Overclocking the Core i9-7900X: Can We Tame the Beast?

[Julio Franco]

We walked away impressed by the speed of Intel's new Skylake-X chips, however thermals were a severe letdown. The Core i9-7900X is too hot to handle even when paired with an AIO liquid cooler. But we think the 10-core/20-thread beast deserves a more robust cooling solution to match it so we can properly overclock it. Read on.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1437-overclocking-core-i9/

 

[amstech]

I love the pic of you setting that nice, freshly cleaned and super shiny Titan in there to make us all jelly. It's working.

 

[Uncle Al]

With the prevalence of 134A refrigerate out on the open market, perhaps it should be considered ...... although most of these systems might stand up to glycol up to 40%, even 50% ....... anyone out there try it?

 

[Squid Surprise]

I love the pic of you setting that nice, freshly cleaned and super shiny Titan in there to make us all jelly. It's working.

At least it's "only" a Titan X, not an XP.... but yeah, pretty nice

I'd think that if you're spending $1000 on a CPU, you'd be crazy not to pay another $40 to delid it.... any thermal advantage you can get would be crucial.... And maybe then an AIO cooler might suffice - which saves you more in the long run.

 

[Steve]

I love the pic of you setting that nice, freshly cleaned and super shiny Titan in there to make us all jelly. It's working.

At least it's "only" a Titan X, not an XP.... but yeah, pretty nice

I'd think that if you're spending $1000 on a CPU, you'd be crazy not to pay another $40 to delid it.... any thermal advantage you can get would be crucial.... And maybe then an AIO cooler might suffice - which saves you more in the long run.

You'd be reasonably upset if you knocked an SMD off the chip, or worse

 

[davislane1]

Steve,

What's the brand of those shirts you wear in these videos?

 

[OcelotRex]

I love the pic of you setting that nice, freshly cleaned and super shiny Titan in there to make us all jelly. It's working.

At least it's "only" a Titan X, not an XP.... but yeah, pretty nice

I'd think that if you're spending $1000 on a CPU, you'd be crazy not to pay another $40 to delid it.... any thermal advantage you can get would be crucial.... And maybe then an AIO cooler might suffice - which saves you more in the long run.

I agree with Steve here - you shouldn't have to. With your competitor using a better process it makes no sense to continue with their current one. I'd expect that Intel's designs currently in the pipe will switch to soldering for better thermal performance.

 

[Squid Surprise]

I agree with Steve here - you shouldn't have to. With your competitor using a better process it makes no sense to continue with their current one. I'd expect that Intel's designs currently in the pipe will switch to soldering for better thermal performance.

Oh I definitely agree that you shouldn't have to.... but since you also don't have to buy that chip - if you do, I'd suggest delidding - but be careful

 

[OcelotRex]

Oh I definitely agree that you shouldn't have to.... but since you also don't have to buy that chip - if you do, I'd suggest delidding - but be careful

Sounds like a boutique firm could buy the processors, delid them, and resell them at a markup...

 

[Squid Surprise]

Sounds like a boutique firm could buy the processors, delid them, and resell them at a markup...

I'd be shocked if that doesn't happen.... many already charge to overclock... no reason not to charge an extra $50 to delid - people spending thousands on expensive PCs won't even notice...

 

[OcelotRex]

I'd be shocked if that doesn't happen.... many already charge to overclock... no reason not to charge an extra $50 to delid - people spending thousands on expensive PCs won't even notice...

Admittedly I am not familiar with the costs but if like you said it was $40 for the home user to do it I'd imagine a bigger markup than $50. I'd put it in the $150 range since you are getting a product guaranteed to work without the risk of damage.

 

[JohnnieCanuk]

I would love to see this in a compare benchmarks for Civ6, late game, huge map, 12 players. my Core i5 6500 system crawls.

 

[hood6558]

This is beautiful. Of course the temps and power draw are high. How could they not be? Imagine running two high-end overclocked i7 systems, plus an i3 system (to even the core count at 10) - those 3 CPUs would add up to well over 400 watts, and still couldn't do as much work, or as fast, as the i9-7900X. Why do people expect to get something for nothing, even when the something is the the fastest consumer desktop PC in the world?
Also, paying someone to OC or delid? WTF? This used to be a hobby for those who had the patience and time to learn how to tweak and optimize their machine in every way, because they couldn't afford the best stuff. Now people talk about paying someone to delid/OC it for them. Oh, well, now we have to spend real cash AND do all the hard work - a true enthusiast should love this CPU, because there's lots of room for tweaking, and finally a real good excuse to go with a full custom loop (AIO won't cut it).

 

[OcelotRex]

Also, paying someone to OC or delid? WTF?

Considering the cost of the processor that's an expensive proposition for a home user. I don't think anyone brought up paying to OC though.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Admittedly I am not familiar with the costs but if like you said it was $40 for the home user to do it I'd imagine a bigger markup than $50. I'd put it in the $150 range since you are getting a product guaranteed to work without the risk of damage.

It's $40 for the home user... but a business would be buying the components in bulk - so it would probably cost far less... but... I suspect they could mark it up as high as they wanted... When it's $1000 for the CPU, what's an extra $50-100 on top?

 

[Raoul Duke]

I am amazed that on such a cpu Intel would cheap out so badly on the thermal interface, WTF were they thinking

 

[merikafyeah]

73 C max when your room temp is 19-20 C?! That's terrible performance. CPU temp and ambient temp don't exactly scale linearly. At a more normal 25 C ambient CPU max temp would be breaching 80+ C! Too hot for me.

You're lucky the weather was on your side this time, but any OC that relies on the weather or A/C to succeed is a FAIL overclock in my book. If your system is not stable when operating at full tilt in the highest average ambient temp of your geographical region, it is not stable period. Only a system that is stable regardless of the weather can be considered stable.

 

[hood6558]

73 C max when your room temp is 19-20 C?! That's terrible performance. CPU temp and ambient temp don't exactly scale linearly. At a more normal 25 C ambient CPU max temp would be breaching 80+ C! Too hot for me.

You're lucky the weather was on your side this time, but any OC that relies on the weather or A/C to succeed is a FAIL overclock in my book. If your system is not stable when operating at full tilt in the highest average ambient temp of your geographical region, it is not stable period. Only a system that is stable regardless of the weather can be considered stable.

So we should all move to Canada? Actually, I routinely adjust my full time OC depending on the weather (I live in Florida). Maximum OC in winter, mild OC in summer - it's always "stable", even if I'm a little slow to lower clocks in summer, it will just have temps a little higher than I like.

 

[Ascaris]

73 C max when your room temp is 19-20 C?! That's terrible performance. CPU temp and ambient temp don't exactly scale linearly. At a more normal 25 C ambient CPU max temp would be breaching 80+ C! Too hot for me.

Spot on. The scale is closer to 1.5 degrees higher CPU temp for each degree in ambient over the range that I tested (about a 10C ambient temp range, from about 28 to 38, if I recall)-- which works perfectly with your estimate of ~5C ambient adding 7C or more to CPU temp. I haven't the means to alter the ambient more than that to plot it out to see if the 1.5:1 ratio holds over a longer range, but it did invalidate the "degrees over ambient" method that so many tech sites use to compare CPU coolers, often with wildly varying (or unspecified) ambient temps.

 

[nathanzoinho]

Delid (YES) ,(NO)?