Z370 Bios Asus

[BitMaster]

FWIW,

 

I recently updated my Bios to 0607 but that still didnt give me XMP-3600. It got a bit better as such that I could boot "sometimes" into memtestx86 and test it for 5-10min until it failed. It would not boot any proper Linux or Win10. Well, it posted, quick and reliable, that was new and gave me hope it will be fixed.

 

Today, after typing a few things here in forum I felt the need to work the rig, do something, make it better, it got BORING...well.

 

My idea was to take Module 1 + 3 out and try a 2+4 16GB config, make it easier for the board to boot. IT DID IT..all the way into Win10, no hiccup, no BSOD, stable..hmmmm GOOD so far.

This was with 5G and all left as it was but the 5G volt settings for vCore and 1.3530 for vDIMM.

 

I put 1 + 3 back in, booted, BSOD in Win10, Liux had a kernel panic...ohhh HECK...

 

I then went with Auto-Volt for VCC-IO and VCC-SA, knowing it will UP them a lot, from 0.95 and 1.05 to 1.3 and 1.35(1.38 in AsusGUI)..and to play safe..1.40 on vDIMM..

 

AND IT BOOTED, YEAHHHHHHHHHH

 

Finally this 4-ship kit soars at 3600 CL16-16-16-36, XMP ! BINGO

 

I think the new Bios did a little and letting it run as a 2-ship might have programmed the Bios so it knows how to drive them, dunno, it did not do that with same settings before. The only thing different was the 2-ship bootings.

 

Anyway, I am happy now...and bored same time.

 

It's getting time to delid now, 5.2 aint the limit here, I can smell 5.3 as a stable setting once I chopped the head off :D

 

Tho I need to verify the settings with prime and others, I am confident I will get this stable, sooner or later, now that I can actually boot and work it.

[hansangb]

Finally conquered it! :)

[Johnny_Rico]

congrats on getting your system working at the correct speeds

 

I sometimes feel jealous of Asus board owners having such fun and adventure just trying to get their board working

 

My gigabyte Z370 took about 2 mins to set some BIOS setting to get my board configured as I would like it and the RAM ran at 3866Mhz without any fighting

[gabgio]

Hey BT, keep it on! I am really curious to see how far the 8700k can be pushed... But first on other people's rigs

[dedde01]

Hey BT, keep it on! I am really curious to see how far the 8700k can be pushed... But first on other people's rigs

 

Same here :lol:

[BitMaster]

Sigh.....WUuuuaaaaHHHHHH

 

It wouldnt boot after HOURS of successfull stress testing at 5G and then mining on 5.2G ( CPU + GPU ).

 

It had, again, all sorts of hiccups trying to boot anything.

 

I swear, after the 2-ship config it booted the 4-ship right away, beep-post-OS-done

 

I guess it needs one more Bios, only 1 pleae.

 

Result...back to 3200MHz...for now.

 

 

I am still fiddling with adaptive Voltage and SVID. I wish I had this delidder here.

 

 

Anyway, it stays interesting :)

 

Johnny, my next board is likely a Gigabyte. I have done Asus only since my 486-DX66, with 2 exceptions with MSI that I returned before using them. The only good boards I worked with over the years was Asus and Gigabyte but now Asus has those RAM problems, true as you say, for the last 3 chipsets. I owned them all Z170/270/370. One none of them the RAM was easy to configure, at least not the first 5-10 Bios' .

 

Happy booting...

[VO101_MMaister]

Hi BitMaster,

 

I have the same board and cpu as you. What Vcore do you apply to make the 5,2Ghz? I am not too experienced with oc and this asus bios gives me more settings than i can handle:)

[BitMaster]

That is a good question, i will answer to my best knowledge what my Bios does, LoL.

 

In default, the Bios classifies the CPU as "Worst Case Scenario" and thus adds a significant amount of Volts to whatever you dial in. In that config, i could dial in as low as 1.175v and do either 5 or 5.2G, BUT...the volts applied were much higher, 5G had 1.375-1.380v applied as maximum during stresstests ( HWinfo ), and 5.2G I never measured actually, it runs DCS but wouldnt run a 1h prime95 without riscing overheating , not before I delidded it. In DCS or prime95 without AVX this is a lot easier, or mining. I can mine on the CPU with 5.2 under 50°C.

The Volts were 1.45-1.485 iirc.

