i7-8700k best overclocking board AsRock Z370 Extreme4, Fatal1ty k6, or x370 Taichi?

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markm75

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Its probably too early to say on the 8700k, but i began looking at boards to go with.. upgrading from my silicon lottery provided delided 4.6 6700k to shoot for an 8700k which is 4.7 out of the box and maybe via SL a 5+ ghz hopefully (mainly for p3d and xplane and vr use)..

I've always been a big fan of Asus, but nothing they have quite matches up to these 3 options and the reviews seem solid so i guess they are an ok choice these days.

I'm leaning towards the Fatal1ty k6 or the Taichi.. I like that they have 8 sata and in the case of the Taichi three m.2's along with headers for usb's in the rear totalling 17 overall front to back.

**side question, i dont see any usb 3.1 brackets out there with the 20 pin header connectors.. i guess at best i'm seeing only 2 port usb 3.0 ones.. so i'd have to suck up two slots just for 4 ports which seems ridiculous, unless i can pull apart my few 4 port usb 2.0's ones i have and thread in the 3.0 (which isnt 3.1 though).. also not seeing any type C gen 2 headers for the front ports.. i think it expands to 4 if i'm correct?

So given these 3 boards.. looked at reviews.. It sounded like the x370 taichi had more issues overclocking, which i found strange (something about the cpu needing more volts and being hotter, than the other 2).

All but the Extreme 4 i think support the "ASRock Hyper BCLK Engine II " so i was leaning towards the other two.

I saw one reviewer on the Fatal1ty claiming they hit 5.1, but they dont describe if that was stable (and at 1.385 volts though a max of 87C which i guess 90C is the max wtih the 8700k, unsure on volts yet).. delided silicon lottery will probably help (my 6700k from them never exceeds 62 or 65 worst case).

They all support 4000-4333 overclocked ram.. is anyone really hitting this? Im at 3200 with the 6700k.. i assume i can just use the same ddr4 gskills (4x8gb), though i think i'd be better off with 2x16 3200s (no advantage to quad, its dual channel i think).
If not reusing my Gskill 4x8, im not seeing many choices with decent reviews that are 2x16gb..
Maybe this corsair, higher speed rated ram is harder to find with good reviews or the price gets crazy... only reason why i'd consider switching is if i have trouble hitting 3200 with 5ghz assuming thats the OC i end up with (due to having 4 modules and not two)

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks in advance.
 
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Have you looked at gigabytes offerings? I enjoy my gaming 7, i only have it at 4.7 all cores but it runs pretty nice, plus 3 m.2, 2 usb 2 headers, 1 usb 3 header and a 3.1 type c header as well
 
Will pick up my ASrock Z370 Taichi tomorrow alongside 16GB G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3200 CL14 ram, unfortunately I don't have any CPU yet, ordered both a 8600K and 8700K and will probably pick whichever is shipped first. 5GHz is the aim, obviously it's no garantuee but for me roughly 4.9GHz on all cores stable with HT on for 8700K or 5GHz with 8600K minimum is what I'd start to feel satisfied with.

Have had good experience with ASRock boards the last few years so hopefully the trend will keep up. For me especially built in bluetooth/wifi is a nice bonus I will occasionally have use of.
 
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Furious_Styles said:
My only suggestion is don't buy asrock. Buy from someone with a better warranty.
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My last three systems including the one I'm using right now are built on ASRock motherboards. I've never had any issues with them and have always had at least above-average OCs using their mid-range boards.
 
The OC is largely silicon lottery and not motherboard related. I owned a Z77 extreme 4/6 for many years and liked it too. I would just rather buy from a manufacturer that gives a better warranty, especially if the price isn't much different.
 
if your looking to hit 4000+ ram speeds you need to wait for the asus maximus x apex or asrock oc formula boards otherwise any decent board should do ok but definitely look into the boards i've seen people having issues with LLC and vdroop on lesser boards even after bios fixes, these cpu's take much more power than the quad cores did overclocked (duh)
 
Frito11 said:
if your looking to hit 4000+ ram speeds you need to wait for the asus maximus x apex or asrock oc formula boards otherwise any decent board should do ok but definitely look into the boards i've seen people having issues with LLC and vdroop on lesser boards even after bios fixes, these cpu's take much more power than the quad cores did overclocked (duh)
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Any reason why the K6 wouldnt suffice to hit 4000? It says it can achieve that via OC, what makes the others better choices, curious.
 
markm75 said:
Any reason why the K6 wouldnt suffice to hit 4000? It says it can achieve that via OC, what makes the others better choices, curious.
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It might, I've seen a few people claim to get 4000 working on z370 / CFL on 4 dimm boards. extreme overclocking oriented motherboards like the asrock OC Formula and Asus Apex lines have 1 DIMM per channel which when paired with very good ram will allow the highest clocks and tightest timings possible for DDR4. two DIMM per channel mobos cannot achieve what they can due to the extra trace lengths and noise.

