need help with solid PC built - which components?

[Dirk Steffen]

After suffering from AMD GPU driver issues for too long I have decided to finally built my first PC in decades (yes, that indeed reads decades as in more than 20 years).

I have absolutely no clue what went on in the last 20 years of PC componentry and need some serious advice.

My plan is to build a PC exclusively for the sim-rig which does no double duty but is built exclusively for the purpose of sim racing.

Here is a short list of design parameters:

- must run triple screen setup (no VR or single monitor currently planned)
- must be single NVIDIA GPU (no more AMD ever in my life, ever …)
- only intel CPUs apply
- in the past I built my PCs with best possible mainboard + best possible CPU + solid PSU and only upgraded RAM + GPU as needed

This is a component list I came up via google + checking local availability - does this make any sense to you?
Do you have any advice of better choices?
Any manufacturers better to avoid?

mainboard:
Asus ROG STRIX Z370-E Gaming

I plan to not have to upgrade this mainboard for the lifetime of this sim racing PC - any better choices in regards of future proofing re standards (RAM, CPU, connectivity) ?

GPU:
Asus GTX 1080 A8G

I would like to have a 1080 Ti but the price differences between the regular 1080 and a Ti is substantial at current inflated GPU prices.
The regular 1080 as I see it would give me a nice GPU performance boost already coming from a dual AMD D500 setup (equivalent to 2x AMD 78xx series GPUs).

CPU:
Intel Core i7 8700K

I like not to skimp on the CPU as I plan to keep this one for the lifetime of this PC.
Another Intel CPU a better choice?
I understand current sims don't necessarily make use of that many cores efficiently - with my Intel Xeon 6core I rarely ever had CPU saturation of more than 25%, so maybe less cores at a lower price point a better choice?

CPU cooler:
NOCTUA NH-D15

These seem popular with review sites and seem super easy available where I live. Any reservations?

PSU:
SeaSonic X-850

I read about several EVGA PSUs with similar specs having more favorable reviews and slightly better efficiency but I seem not to find them as easily available locally - the SeaSonic is easily available from many local vendors.
Any reservations regarding this?
I rather have a ~850W PSU with plenty of headroom with a single GPU and even have the choice of adding a second GPU to run a SLI setup should it tickle me.
Is this overkill? SeaSonic any good?

case:
Coolermaster MasterCase midi tower (not full sized)

Is there anything even remotely as nice as the old MacPro aluminium towers in terms of build quality and accessibility for PCs?
Any choices in terms of very understated looks but best build quality with proper sturdy one handed carry handle for relocation and solid and easy access?

I don't need (read: want) any LED flashy light show - I want the thing to be as simple, understated and solid as possible.
Coolermaster seems like a good case maker and is easily available locally - any better choice?

RAM:
2x 8GB DDR4

I have absolutely no clue about manufacturer, clock speed and other specs for RAM.
I come from many years of MacBook Pro computers and MacPro workstations (with ECC RAM) and have no idea what is current in the PC world.
I find currently 16GB total to be sufficient for racing Assetto Corsa but would like to future proof this PC of course for the upcoming ACC, maybe even get Project Cars 2 to run.

I can only buy RAM from the large manufacturers as of local availability (Corsair, Kingston seem to be easiest in availability).

SSD:
I would love to use one of the many SSDs I have still around from my external hard drive builds I used with the MacBook Pros in Thunderbolt and USB3 enclosures.
They are similar / the same to these:
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Legacy_Pro

Are these in any way directly usable or do I have to buy new SSDs for the built?

Many thanks upfront for your input - let's the PC building begin …

 

[Peter Klawitter]

this is a great thread, so much info and know-how, wealth of good experiences! my problem is that can’t get proper FPS. (i have re-installed twice, all runs smooth, boot up is a blink of an eye, but any sims i run, have FPS, but might be my hardware!)
so i have the following:
MOBO: Asus Rampage V Extreme (U3.1)
CPU: i7-6850K
RAM: 64GB DDR4 3000
PSU: Corsair AX1500i
DRIVES: Samsung M.2 950Pro 512GB for O/S
DRIVES: Samsung SSD’s for other stuff (860Pro’s)
GPU: Nvidia Titan Xp
DISPLAYS: 3x Asus PG279Q’s (7680x1440) @144Hz
*** system is all air cooled by Noctua fans, CPU with NH-D15 ***

NO overclocking at all.

why do i get such FPS dumps? with G-Sync is all nice and barely noticeable, but AC i get racing AI full field lowered graphics settings around 90-105FPS and of course jumps up and down sometimes reaching 125FPS. in iRacing is all over goes from 40 to 143fps (i have capped FPS in all sims, 142-143). in R3E, i don’t know how to dispay FPS counter/ meter, but do feel weird effects and seeing black tire marks building up in front of me while driving and occasional stutters.

what do you guys say? any idea? should i chuck the motherboard and CPU??? go for Z370 + i7-8700K? not sure at this point, but very frustrating.

