Would a 11700K be in any way a downgrade from a 10700K?

[Cyber Akuma]

CPU: 10700K
Motherboard: Z490 Aorus Pro AX

I generally don't build a new system often, typically only every several years when my current system is just simply too old to even be reasonably upgraded to run even decently with current software, so I am not too familiar with differences between a single CPU generation.

In fact, if my current 3770K system had not died on me, I would still be running that as it was still more than adequate for my gaming uses, even if it was starting to suffer from virtualized systems. And if it wasn't for the fact that I needed to replace it quick and the only parts I could get reasonably and at a cheap price were a 10700K for less than a 5600X and a z490 board for cheaper than an AMD equivalent and needed Intel RAID support to recover some data I would have just gone AMD.

But regardless, I have a 10700K system right now, and I am going to likely be stuck with it for many years, but my motherboard apparently has some enhancements that will only work if I install an 11th gen CPU in it. It supports PCIe 4.0 and will enable that for some of it's current PCIe 3.0 ports, as well as enable a currently disabled 3rd m.2 NVME port that will operate in 4.0 unlike the current ones that operate in 3.0. So the main reason I want a 11700K is not for performance over my 10700K, but to get PCie 4.0 support.

I know that for now 4.0 isn't much of a difference over 3.0, but as I said, I will be stuck with this system for years, and it could very well be a more important factor later on (both for GPUs and if DirectStorage starts to matter later on), so I just wanted to make sure what my options would be in the future.

I know that the 11900K is more or less a downgrade from the 10900K in just about every way except for PCIe 4.0, but from my understanding the 11700K wasn't hit as badly compared to the 10700K right?

What I want to know is, if I were to replace my 10700K with a 11700K, would it perform worse in any way? In terms of single-core/threaded performance, multi-core performance, hyperthreading, thermals, etc? I am ok with it performing the same as my 10700K since as I said, the main reason I want it is for PCIe 4.0 support, but I don't want it to perform even worse than my current 10700K or run hotter..... since when running a CPU torture test with AVX enabled my current 10700K already came very close to thermal throttling. (I had heard that some games are starting to implement AVX now, so I don't think it's as ignorable as it used to be, temps are fine when I turn AVX off).

And as mentioned, since I am not too familiar with single-gen CPU upgrades, how likely is it that a microcode update could in any way improve the 11700K? Has there ever been a decent improvement in performance or thermals from a microcode update? Or is it almost never much of a difference and I should not even bother considering that a possibility? (I know that there were several small microcode updates around launch, no idea how common that is or if I should bother to expect any more.... especially ones that do anything noticeable)

Now, granted, I am not going to be rushing out and getting a 11700K anytime soon. I will likely do this within about a year if it's feasible for me to do so. I just wanted to know if there would be any reason for me not to upgrade from a 10700K to a 11700K if my main reason was to get PCIe 4.0 support and I am fine with it performing the same as my 10700K just as long as it doesn't in any way perform any worse?

 

[chameleoneel]

CPU: 10700K
Motherboard: Z490 Aorus Pro AX

I generally don't build a new system often, typically only every several years when my current system is just simply too old to even be reasonably upgraded to run even decently with current software, so I am not too familiar with differences between a single CPU generation.

In fact, if my current 3770K system had not died on me, I would still be running that as it was still more than adequate for my gaming uses, even if it was starting to suffer from virtualized systems. And if it wasn't for the fact that I needed to replace it quick and the only parts I could get reasonably and at a cheap price were a 10700K for less than a 5600X and a z490 board for cheaper than an AMD equivalent and needed Intel RAID support to recover some data I would have just gone AMD.

But regardless, I have a 10700K system right now, and I am going to likely be stuck with it for many years, but my motherboard apparently has some enhancements that will only work if I install an 11th gen CPU in it. It supports PCIe 4.0 and will enable that for some of it's current PCIe 3.0 ports, as well as enable a currently disabled 3rd m.2 NVME port that will operate in 4.0 unlike the current ones that operate in 3.0. So the main reason I want a 11700K is not for performance over my 10700K, but to get PCie 4.0 support.

