocking.

TLDR; What older Intel CPUs could tolerate is NOT the same as what newer ones can tolerate. Not necessarily in the very short term, but definitely in the moderate to semi-long term.

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/w...n-core-families-datasheet-vol-1-datasheet.pdf


I would also HIGHLY recommend that you read the Intel temperature guide, in depth, and specifically the section on electromigration and VT-shift.

 
Solution

edo101

Honorable
Jul 16, 2018
249
4
10,585
Well, good luck with that. Unfortunately, that was a CPU with a much larger die configuration and entirely different architecture/node. What could be tolerated PHYSICALLY by CPUs back then, for long periods of time or over the long haul, is completely different from how things are now. This AIN'T your granddaddy's CPU, so to speak.

10th Gen CPUs are much smaller in terms of physical components inside, from many generations of die shrinks, and it's well known that there are issues with thermal damage in ways that were not present on past generations such as cracking and other issues. If you read the Intel data sheets you will find explanations as to why, and there are other sources on this as well. Overall this is MOSTLY preventable via the specific boost profile technologies and frameworks used by Intel which reduces frequency and voltage on cores to avoid exactly such problems however that all goes out the Window when you start overclocking.

TLDR; What older Intel CPUs could tolerate is NOT the same as what newer ones can tolerate. Not necessarily in the very short term, but definitely in the moderate to semi-long term.

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/w...n-core-families-datasheet-vol-1-datasheet.pdf


I would also HIGHLY recommend that you read the Intel temperature guide, in depth, and specifically the section on electromigration and VT-shift.


Wow I did not know that. I'd actually think everything would be better with better tech. But shows how much I know. I don't know what you mean by VT-shift. Is that something that would happen because of too much heat as you OC.
And I won't be putting my CPU into crazy loads like these stresses do. It's just to test for stablitiy at this time. Gaming even on air has been good temp wise. The other stressful thing I'd do is video editing
@Darkbreeze
 
VT-shift is "voltage threshold shift", which basically means that over time as CPU (And other electronic devices) ages or degenerates, whether from age or environmental factors like heat and voltage, the amount of voltage required to open a transistor gate or to basically "be stable" increases, or "shifts" so that what once was acceptably stable at only 3.5v might at some point down the road REQUIRE a substantially higher amount of voltage with the same configuration just to remain stable.

So then at some point you might find it is no longer stable using only 3.5v, but needs 3.6v, or 3.7v, and so on. This can, and does, also happen normally, but is often accelerated or exacerbated by excessive voltage or temperatures for frequent or long durations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_voltage
 
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edo101

Honorable
Jul 16, 2018
249
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10,585
VT-shift is "voltage threshold shift", which basically means that over time as CPU (And other electronic devices) ages or degenerates, whether from age or environmental factors like heat and voltage, the amount of voltage required to open a transistor gate or to basically "be stable" increases, or "shifts" so that what once was acceptably stable at only 3.5v might at some point down the road REQUIRE a substantially higher amount of voltage with the same configuration just to remain stable.

So then at some point you might find it is no longer stable using only 3.5v, but needs 3.6v, or 3.7v, and so on. This can, and does, also happen normally, but is often accelerated or exacerbated by excessive voltage or temperatures for frequent or long durations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_voltage
Ok so as long as it I can keep things around 80C I should be good then?

Btw are you aware of any other voltages that I can tweak to allow for lower Vcore for stability?
 
Potentially there are benefits from making adjustments to the VCCIO and VCCSA voltages, but generally those tend to affect memory stability more than anything else, but since memory performance and stability are a PART of the whole CPU package and all parts rely on all other parts, plus there are some relationships for those settings that aren't strictly memory related, might be worth looking into as well.

Honestly, the Coffee lake guide out there is about the best one in terms of covering most aspects of the last few gens of Intel architecture. I haven't seen anything better yet for these newer architectures and that's probably because not much has changed so it's not really worth it for anybody to completely redo an overclocking guide for an architecture already covered by older guides.

Pretty sure I posted these before, but if not, worth reading. Probably worth reading through SEVERAL times.

https://www.tweaktown.com/guides/8481/coffee-lake-overclocking-guide/index.html