 

I just made the move to "Best Case Scenario" and now the applied Volts are MUCH closer to the dialed in Volts. I have not tested 5.2G successfully yet, expect anywhere bewteen 1.45-1.48v for 5.2G. Afaik, that's where the 5.2G usually settles in with peak loads.

 

I would not stresstest the CPU on 5.2G if it is not delidded yet. prime95_26.6 is better.

 

As long as it runs my DCS at 5.2G I am OK with it. I wont do anythimng else but gaming on 5.2.

 

My daily use is 5G, that must be rocksolid, actually booting it with 1.360v adaptive Volts in BestCaseScenario, all other Volts set manually to the default Volts as the Bios tends to overdo them a lot when on Auto, PCH, Standby, IO and SA namely.

 

You can leave them on Auto, sure, it just might also work with 0.3v less than what Asus applies = a lot less heat.

[BitMaster]

The attached screenshot is a quick & dirty 5.2 for you, as said, i just set my CPU in Bios to Best Case and I ahve to work my way towards 5.2 again myself, as it is a bit different now.

 

The big difference is that for 5G I only need LLC2 and nothing else in Digi-VRM, Phase is Standard and Current is 100%.

 

For 5.2G I not only need a lot more Volts to not BSOD badly and not only drop a core, it needs all that Digi-VRM has to offer, Extreme, 140% and LLC6...quick & dirty. Fine tuning my lower that a good step further down, mabye, after hours of priming.

 

I use prime95 26.6 for 5.2G

 

For 5G I an also use the newest 28.4 with AVX codec, temps are still ok. I will need to delid to run AVX at 5.2, no other way.

 

Prime runs for 10min now, stable enough to know it's doable, fine tuning takes hours, days, weeks, month tbh.

 

RAm was at 3200 all the time, that seems to be stable and no issue. 3600 only works reliable with 16GB/2-modules, but I had a run yesterday that did it all, for hours and hours until i decided to reboot, it gave me nothing bsod's and repairs and such at 3600 afterwards with 4 modules...maybe next time. it worked once..it's gotta initialize properly and then it works.

 

13min and running... temps are a bit hairy, sratching the 90's but it doesn't fail ;)

[VO101_MMaister]

Thank you BM,

 

currently I use my CPU at 4,9Ghz and 1,32V. I tried that auto oc feature but for me these Vcore values over 1,4V were too scary. I think I will just delid the CPU as well to make some headroom for oc. I have done some reading about Vcore fineadjustments in this bios but it looks really complicated to begin with:)

[BitMaster]

Look at the wattage instead, safe is up to 1.5x the TDP value, for a 8700k that is 140-150w at peak loads.

 

LLC adds the most heat from all you can click and one that you will have to tweak for 5.2G. IIRC ROG forum says LLC6 for 5.2G is a common thing. So far, I couldnt lower it without BSOD.

 

With a delidded CPU you have far more temp headroom within reasonable wattages. I am struggling to stay below throttling when I am not BSOD'ing, LoL....CASEKING !!!!!!!!! grrrhhh

..but that's another story.

 

For DCS alone ( or my CPU miner ), piece of cake, it is far far less demanding than prime95 and runs with a fraction of the wattage and load. Just UP the volts and GO, that works at least on my end, DCS never crashed on me in 5.2 because of too low LLC or Phase or such, far less complicated than stability for eternity.

 

Happy tweaking !

 

150w max..don't forget ;)

Edited February 27, 2018 by BitMaster

[VO101_MMaister]

:) cheers I will certainly give it a go, but only after the delid. Good tip about the watts. I will post it here if I have new results.

[BitMaster]

my delidder will arive tomorrow, just got mail it's inbound with TrackingID :)

 

 

5.0G is easy with those 8700k's, it really gets tricky with them beyond that point, the sweetspot I'd say is those 5G, beyond takes so much more power and heat its only for DCS and the books.

[VO101_MMaister]

Yeah, and it is a beast. I barely see it maxed out with anything at 4,9Ghz. With DCS +VR the bottleneck is still the VGA.

[BitMaster]

Actually, the only thing of relevance I occasionally use that uses all cores use is Handbreak.

 

Tho you can feel the more cores when you have many things opeend same time and switch between them. The 7700k wasnt slow either, but this clearly tops it again, no wonder with same 5G but 50% more cores.

