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ASROCK Z370 TAICHI MOTHERBOARD
The Z370 Taichi is perhaps one of ASRock’ best builds to date for overclocking. It will ONLY accommodate Intel 8th Gen Core processors, supports memory up to DDR40433+(OC), has 3 PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, along with two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots, NVIDIA Quad SLI, AMD 3-Way CrossfireX along with both an integrated HDMI and Display port, something we have never seen prior.
In addition, you get 7.1 channel HD sound, Dual Intel Gigabit LAN, Intel 802.11ac WIFI + BT 4.2, ASRock RGB LED and this motherboard is Intel Optane ready.
For storage, the highlight might definitely be the 3 Ultra M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA3 slots, although this motherboard is also equipped with 8 SATA3 ports, 8 USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, and 3 USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, two being front and rear Type-C.
The ASRock Z370 Taichi appears to be just over $200 at Amazon, which is an amazing price for one of the best boards we have yet.
INTEL COFFEE LAKE I7-8700K CPU
The Intel Coffee Lake Core I7-8700K CPU is a six core/twelve thread CPU with a base clock of 3.7GHz and turbo frequency 4.7GHz.
ASRock has made overclocking this motherboard quick and easy, having a pre-configured UEFI menu option that is solid at 4.7GHz…but not so on 4.8GHz and 5GHz through their settings. We were able to overcome this, however, by simply switching the CPU Ratio to ‘Allcore’ with a multiplier of ’50’ and then switching CPU Core to ‘Offset mode’ in Voltage Configuration and inputting an Offset Voltage (mV) of 120. That is it. This is the Intel Extreme Tuning Stress test result that came shortly after.. It passed… and looked at ease in doing so.
Just for fun. let’s include the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility Benchmark which returned with a score of 2527 marks.
The Intel Core I7-8700K processor can be found at Amazon for $400.
WTH!!! A mobo of that kind and no thunderbolt support?! ASMedia on the usb 3.1 side?! common!!!
Who cares about Thunderbolt !
1.504 vCore for 5Ghz?
Have you tried delidding that CPU?
Do you still have that CPU running at those voltages today?
Interested to find if you have ran into any instability over the 18 months, which could indicate degradation of the CPU.
There’s little information about the long term effects of running a coffee lake processor pretty much at intel maximum voltages (1.52), but degradation should manifest as lockups and inconsistent performance.
Appreciate your feedback.
This is my test bench. Still runs the same with these settings. I admittedly am not a CPU expert and I am sure some have said, “This guy is just nuts!” but this serves my purpose for achieving the highest possible performance in benchmarks.