I know that for now 4.0 isn't much of a difference over 3.0, but as I said, I will be stuck with this system for years, and it could very well be a more important factor later on (both for GPUs and if DirectStorage starts to matter later on), so I just wanted to make sure what my options would be in the future.

I know that the 11900K is more or less a downgrade from the 10900K in just about every way except for PCIe 4.0, but from my understanding the 11700K wasn't hit as badly compared to the 10700K right?

What I want to know is, if I were to replace my 10700K with a 11700K, would it perform worse in any way? In terms of single-core/threaded performance, multi-core performance, hyperthreading, thermals, etc? I am ok with it performing the same as my 10700K since as I said, the main reason I want it is for PCIe 4.0 support, but I don't want it to perform even worse than my current 10700K or run hotter..... since when running a CPU torture test with AVX enabled my current 10700K already came very close to thermal throttling. (I had heard that some games are starting to implement AVX now, so I don't think it's as ignorable as it used to be, temps are fine when I turn AVX off).

And as mentioned, since I am not too familiar with single-gen CPU upgrades, how likely is it that a microcode update could in any way improve the 11700K? Has there ever been a decent improvement in performance or thermals from a microcode update? Or is it almost never much of a difference and I should not even bother considering that a possibility? (I know that there were several small microcode updates around launch, no idea how common that is or if I should bother to expect any more.... especially ones that do anything noticeable)

Now, granted, I am not going to be rushing out and getting a 11700K anytime soon. I will likely do this within about a year if it's feasible for me to do so. I just wanted to know if there would be any reason for me not to upgrade from a 10700K to a 11700K if my main reason was to get PCIe 4.0 support and I am fine with it performing the same as my 10700K just as long as it doesn't in any way perform any worse?

11700k can sometimes perform a teensy bit worse in games. But many games its the same. And some games a bit better. For productivity work and multi-threaded work, its a pretty nice jump in performance.

There's no need to upgrade unless you need the throughput of PCI-4.0 and or a sizeable boost for multi-threading in some of your workflows. That said, a 10900 or 10900K with 10 cores is faster in most multi-threaded workflows. So it really comes down to do you NEED PCI-4.0.

 

[Cyber Akuma]

There's no need to upgrade unless you need the throughput of PCI-4.0 and or a sizeable boost for multi-threading in some of your workflows. That said, a 10900 or 10900K with 10 cores is faster in most multi-threaded workflows. So it really comes down to do you NEED PCI-4.0.

Well like I said, my main reason for wanting to upgrade is not for performance but for PCIe 4.0 as well as enabling the third M.2 slot on my motherboard. So upgrading to a 10900K doesn't really help me in this situation.

 

[Furious_Styles]

Well like I said, my main reason for wanting to upgrade is not for performance but for PCIe 4.0 as well as enabling the third M.2 slot on my motherboard. So upgrading to a 10900K doesn't really help me in this situation.

I'd say no then, upgrading would be a waste. You can always upgrade later when you can really use PCIe 4.0 and stuff will generally be cheaper because no chip shortage.

 

[evhvis]

Well like I said, my main reason for wanting to upgrade is not for performance but for PCIe 4.0 as well as enabling the third M.2 slot on my motherboard. So upgrading to a 10900K doesn't really help me in this situation.

Currently there aren't that many use cases that benefit from PCIe 4.0 outside of more bandwith to PCIe 4 enabled chipsets (not on intel afaik) or if you are running dual graphics cards. There may be a few use cases where the extra bandwidth for m.2 drives is useful, but for most use cases the difference is not something you would notice. I do have multiple older gen PCIe 4.0 m.2 drives in my main system and there is no noticable benefit over my fairly similar secondary system running with good value, but quite fast, PCIe 3.0 drive. The difference is certanly there in benchmarks but any good PCIe 3.0 drive is so fast that there are very few applications that give a meaningful advantage to any faster drives.

