Which cheapest Z370 for 5ghz?

snowdog · 21 Jan 2018 at 16:35

Hello,

As per title, I want the cheapest possible board to go with an 8700K to 5ghz (delidded & thermal poo replaced with liquid metal if needed).

Would something like an MSI Z370-A Pro be good enough, or do I need more stable power supply with a more expensive board and/or better bios.

I need 6 Sata's. Bluetooth would be a nice plus but since a usb bluetooth module is 5 euro's tops it's not a prereq.

From other thread

Now I don't care about audio, I use Linear PCM and Bitstream over HDMI, my current board actually has a broken sound card and I don't care.
Lan, so long as it works I don't care. Usb 3.1, dunno what it adds, pretty uninteresting, but nice for re-sale value.

SLI would be nice to have as an option (since I'm at UHD) but not if it means spending 50% more...

Priority is I want to have 5ghz with not much faffing about with setting, easy 5 min tops overclock.
I'm used to Asus bios, hence biased towards that, but open to MSI, Asrock, Gigabyte, etc...

tamzzy · 21 Jan 2018 at 16:46

i would quote the first reply in the same thread you took the table out from:

Doogles said:
Asrock Z370 Extreme 4, has great VRM's at the price.

snowdog · 21 Jan 2018 at 16:58

Looks nice but in this case way over budget, I have a 75€ off voucher for a specific retailer, and they don't sell ASrock Z370 boards

.

MSI Z370-A Pro costs 118 euros, so can pick it up for 43 euros.
Asus PRIME Z370-P is 147, so 72 eu for me.
MSI Z370 SLI plus is 140, so 65 eu for me.
Asus TUF Z370-Plus Gaming would be 98 euros for me
Asus PRIME Z370-A would be 107 euros for me
Asus ROG STRIX Z370-H Gaming would be 114 for me

The ASrock would mean I can't use my voucher and have to spend 150 euros

, more than triple than the cheapest msi option

Hence my question, is it worth wasting double the money, or do they all do 5 ghz no problem?

tamzzy · 21 Jan 2018 at 17:25

8 Pack said:
Asus prime or k3 in this short list. Although asrock mentioned earlier at an extra 3 quid us really a very good board too. Especially in clock for clock efficiency and OC.

same thread.
#ask8pack

tbh, from what i've read, most boards perform within 100-200mhz of each other, what's most important is the #siliconlottery of your 8700k, if it sucks, then it doesn't matter how good your board is - it won't overclock well.

snowdog · 21 Jan 2018 at 17:29

Slightly different because i have a 75 euro voucher and some options aren't really options for me.

I am looking at bang for buck here.

EDIT: So max 200 mhz difference between the cheapest nastiest z370 board and the most expensive ''gaming'' bs board?

tamzzy · 21 Jan 2018 at 18:16

snowdog said:
EDIT: So max 200 mhz difference between the cheapest nastiest z370 board and the most expensive ''gaming'' bs board?

from what i've read, yeah. although, you need to also consider power phases, and vrm cooling. cheaper boards have lower quality parts, and if you're overclocking your cpu, these may fail/become unstable sooner than more expensive boards.

snowdog said:
Slightly different because i have a 75 euro voucher and some options aren't really options for me.

I am looking at bang for buck here.

snowdog said:
MSI Z370-A Pro costs 118 euros, so can pick it up for 43 euros.
Asus PRIME Z370-P is 147, so 72 eu for me.
MSI Z370 SLI plus is 140, so 65 eu for me.
Asus TUF Z370-Plus Gaming would be 98 euros for me
Asus PRIME Z370-A would be 107 euros for me
Asus ROG STRIX Z370-H Gaming would be 114 for me

out of those listed, then the asus prime-a would be the best, but bang-for-buck, not too sure.

snowdog · 21 Jan 2018 at 19:15

Anything in particular against the MSI Z370 SLI plus? Or even the cheap 370-A pro?