 

[Dirk Steffen]

I am not experienced enough with PCs to make any remarks but the one thing I do know and see jumping at me right away from your list of specs is:

DISPLAYS: 3x Asus PG279Q’s (7680x1440) @144Hz

To run anything smoothly at that resolution and ideally 144Hz you need a real powerhouse of a PC.
I struggled for a long time to run triple screens at 1080 and only 60Hz with a decently fast computer but with weak GPUs and the one single variable that costs you A LOT of performance is the triple screen setup.

 

[RasmusP]

Awesome that you got it all Dirk! Components are looking fine!
Can you tell us which Asus gpu you exactly got? The main difference is the pre-oc and especially the cooler on it!
Also what cooler Master CPU cooler you got exactly?

@rocafella1978 you need openhardwaremonitor or msi afterburner and monitor your gpu clock and load! When the gpu hits over 95% load while being on it's maximum clock frequency it's the gpu that's struggling.
If the gpu load isn't that high, it's your CPU+ram. Pretty easy to figure out where's the problem when you get a tool to just read out what's happening.

The CPU load itself however is completely useless as for me it stays at around 30% in ac but it's still the limiting factor. Wrote a lot about that topic already but shortly:
Not enough game threads to use the full CPU so you get 1 core fully loaded for a splitsecond, then the next core the same and the next and the next. Taskmanager and all other tools will say that your cores are more or less evenly used but in reality you just the the average of this splitsecond-full-load-single-cores.

Dirk is right with it being probably the graphics card. A little calculation:
My gpu load is 20% with a 1070 at 1920x1080 @60hz/fps (vsync).
That's 2073600 pixels.
You have 7680x1440 = 11059200 pixels.
That's 5.3x the Pixel amount. Now you want 120+ fps which means 10x the gpu power needed for 20% gpu load.
Now 100%/20%=5 and 10/5=2.
So you'll need doubled the gpu power to run that without any headroom left (100% load @120 fps). I think the Titan has around 1.6x the power of a 1070 which would match with your 80-100 fps in AC.

Now I don't know my gpu load in iracing as I don't own it but I know ac is not very demanding!

Get openhardwaremonitor, select gpu load for plotting and watch the graph after you experienced a big fps drop.
Or you install msi afterburner + Riva tuner and you'll be able to create that fancy overlay you'll know from benchmark videos and see the gpu load while driving

 

[Dirk Steffen]

That's great info there Rasmus!

I'll tack myself directly at your post re. monitoring software.
In the past with AMD GPUs I always used MSI Afterburner as it has some amazingly detailed monitoring capabilities with overlays that can be quickly enabled/disabled by a hit of a button while racing.

With the new, fresh system I am VEEEEEERY reluctant to install any tweaking tools from the start and rather want a completely vanilla system without risking to screw up.

Is there any NVIDIA or Steam functionality already build in?
I only found an FPS counter in Steam but nothing as detailed or informative as RivaTuner / MSI AB.

The GPU I ended up with is this one (I believe):
https://www.asus.com/us/Graphics-Cards/ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-11G-GAMING/

The CPU cooler is this one (I hated the most to loose the big cooler we poked fun about earlier as it really seemed to be decent, but the shop only sold CoolerMaster gear).

http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/cpu-air-cooler/masterair-maker-8/

I see now more and more that I was sleeping under a rock for many years re. PC components and building.
So much has changed! The entire case structure, cooling solutions and all connector standards have evolved so much.

I have to say that although the CoolerMaster case I got is functional and fairly flexible in the ways you can organize components and cables - it is in no way ideal and properly thought out.
There are so many areas inside the case where connectors are unnecessary hard to reach or shields and brackets are unnecessary difficult to modify, I would advise anyone to at least have a second look at other manufacturers if their cases are maybe better thought out.

Again the CoolerMaster Mastercase H500P is solid, functional and just fine, it is not pretty though and in its construction and detail solutions not as good as it could be - also: NO CARRYING HANDLE !?

ALSO: what is it with all the colorful LEDs and kids these days ?

 

[RasmusP]

I'll tack myself directly at your post re. monitoring software.
In the past with AMD GPUs I always used MSI Afterburner as it has some amazingly detailed monitoring capabilities with overlays that can be quickly enabled/disabled by a hit of a button while racing.