I can't remember a micro code update that gave meaningful performance improvements for a CPU.

Unless you really need that last m.2 slot then it would be a wasted upgrad IMO. Keep in mind that you could set aside the money for that new CPU and spend it in 2-3 years time and get a much better upgrade. The 11700k won't make your system last much longer than your current setup.

 

[Cyber Akuma]

I'd say no then, upgrading would be a waste. You can always upgrade later when you can really use PCIe 4.0 and stuff will generally be cheaper because no chip shortage.

Currently there aren't that many use cases that benefit from PCIe 4.0 outside of more bandwith to PCIe 4 enabled chipsets (not on intel afaik) or if you are running dual graphics cards. There may be a few use cases where the extra bandwidth for m.2 drives is useful, but for most use cases the difference is not something you would notice.

Right, I am not upgrading right now, it would be in a year or two IF I do it. I just wanted to know that if I do want to do it or PCIe 4.0 does become far more useful, if it would in any way be a downgrade or run hotter than my 10700K since that one is already coming close to throttling in torture tests.

Keep in mind that you could set aside the money for that new CPU and spend it in 2-3 years time and get a much better upgrade. The 11700k won't make your system last much longer than your current setup.

Problem is if I do that, it would not just be a new CPU, it would be a new motherboard, new RAM most likely if that's DDR5 era, new Windows license...

 

[evhvis]

Problem is if I do that, it would not just be a new CPU, it would be a new motherboard, new RAM most likely if that's DDR5 era, new Windows license...

All my windows licenses are retail so I can swap my CPU, motherboards etc. as I want. If you are using OEM then there might be issues even with a CPU swap as there are a few hardware changes that it doesn't like (dont know the exact list and number for OEM licenses as I do not use them). The point was that the CPU is probably 30-40% of the new system cost and you will essentially be forced to make a next hardware swap at around the same time with both the 11700k and 10700k so the main benefit IMO is the extra m.2 drive. Setting aside the money will make it cheaper overall than buying something that is a minor upgrade at best.

 

[bwang]

Flagship -K CPUs also don't drop in price (a now-completely-irrelevant 6700K is still worth $200!), so in a couple years you will be able to sell the 10700K and upgrade to whatever is available.
The 11700K runs hotter than the 10700K (it draws slightly more power than a 10900K because of the larger cores and lesser binning), but you can also tweak the BIOS settings down to something reasonable. It's only at that last 200MHz that power consumption goes through the roof.

 

[athenian200]

I wouldn't call it a downgrade, but I feel like I should warn you that the processor is pretty much factory overclocked and overvolted. I tried overclocking it just for fun to see how far I could get, and I got to 5.0GHz somewhat stable, though not rock stable... able to handle about an hour of Prime95 at under 85C (without AVX of course, because I had the AVX offset configured so it clocks way down if it hits an AVX workload). Then for some reason I tried running the same Prime95 with the out of the box settings to see what happened. It turned out that it somehow managed to run HOTTER at the 4.6GHz setup you get by default on most Z590 motherboards. It was worse at 4.6GHz than it was with the settings I used to achieve 5GHz almost stable, was going over 93C regularly. It was more stable but ran insanely hot under Prime95. I'm not sure how that happened, but it was really weird to see. Dialing in manual settings for a 4.6GHz all-core overclock bought temps down like 20C. Now it doesn't go above 73C at 4.6GHz even with Prime95 running.

So I would say if you get this chip... be prepared to buy a high-end cooler like a Noctua NH-D15, and also don't expect to get much of an overclock, especially on a Z490 board. But I would say that if you are fine with the stock performance of your 10700K, then the 11700K should be fine too. Especially if you're buying a really fast SSD like a Sabrent Rocket or something that needs PCI-E 4.0.

I'm actually pretty sympathetic to your situation, because I actually upgraded from P67 to a new Z77 system with a Kepler card and Ivy Bridge just to use PCI-E 3.0 at the time... well, that and bring the temperatures down in my room because Fermi and Sandy Bridge in a small room with an old window that needed replacing and two incandescent lightbulbs without a ceiling fan was pretty toasty.