What does that Asus offer overlocking wise, above the cheaper options?

tamzzy · 21 Jan 2018 at 19:56

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/75gqmz/quality_of_vrm_on_cheaper_z370_boards/

awesomegamer919
•
102d
For Z370 specifically, here are the "Tiers" so far:

~$120: Either <4 Phase VCore VRMs or not fully heatsinked VRMs with mediocre audio, meh IO and less support than other boards.

~$140: Mediocre boards that are fine with an 8600K or lower but aren't great with an 8700K (Esp with heavy OCs)

~$160-$200: Midrange boards, some, like the ASUS PRIME A and all of the STRIX's except the H and the ASRock Extreme 4 are pretty damn good, the MSI Tomahawk/Krait/SLI PLUS are all pretty **** ($140 board level VRMs).

Above that and it's mainly IO and the like.

Hope it answers your question

snowdog · 21 Jan 2018 at 21:12

Ty, I will go for the Asus Prime A.
I do not wish to be limited by mainboard for overclocking.

Swapping a cpu is an easy & quick job, if I won't get a nice 8700k it's no biggie as I will get my hands on another one anyhow. Changing a mainboard is very painsome though!

tamzzy · 21 Jan 2018 at 21:21

No probs. Good luck with your #siliconlottery

LePhuronn · 31 Jan 2018 at 16:27

snowdog said:
I do not wish to be limited by mainboard for overclocking...

But you're only wanting to pay the bare minimum for the board? Somewhat incongruous methinks. In any case, best of luck with the 5GHz.

snowdog · 31 Jan 2018 at 16:39

Because I don't care for rubbish such as:

Led nonsense
Brand
Audio
Other rubbish features nobody needs (''gaming''/ROG/fatality/gamers/''boost''/whatever other nonsense marketing BS)
Fancy unnecessary cooling.
Onboard gfx
LAN (any gigabit is fine)
USB 3.1

Anyhow, I'm running 5.0 ghz @ 1.3v, and it can do 5.1 @ 1.47V (and pass a long test with burntest)
5.2 boots @ 1.47 boots, but crashes after a few burntest runs. It posts up to as much as 5.5 ghz, but to unstable to start windows.

Not tried asyc overclock yet (eg. 2 cores @ 5.4 max, 4 cores at 5.1).

Delidded and with thermal poo replaced by Liquid metal as it was 88c @ full load @ 4.8 ghzb efore delidding, now 25C cooler @ 5ghz...

Running 5.0 for now as temps are now ncie and cool (60-65 during burntest) and to not push silly voltages through it.

Steven_RW · 19 Mar 2018 at 16:41

What VRM temps do you get when you run prime 95 latest version on small torture test? I can run my CPU up to 4.9ghz at 1.32v but even with a fan pointing at the VRM stock heat sinks they run past 100c within 3 mins.

I have a well cooled CPU, delidded on liquid metal and a rockit replacement copper IHS. Temps are fine down at low 60c. But VRM are running away a bit.

I managed to get the room ambient to 12c with the cold weather and the VRM ran to 103c under full Prime 95 small torture and held at that.

I have (not by choice..) what most people seem to call a crappy mobo for OC. Gigabyte z370m d3h rev 1.0

I'd like to see other peoples VRM temps under these OC settings but nobody seems to be sharing?

Cheers,.
Steven_RW

tamzzy · 20 Mar 2018 at 22:26

@Steven_RW this round of giga boards have issues with VRM temps, unfortunately.
if you want to correct it yourself, you'd need to change the thermal pads below the VRM heatsinks and tighten the heatsinks down so it makes better contact with the VRMs

Steven_RW · 21 Mar 2018 at 11:15

tamzzy said:
@Steven_RW this round of giga boards have issues with VRM temps, unfortunately.
if you want to correct it yourself, you'd need to change the thermal pads below the VRM heatsinks and tighten the heatsinks down so it makes better contact with the VRMs

Hi,

I am happy to do so. I will need to find where to buy better thermal pads. I will then need to replace the plastic rivets that hold the heatsinks down with nuts and bolts so i can apply more pressure.

Thanks,
Steven

tamzzy · 21 Mar 2018 at 12:45

There's a few threads on Reddit and other forums covering the issue. A quick Google bring these up