With the new, fresh system I am VEEEEEERY reluctant to install any tweaking tools from the start and rather want a completely vanilla system without risking to screw up.

Is there any NVIDIA or Steam functionality already build in?
I only found an FPS counter in Steam but nothing as detailed or informative as RivaTuner / MSI AB.

I would just recommend to put msi afterburner and riva tuner on it again. The installation can get screwed when it searches for updates and hangs for... half an eternity. Sometimes it's flawless, sometimes it takes a few restarts to install fine. Nothing gets broken though. If it hangs too long: kill it, deinstall the parts that got installed and try again.
Afterburner does NOT change anything as long as you don't do it manually! It does not interfere with the inbuilt clocking algorithms nor does it apply anything!
Some games crash because of the overlay but honestly... I didn't see that happening since a few years now. Only when you have ReShade for that game too and sometimes if you start fraps while the game is loading
But for real: MSI Afterburner + Riva Tuner is the tool to go for!

The GPU I ended up with is this one (I believe):
https://www.asus.com/us/Graphics-Cards/ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-11G-GAMING/

If the cooler looks like the one you linked you bought the correct one! You only buy fancy pancy oc superclocky my a** GPUs because of the nice custom cooling solutions, backplate, power supply. But NOT for the clock speeds since the GTX 7xx series basically. Especially with this generation the maximum OC clock speed is not longer a point where the driver crashes or you get a black screen. Instead you just get artifacts on your screen in all colors. Looks quite interesting when you're trying to hit the limit
What I want to say: ALL these cards hit the same limit at around 2050 MHz. My 1070 is running at 2000-2025 (it has built in steps and fluctuates depending on temp, load, power drain etc...).
If you wanna see what's possible I always recommend to look at the "overclocking the graphics card" page on the Guru3D tests!
Here's a link to one of the 1080 TIs: LINK

The CPU cooler is this one (I hated the most to loose the big cooler we poked fun about earlier as it really seemed to be decent, but the shop only sold CoolerMaster gear).

http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/cpu-air-cooler/masterair-maker-8/

Cooler is decent enough for sure. All these manufacturers telling you they have the best one possible but in the end it's just a plate, heatpipes, some big fat piece of cooling metal sheets and some fans thrown at it. The bigger-> the better. As long as it isn't some total crap it will all stay within reasonable temperatures!
Here's a comparison from a German page: LINK

Again the CoolerMaster Mastercase H500P is solid, functional and just fine, it is not pretty though and in its construction and detail solutions not as good as it could be - also: NO CARRYING HANDLE !?

No handle LOL! It's supposed to stay where it is! Don't you dare to move it, lol. You have to give it some honorable spot and let it rest there until you rip it apart again after some years! And why even carry? You really think LAN-Parties are still a think when the youth not even meet in person anymore?!
Anyway, case seems decent too! As an ongoing German Engineer I've been massively triggered by their OFFICIAL picture though: You don't put something up for such a show and let it hang down... Gosh what kind of blasphemy is this?!

ALSO: what is it with all the colorful LEDs and kids these days ?

Good question... I mean there is this: Which I think looks quite decent. Like you need some light in your car interior...

And then there's this:

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Hey Rasmus, thanks so much, that really eases the worry - I always liked MSI AB, on it goes again ;-)

The thing about having a solid grip on the computer is that you move stuff around in the studio.
In fact I really do have most of the studio furniture on coasters as depending on the projects we work on I do move stuff around.

 

[RasmusP]

Hey Rasmus, thanks so much, that really eases the worry - I always liked MSI AB, on it goes again ;-)

The thing about having a solid grip on the computer is that you move stuff around in the studio.
In fact I really do have most of the studio furniture on coasters as depending on the projects we work on I do move stuff around.

Yeah the alternatives would be fraps which isn't more like an FPS counter and you want to have the clockspeed and the load displayed too especially with these new power modes from nvidia where you get fps drops and 80% load to then find out that your card is just running in office mode... AMS for example did that to me

There is nvidia shadowplay too which is also very very useful for doing quick videos or even streams BUT here you go with auto-updates, auto-game-settings, pop ups etc. If you get bothered by tweaking such things it's better to just install MSI AB

Oh of course! Didn't know the PC would also be in the studio! Then a handle would be cool although I guess it would be better to put the whole PC setup with mouse, keyboard, all cables on wheels and only have the chair/seat + wheelstand or whatever you've got "temporary-fixed".

Anyway:
WELCOME AGAIN TO THE GLORIOUS PC MASTER RACE!