 

[chameleoneel]

I wouldn't call it a downgrade, but I feel like I should warn you that the processor is pretty much factory overclocked and overvolted. I tried overclocking it just for fun to see how far I could get, and I got to 5.0GHz somewhat stable, though not rock stable... able to handle about an hour of Prime95 at under 85C (without AVX of course, because I had the AVX offset configured so it clocks way down if it hits an AVX workload). Then for some reason I tried running the same Prime95 with the out of the box settings to see what happened. It turned out that it somehow managed to run HOTTER at the 4.6GHz setup you get by default on most Z590 motherboards. It was worse at 4.6GHz than it was with the settings I used to achieve 5GHz almost stable, was going over 93C regularly. It was more stable but ran insanely hot under Prime95. I'm not sure how that happened, but it was really weird to see. Dialing in manual settings for a 4.6GHz all-core overclock bought temps down like 20C. Now it doesn't go above 73C at 4.6GHz even with Prime95 running.

So I would say if you get this chip... be prepared to buy a high-end cooler like a Noctua NH-D15, and also don't expect to get much of an overclock, especially on a Z490 board. But I would say that if you are fine with the stock performance of your 10700K, then the 11700K should be fine too. Especially if you're buying a really fast SSD like a Sabrent Rocket or something that needs PCI-E 4.0.

I'm actually pretty sympathetic to your situation, because I actually upgraded from P67 to a new Z77 system with a Kepler card and Ivy Bridge just to use PCI-E 3.0 at the time... well, that and bring the temperatures down in my room because Fermi and Sandy Bridge in a small room with an old window that needed replacing and two incandescent lightbulbs without a ceiling fan was pretty toasty.

2 things:

1. Motherboard "defaults" which stray from Intel spec, are known to overshoot on power and create extra heat.

2. however, it often scales with extra performance and in the case of Rocketlake, the extra performance seems to come from those peaks. even though the clockspeed appeared the same in Prime95 after your tweaks for the same 4.6 all core, but with lower temps: did you also test performance? such as with Cinibench R23.

I have an 11700 non-k and its performance scales with power and heat. The more power you give them, the more performance they will net, even at the same clockspeeds. And my 11700 does not seem to enjoy a fixed vcore setting. that drops performance a lot. Even though it appears to otherwise be the average vcore, if I let it run auto. It seems the performance comes in the peaks. and it will peak around 175w. Whereas my 10700F tops out around 145w.

For me, I found the best balance on my 11799 is to set "unlimited" turbo and power settings----but then set LLC 5 on the V-Core. This droops the vcore at load, from the highest peaks (drops power usage about 15w), but still gives it enough room to squeeze a bit extra when it needs to flex. For a minimal overall performance difference from all auto with unlimited turbo/power. Whatever is going on with this architecture, it needs power.

Gear 1 memory mode also uses about 10w more power. But its picky about running fast ram. I have to set my system agent to 1.3v to stabilize DDR4 3600mhz. It has errors at speeds above that.(I am able to set 1T command rate though, with 1.4v on the RAM). This is RAM which will do DDR4 4000 at 1.37v with my 10700F in the same motherboard. I also set LLC level 1 for the system agent, to keep that voltage cranked.

All of that tweaked, causes more overall heat on the CPU, as well.

Gear 2 uses less power but is also slower. Techpowerup showed that you can lose almost 10 frames in latency dependant games. Even when Gear 2 is running the RAM at higher speeds, such as DDR 4000.

Anyway, Rocketlake is definitely faster. Gaming performance is now a wash. the bios updates from April brought it to parity, within a couple of frames. But in everything else, its definitely faster than Cometlake. The 11700 is 200mhz slower in all core Vs. my 10700f (4.4Ghz Vs. 4.6Ghz). But my 11700 gets 2000 points extra in Cinibench R23 multicore, compared to my 10700F. its kind of remarkable. But it does need power!

