Yeah gotta be careful on temps and volts. If you ever want anything tested on a 9900k just ping me. Mine is daily stable upto 5.2ghz. The only thing I don’t like messing with is ram because this board is horrible at training timings so I leave them alone now that they’re settled. But anything frequency related is fine.
Just doing a real review of the 3800x were its overclocked correctly. It's never going to beat a 5GHz all core 9900k overclock with great RAM like 4000 CL14 but if the 9900k build is 3200 RAM with default timings, the 3800x has the performance. This is great for the price point.
The main weakness of the 3800x is that no matter what you do, you can't increase single thread performance, only multi thread. This allows the 9900k a performance lead in that area. Also because you will never see a 3800x above 4.5GHz all cores, there are limits to multi thread performance. The 9900k ultimately wins because with faster RAM and higher clocks because of better overclocking headroom both on ram and core clocks. It can pass the maximum limitations of the 3800x. Even so this is with very few 9900k builds.
All the reviews say that the 3800x has poor increase in performance over the 3700x. This is not true, with tightening the timing for the RAM and getting a kit rated at 3600. You can reach the performance of some 9900k 5GHz all core overclocked builds with 3200 RAM. At least in the games I have been able to test and in 3d mark. Let face it, the 3800x is not going to beat a correctly overclocked system like yours.
Not bad for a cpu that is approx. £390 on overclockers vs. a cpu that is £500 on overclockers.
Team Group Dark T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit £82.99
Intel Core i9-9900K 3.6GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail £499.99
Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master Intel Z390 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard £264.95
Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML360R Addressable RGB CPU Cooler - 360mm £149.99
Total: £997.92
AMD Ryzen 7 3800X Eight Core 4.5GHz (Socket AM4) Processor + Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240R Addressable RGB CPU Cooler Bundle £489.94
Asrock X570 Taichi (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 Chipset ATX Motherboard £308.99
Team Group 8Pack Edition 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C16 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit £164.99
Total: £963.92
What I am saying is that the above two builds are equal. If you overclock the 9900k to 5GHz and also tighten the RAM timings on the 3800x. Remember only 5% of 9900k's get 5GHz all cores and those that do required a 360 AIO minimum to keep temps under control. With the 3800x build because you only overclock with the RAM. There in no increase in temps over stock.
The default RAM for the 9900k is 2666MHz and for the 3800x 3200MHz (AMD recommends 3600 RAM which it gave reviewers). So both systems have overclocked RAM. Keeping the builds under £1000 gives the above two systems.
Note the 3800x build can get an older motherboard and reduce its cost further and still perform normally. I gave the 3800x build a more expensive motherboard to give the 9900k better RAM. Even so the 3800x build has a higher likelihood of overclocking better because RAM overclocking is more consistent.