[toutenglisse]

Regarding Cpu OC and DCS .... Do you monitore your Cpu clock while running DCS ? Because when I'm running DCS, my 4.8Ghz OC mostly runs at 4.4Ghz (stable 4.4Ghz if Gpu is bottlenecking / Cpu lightly used like with VR - or a dance between 4.4 and 4.8Ghz when I use a light resolution (1080p for a 1080Ti) and vsync off + max settings so both Gpu and Cpu are maxed out (100% load for erverybody or so)).

I mean if you run a 5.0 or 5.2Ghz OC do you really see this OC applied while using DCS ?

I don't but with other sims/games, high load on 4 cores or not, I see the OC stable at 4.8Ghz.

[BitMaster]

I lock the CPU at a static GHz, either 5 or 5.2.

 

If you see more fps depends on how much eye candy you throw into the equation.

 

The less the more fps, the more CPU you can actually use for more fps.

 

hardly any differencebetween 5 and 5.2, only EGO LoL nothing dramatic, where my pills ??

 

...should have taken the blue ones....the blue ones...oh well.

[toutenglisse]

OK thanks.

So if with afterburner you monitore your Cpu clock speed while playing DCS, you see a flat line at 5.0Ghz.

Me I see only sawtooth between 4.4 and 4.8Ghz, so it might be because I don't use a static overclock for my cpu.

[BitMaster]

I see a flatline at 5GHz or 5.2G and I see a 2101 flat liner on the GPU, no spiking whatsoever.

 

This is your Bios toutenglisse, My MSI M9 Z170 would not boost my old 6700k like the Asus Maximus Extreme VIII did. Exact same up & down and I never found the damn switch with that MSI board.

 

With Asus that is rather easy, it's doone when you engage XMP and choose YES for the AllCoreEnhencement iirc.

[toutenglisse]

Ok I understand. And it sounds fair, more expensive motherboards have to work better with overclocking than others ^^.

[BitMaster]

Ok I understand. And it sounds fair, more expensive motherboards have to work better with overclocking than others ^^.

 

No, absolutely nothing to do with money, rather a MSI vs. Asus UEFI layout. I had this on my 160€ Z270 Asus board, had it on the expensive Z170 ME and now on this midrange ROG Strix.

They all have this, from bottom to top, just with MSI and the 4 weeks I had that board I could not get it to 4.6 stable, it always downclocked to 4.4 with that 6700k under load. Same chip in Asus stayed 4.6.

 

I am not saying MSI cannot do that, I just dont know how they do it. It's gotta be somewhere I guess.

 

Again, no, it's not the "only the big boards can do this, go home with your budget board", no by far not, you misunderstood me ;)

 

*edit: when it comes to boards, I like the low to mid tier better these days. Had enough failures with 500€ boards from MSI and Asus. Too many features, too loaded.

 

Sleek, simple, fast. Pick any 3

[toutenglisse]

The thing that is very strange to me is that I only see that "sawtooth" graph between 4.4 and 4.8Ghz with DCS.

And that is when my Cpu is fully used 4 cores, because with DCS VR (low Cpu load) it's a flat line at 4.4Ghz.

 

With any other game or sim my Cpu clock is a flatline at 4.8Ghz (with exception of some peaks down to 4.4Ghz, but very few)

[BitMaster]

Double check your bios or talk to other MSI owners, I could not find that switch in Bios that does that. It's gotta be there, the reviews do not mention zickzack with MSI as well.

[BitMaster]

I think this OC-Guide, despite it's actually for Coffe Lake, does mention your problem, page 4.

 

have a look, what they say are mostly my findings too.

 

 

C-States settings.... could be your problem maker.

 

https://www.tweaktown.com/guides/8481/coffee-lake-overclocking-guide/index4.html

[toutenglisse]

Thanks Bitmaster for advice.

 

Looking the OC guide I checked the different BIOS option related to Power saving settings. With my OC (game boost), the different settings were disable (EIST, turbo boost, C-state) - but CPU current limit was on auto (it's supposed to decrease clock frequ when current limit is reached).

 

Feeling not confident about changing that I found an other settings that seems to make the tweak : CPU Ratio Offset When Running AVX [Auto]. It was set to [-4] wich correspond to the decrease ratio I have frequently (4.8Ghz down to 4.4Ghz).

I set that to 0 and now the OC don't decrease from 4.8. I have to test with some sims/game but it seems to be the good "button".