 

[Cyber Akuma]

So I would say if you get this chip... be prepared to buy a high-end cooler like a Noctua NH-D15, and also don't expect to get much of an overclock, especially on a Z490 board. But I would say that if you are fine with the stock performance of your 10700K, then the 11700K should be fine too. Especially if you're buying a really fast SSD like a Sabrent Rocket or something that needs PCI-E 4.0.

I already have a N15DS in there with an additional second fan on the current 10700K actually.

 

[Hallyday]

I wouldn't bother with that new CPU unless you have some form of exquisite SSD that you feel like it has to be on your board, which I doubt is the case. I have a 4.0 SSD (980 Pro) and not even every app can get to its peak sequential speeds, probably due to block size differences and whatnot. I often times only find it approaching 7000 down Magician. That said, multi GPU technologies for gaming are dead - and if you want to use two GPUs for mining, lanes won't matter much there either. Geil and a few others already readied up DDR5 performance sticks, so if you're planning to make an upgrade, might as well wait it out a bit more for next gen at least.

 

[athenian200]

2 things:

1. Motherboard "defaults" which stray from Intel spec, are known to overshoot on power and create extra heat.

2. however, it often scales with extra performance and in the case of Rocketlake, the extra performance seems to come from those peaks. even though the clockspeed appeared the same in Prime95 after your tweaks for the same 4.6 all core, but with lower temps: did you also test performance? such as with Cinibench R23.

I have an 11700 non-k and its performance scales with power and heat. The more power you give them, the more performance they will net, even at the same clockspeeds. And my 11700 does not seem to enjoy a fixed vcore setting. that drops performance a lot. Even though it appears to otherwise be the average vcore, if I let it run auto. It seems the performance comes in the peaks. and it will peak around 175w. Whereas my 10700F tops out around 145w.

For me, I found the best balance on my 11799 is to set "unlimited" turbo and power settings----but then set LLC 5 on the V-Core. This droops the vcore at load, from the highest peaks (drops power usage about 15w), but still gives it enough room to squeeze a bit extra when it needs to flex. For a minimal overall performance difference from all auto with unlimited turbo/power. Whatever is going on with this architecture, it needs power.

Gear 1 memory mode also uses about 10w more power. But its picky about running fast ram. I have to set my system agent to 1.3v to stabilize DDR4 3600mhz. It has errors at speeds above that.(I am able to set 1T command rate though, with 1.4v on the RAM). This is RAM which will do DDR4 4000 at 1.37v with my 10700F in the same motherboard. I also set LLC level 1 for the system agent, to keep that voltage cranked.

All of that tweaked, causes more overall heat on the CPU, as well.

Gear 2 uses less power but is also slower. Techpowerup showed that you can lose almost 10 frames in latency dependant games. Even when Gear 2 is running the RAM at higher speeds, such as DDR 4000.

Anyway, Rocketlake is definitely faster. Gaming performance is now a wash. the bios updates from April brought it to parity, within a couple of frames. But in everything else, its definitely faster than Cometlake. The 11700 is 200mhz slower in all core Vs. my 10700f (4.4Ghz Vs. 4.6Ghz). But my 11700 gets 2000 points extra in Cinibench R23 multicore, compared to my 10700F. its kind of remarkable. But it does need power!

Well, I've been using the CPU to compile software, and it seems like compile speeds scale pretty well with whatever I can achieve as an all-core overclock now. Can't really test gaming or anything graphical because I don't have the GPU for it. I'm leaving the turbo and power settings unlimited mostly. The peaks are high, I've seen it sustain over 200W at times. It turns out that it's stable at 4.8GHz if I dial that in manually as an all-core overclock in the BIOS. Ran Prime95 for hours at that, stayed under 80C. The reason I wasn't hitting 5GHz stable earlier is apparently because I had adaptive voltage enabled, and it was undervolting Prime95 at times just enough to make it unstable.