mobo makers just like ram makers will claim all they want about 4000 and beyond DDR4 but in order for it to work you need 3 factors to all be just right esp at 4133 on up. the factors are CPU's IMC quality and voltage you have to run it at, motherboards build quality and design and lastly the Rams ability to handle it, any of those go wrong and it won't work. A perfect example i heard yesterday from Buildzoid, He was just telling us in a chat about how Steve at gamers nexus got sent the new Corsair 32 gb DDR4-4600 kit (4x 8gb b-die sticks) and Corsiar stupidly sent him an MSI 2 dimm per channel board to review them with.. BZ works with Steve on stuff so Steve asked him what the deal was why couldn't he get it to work... BZ helped him as much as he could and best they managed was to get it to run 1 stick at 4500 mhz to nobody's surprise.. lol. there's only two mobos in retail atm that could probably run that kit anywhere near its spec and thats the Rampage VI Apex and Asrock OC Formula paired with a skylake-x CPU in quad channel..
 
Frito11 said:
It might, I've seen a few people claim to get 4000 working on z370 / CFL on 4 dimm boards. extreme overclocking oriented motherboards like the asrock OC Formula and Asus Apex lines have 1 DIMM per channel which when paired with very good ram will allow the highest clocks and tightest timings possible for DDR4. two DIMM per channel mobos cannot achieve what they can due to the extra trace lengths and noise.

mobo makers just like ram makers will claim all they want about 4000 and beyond DDR4 but in order for it to work you need 3 factors to all be just right esp at 4133 on up. the factors are CPU's IMC quality and voltage you have to run it at, motherboards build quality and design and lastly the Rams ability to handle it, any of those go wrong and it won't work. A perfect example i heard yesterday from Buildzoid, He was just telling us in a chat about how Steve at gamers nexus got sent the new Corsair 32 gb DDR4-4600 kit (4x 8gb b-die sticks) and Corsiar stupidly sent him an MSI 2 dimm per channel board to review them with.. BZ works with Steve on stuff so Steve asked him what the deal was why couldn't he get it to work... BZ helped him as much as he could and best they managed was to get it to run 1 stick at 4500 mhz to nobody's surprise.. lol. there's only two mobos in retail atm that could probably run that kit anywhere near its spec and thats the Rampage VI Apex and Asrock OC Formula paired with a skylake-x CPU in quad channel..
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Interesting and makes sense.. i was going to try to stick with my gskills rated at 3200, 4 pair.. i had thought maybe i should drop to 2 pair, but the cost is rather high right now.. i guess minimally i'd want 2 in the board.. does 4 = 4 channel (quad) in a z370 board though? I thought it was dual channel in general, no matter how many ram chips in place.. or does having 4 have its own advantages on a 4 chip board?

My reason for the k6 was because of the plethora of sata ports available (8) overall, though right now i really only need 6 anyway (and the usbs).
 
z370 is dual channel, running 4 sticks in a dual channel board will pretty much always hurt how fast you can run them all at once and it puts further load on the CPU's IMC 3200 sticks will work in any intel board no problem.
 
Frito11 said:
z370 is dual channel, running 4 sticks in a dual channel board will pretty much always hurt how fast you can run them all at once and it puts further load on the CPU's IMC 3200 sticks will work in any intel board no problem.
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I guess what i was getting at was that there is no speed advantage for running 4 vs 2.. not on a dual channel.

So I guess minimally, if my old gskill doesnt work even at least at 3200 like it does now.. i should look for another 3200 mhz or higher ram set of 2x16gb that does, if not wait on the 2 ram slot boards.. wondering if there is any advantage to using 3466 or 3600 or higher "rated" ram, or just try 3200.. shoot for 3200 then after that work upwards.

One possible set was this corsair vengeance cas16 rated at 3400.. one reviewer claims they couldnt go above 2133.. but i find that odd... prices are still pretty high.
 
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there's some speed advantage to dual rank vs single rank but end of the day the best performance comes from single rank 2 x 8 gb samsung b-die ic's. honestly if your just gaming and doing general use stick with what you got and don't worry about it the performance difference in most things is minimal and only important to competitive overclocking.
 
Frito11 said:
there's some speed advantage to dual rank vs single rank but end of the day the best performance comes from single rank 2 x 8 gb samsung b-die ic's. honestly if your just gaming and doing general use stick with what you got and don't worry about it the performance difference in most things is minimal and only important to competitive overclocking.
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Most of what i do is flight sim, heavy CPU emphasis (and ram).. i guess i saw a huge jump in fps going from ddr3 to ddr4.. probably not a huge jump from 3200 to 4000 mhz on the same ram set though, true enough.
 
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