But yeah, I noticed that it was going straight for 1.38v to hit 4.6GHz, and that's why the temps were going crazy when they would do it, but not when I would. I really wasn't expecting them to overvolt by quite that much for such a modest overclock. But anyway, I found that my CPU would naturally do 4.8GHz all core at around 1.25v if I turned off all the auto stuff, let itself to whatever it wanted with power limits disabled, and just changed the multiplier to 4.8GHz myself without touching anything. Perfectly stable too. So then I tried switching to offset voltage, setting 1.35v manually (since that was just shy of the 1.38v I saw the motherboard using at stock to 4.6GHz), and tried the 5GHz all-core overclock again... this time it worked. The temperatures were still hitting around 93C, which sucks, but I was basically able to achieve 5GHz on similar voltage to what they were using to hit 4.7 or 4.6. Who would have ever guessed back in the day that one day motherboard manufacturers would ever be aggressive enough with their "stock" voltage that overclocking by messing with voltages manually could improve temperatures and performance at the same time? LOL.

 

[Link]

CPU: 10700K
Motherboard: Z490 Aorus Pro AX

I generally don't build a new system often, typically only every several years when my current system is just simply too old to even be reasonably upgraded to run even decently with current software, so I am not too familiar with differences between a single CPU generation.

In fact, if my current 3770K system had not died on me, I would still be running that as it was still more than adequate for my gaming uses, even if it was starting to suffer from virtualized systems. And if it wasn't for the fact that I needed to replace it quick and the only parts I could get reasonably and at a cheap price were a 10700K for less than a 5600X and a z490 board for cheaper than an AMD equivalent and needed Intel RAID support to recover some data I would have just gone AMD.

But regardless, I have a 10700K system right now, and I am going to likely be stuck with it for many years, but my motherboard apparently has some enhancements that will only work if I install an 11th gen CPU in it. It supports PCIe 4.0 and will enable that for some of it's current PCIe 3.0 ports, as well as enable a currently disabled 3rd m.2 NVME port that will operate in 4.0 unlike the current ones that operate in 3.0. So the main reason I want a 11700K is not for performance over my 10700K, but to get PCie 4.0 support.

I know that for now 4.0 isn't much of a difference over 3.0, but as I said, I will be stuck with this system for years, and it could very well be a more important factor later on (both for GPUs and if DirectStorage starts to matter later on), so I just wanted to make sure what my options would be in the future.

I know that the 11900K is more or less a downgrade from the 10900K in just about every way except for PCIe 4.0, but from my understanding the 11700K wasn't hit as badly compared to the 10700K right?

What I want to know is, if I were to replace my 10700K with a 11700K, would it perform worse in any way? In terms of single-core/threaded performance, multi-core performance, hyperthreading, thermals, etc? I am ok with it performing the same as my 10700K since as I said, the main reason I want it is for PCIe 4.0 support, but I don't want it to perform even worse than my current 10700K or run hotter..... since when running a CPU torture test with AVX enabled my current 10700K already came very close to thermal throttling. (I had heard that some games are starting to implement AVX now, so I don't think it's as ignorable as it used to be, temps are fine when I turn AVX off).

And as mentioned, since I am not too familiar with single-gen CPU upgrades, how likely is it that a microcode update could in any way improve the 11700K? Has there ever been a decent improvement in performance or thermals from a microcode update? Or is it almost never much of a difference and I should not even bother considering that a possibility? (I know that there were several small microcode updates around launch, no idea how common that is or if I should bother to expect any more.... especially ones that do anything noticeable)

Now, granted, I am not going to be rushing out and getting a 11700K anytime soon. I will likely do this within about a year if it's feasible for me to do so. I just wanted to know if there would be any reason for me not to upgrade from a 10700K to a 11700K if my main reason was to get PCIe 4.0 support and I am fine with it performing the same as my 10700K just as long as it doesn't in any way perform any worse?

Just keep the 11700k and wait for the next generation. Theoretically, PCIe 4.0 is twice as fast as 3.0. Again, only in theory.

 

[wandplus]

Just keep the 11700k and wait for the next generation. Theoretically, PCIe 4.0 is twice as fast as 3.0. Again, only in theory.

Techspot had some tests that showed some fairly significant differences. I can't remember exactly but maybe like 10 to 20% between PCIe3 and PCIe4. Even though I haven't built my machine yet I did get an i5-11500. The way I want to do things however is to conserve energy I'll likely to use Gear 2 for the RAM then keep the power limits in the BIOS. So the way I'm going to do it I might gain in one direction and lose in others.
Whatever, it's all a bit complicated with Rocket Lake because I think I might also end up having my 3200MHz RAM run at 2933MHz on the B560 chipset (H510 won't do PCIe4 but will run RAM at 3200MHz).
It's almost odd how Intel put customers in situations like this.

 

[chameleoneel]

Techspot had some tests that showed some fairly significant differences. I can't remember exactly but maybe like 10 to 20% between PCIe3 and PCIe4. Even though I haven't built my machine yet I did get an i5-11500. The way I want to do things however is to conserve energy I'll likely to use Gear 2 for the RAM then keep the power limits in the BIOS. So the way I'm going to do it I might gain in one direction and lose in others.
Whatever, it's all a bit complicated with Rocket Lake because I think I might also end up having my 3200MHz RAM run at 2933MHz on the B560 chipset (H510 won't do PCIe4 but will run RAM at 3200MHz).
It's almost odd how Intel put customers in situations like this.

i9 are the only ones which support 3200 at stock settings.

B560 and H570 you can overclock RAM for locked and unlocked processors. All 10 and 11 series models.

 

[JSHamlet234]

Well, I've been using the CPU to compile software, and it seems like compile speeds scale pretty well with whatever I can achieve as an all-core overclock now. Can't really test gaming or anything graphical because I don't have the GPU for it. I'm leaving the turbo and power settings unlimited mostly. The peaks are high, I've seen it sustain over 200W at times. It turns out that it's stable at 4.8GHz if I dial that in manually as an all-core overclock in the BIOS. Ran Prime95 for hours at that, stayed under 80C. The reason I wasn't hitting 5GHz stable earlier is apparently because I had adaptive voltage enabled, and it was undervolting Prime95 at times just enough to make it unstable.

But yeah, I noticed that it was going straight for 1.38v to hit 4.6GHz, and that's why the temps were going crazy when they would do it, but not when I would. I really wasn't expecting them to overvolt by quite that much for such a modest overclock. But anyway, I found that my CPU would naturally do 4.8GHz all core at around 1.25v if I turned off all the auto stuff, let itself to whatever it wanted with power limits disabled, and just changed the multiplier to 4.8GHz myself without touching anything. Perfectly stable too. So then I tried switching to offset voltage, setting 1.35v manually (since that was just shy of the 1.38v I saw the motherboard using at stock to 4.6GHz), and tried the 5GHz all-core overclock again... this time it worked. The temperatures were still hitting around 93C, which sucks, but I was basically able to achieve 5GHz on similar voltage to what they were using to hit 4.7 or 4.6. Who would have ever guessed back in the day that one day motherboard manufacturers would ever be aggressive enough with their "stock" voltage that overclocking by messing with voltages manually could improve temperatures and performance at the same time? LOL.

I don't know if this would work on a newer chip, but I don't see why it wouldn't. On my 5960X, I played with the power limits, current limit, and adaptive voltage until I got the chip to do what I want.

[email protected] 1-3 cores, light/no AVX (desktop apps, some older games)
[email protected] all-core, light/no AVX (most games, x264 encode, 7-zip compress/decompress)
[email protected] all-core, medium AVX (x265 1080P)
[email protected] all-core, heavy AVX (x265 4K, 4X overkill, Prime95 Large FFT, Corona render, y-cruncher)
[email protected] all-core, super-heavy AVX (Prime95 Small FFT, OCCT small dataset).

Settings are:
PL1: 275W
PL1 Window: 15 seconds
PL2: 240W
Current Limit: 215A
Sync All Cores @ 4.5GHz
1.27V Adaptive
ASUS X99-A

The CPU stays below 70C on air, no matter what I tell it to do. Most of the work is handled by the current limit - the power limit only kicks in for stuff like Prime small FFT.

 

[wandplus]

i9 are the only ones which support 3200 at stock settings.

B560 and H570 you can overclock RAM for locked and unlocked processors. All 10 and 11 series models.

This looks utterly confusing:
For the AsRock B560M-HDV
*11th Gen Intel® Core™ (i9/i7/i5) support DDR4 up to 2933; Core™ (i3), Pentium® and Celeron® support DDR4 up to 2666 natively.
10th Gen Intel® Core™ (i9/i7) support DDR4 up to 2933; Core™ (i5/i3), Pentium® and Celeron® support DDR4 up to 2666 natively.
For the Gigabyte B460M-DS3H

• Intel® Core™ i9/i7 processors:
  Support for DDR4 2933/2666/2400/2133 MHz
• Intel® Core™ i5/i3/Pentium®/Celeron® processors:
  Support for DDR4 2666/2400/2133 MHz

 

[Cyber Akuma]

Just keep the 11700k and wait for the next generation. Theoretically, PCIe 4.0 is twice as fast as 3.0. Again, only in theory.

I currently have a 10700K, not a 11700K.

 

[E4g1e]

I currently have a 10700K, not a 11700K.

Hmmm…

It depends on whether you really, really need the third m.2 socket and you want one of the m.2 SSDs to operate at full bandwidth at all times. This is because the 10th-Gen Intel CPUs do not have a dedicated connection for the m.2 sockets; this means that both of the m.2 SSDs are running off of the chipset whose maximum throughput is limited to PCI-e 3.0 x4 levels total. If both of the SSDs are accessed simultaneously (as it might occur with productivity apps), then each of the SSDs’ throughput will get reduced to PCI-e 3.0 x2 throughput.

 

[Cyber Akuma]

Hmmm…

It depends on whether you really, really need the third m.2 socket and you want one of the m.2 SSDs to operate at full bandwidth at all times. This is because the 10th-Gen Intel CPUs do not have a dedicated connection for the m.2 sockets; this means that both of the m.2 SSDs are running off of the chipset whose maximum throughput is limited to PCI-e 3.0 x4 levels total. If both of the SSDs are accessed simultaneously (as it might occur with productivity apps), then each of the SSDs’ throughput will get reduced to PCI-e 3.0 x2 throughput.

It's also something I need to consider not for now, but if it could become more impactful in the future. Again, I was on a 3770K system that I built in 2012 that was still going strong (Amazing how much life a GPU upgrade can breathe into modern hardware, unlike the 90s when your PC was outdated as soon as it left the store) and would still be on said 3770K had it not died on me in December. So this 10700K/Potential 11700K system is going to likely be with me for years. So it's not just a question of if PCIe 4.0 and DirectStorage can help me now, but if it would help me in the future as well.

 

[athenian200]

It's also something I need to consider not for now, but if it could become more impactful in the future. Again, I was on a 3770K system that I built in 2012 that was still going strong (Amazing how much life a GPU upgrade can breathe into modern hardware, unlike the 90s when your PC was outdated as soon as it left the store) and would still be on said 3770K had it not died on me in December. So this 10700K/Potential 11700K system is going to likely be with me for years. So it's not just a question of if PCIe 4.0 and DirectStorage can help me now, but if it would help me in the future as well.

It's funny you put it that way. Imagine if you'd put a 2700K in your Z77 motherboard and been limited PCI-E 2.0 this whole time. Do you think a GPU upgrade would have had as much impact? Or would you have found yourself wanting to upgrade sooner?

I would say for this generation, PCI-E 3.0 is probably fine... but if you're planning to keep the system long enough to upgrade, then you really want to be able to run a PCI-E 4.0 graphics card in the future, or at least run a PCI-E 5.0 GPU with less of a bottleneck. If the next GPU turns out to be PCI-E 5.0 because I hear that's coming... PCI-E 3.0 is going to hurt bad.