 

[Deleted member 387850]

There is nvidia shadowplay too which is also very very useful for doing quick videos or even streams BUT here you go with auto-updates, auto-game-settings, pop ups etc.

Yes, it's worth mentioning that Nvidia will encourage you to install the GeForce Experience app which adds Shadowplay, Game Ready Drivers and manages your display driver. Personally I uninstalled it straight away and just manage my display driver myself! Judging by comments made throughout this thread I suspect Dirk will probably want to avoid this app as well

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Thanks Rasmus and Jon for mentioning this shadowy app I indeed installed with the whole package.
I was wondering what the deal was until upon opening it I was asked to login or create an account.

I treat such apps out of principle the exact same way I treat friendly gentleman who ring the doorbell who offer exquisite deals on insurances, used cars, pre-owned socks and … say bridges for instance.

Now that I have the confirmation that Nvidia Experience is the computer equivalent of the greasy insurance sales person, it is shown the way to the door, … politely.

 

[RasmusP]

btw if you need any help just PM me or something. All current sims are configured with decent graphic mods and custom nvidia profiles (inspector used, not that crappy standard interface).
So if you got some spare GPU power just tell me. We can make it sweat lol!

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Thanks a lot for the nice offer Rasmus - I am still at Level 1 (getting basic functions to work, such as internet or the mouse).
I am fighting real hard to get this set up just basic so I can join tomorrow mornings first Club Race @ Watkins Glen in a car I thought I'd never ever drive - a red one !!!!

 

[Dirk Steffen]

… diving deeper and deeper into this PC, I am now in the middle of optimizing settings for all used racing simulators.

I have also downloaded and installed a few benchmark apps to get an idea about this computer.

So far I have not overclocked anything but here are a few points I have questions about:

1) RAM
the installed RAM is Kingston DDR4 3600MHz 4x8GB
The package advertises 3600MHz.
CPUz and 3DMark reads the RAM as 2400MHz.
Can someone explain this?

[EDIT]: here is more info about the RAM:
Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4
HX436C17PB3K4/32 32GB (4x 8GB) 3,600MHz CL17

2) performance
Assetto Corsa runs amazingly beautiful - I have never seen it like that before - makes me VERY happy!

Project Cars 2 runs ok (much better than on the old machine) but I find curiously that the CPU (both overall load of all cores and single core load) barely gets any work.
The GPU is fully taxed when cranking the graphics settings up, the CPU not at all.

I run 3x 1920x1080@60Hz and all settings at high, shadows at ultra (because of the still existing shadow flicker bug with PC2 + triple screens) and MSAA at highest settings gets stable (vsync on) 60 FPS and a GPU load of about 55-70% during a wet night race, watching the replay of the same race though, I get barely 50 FPS

I know this comes very much down to PCars2 and it's being not ideally optimized as other (older gen) racing sims are but here is the question:

What can I do to improve this?
Will getting the RAM from it's current 2400 MHZ to it's advertised 3600 MHz do any good here?

3) temperature
With the old system with highly overclocked GPUs I used to see GPU and CPU temperatures in the low 80ºC under prolonged heavy load (they were stable, the cooling ran beautifully and the computer never had any issues, running like this for years).

With the new computer, the GPU temp is barely ever above 65ºC (I believe I saw it once at 67ºC).
The CPU temp is never above ~55ºC.

I did not do any tweaks whatsoever - it's all stock vanilla Win 10 Pro 64bit + Asus supplied official mainboard and GPU drivers and tools installed without any settings changes.

Is this normal?
If not, what are normal temperatures for CPU and GPU?

 

[RasmusP]

Nice to hear that it's all running and AC is good to go!
To your questions:

1) RAM
the installed RAM is Kingston DDR4 3600MHz 4x8GB
The package advertises 3600MHz.
CPUz and 3DMark reads the RAM as 2400MHz.
Can someone explain this?

[EDIT]: here is more info about the RAM:
Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4
HX436C17PB3K4/32 32GB (4x 8GB) 3,600MHz CL17

The diagnosis for what's the limiting factor is always:
1. Is your GPU in 3D mode (1500MHz+)
2. Is the GPU load below 90%
3. If both yes, then it's the CPU

CPU/RAM however work as one factor. You can't read them out afaik. Faster memory gives you a boost as long as the cache-filling is the limiting factor. If your CPU itself is on it's limit, a faster filling cache won't help any further.
However higher RAM clock mostly gives you a boost. Higher CPU clock gives you a bigger boost though!
In your case, going from 2400 to 3600 will definitely give you a boost as it's 50% higher clock!

Now to explain how to... That's difficult.. Especially since, depending on your mainboard, your PC won't even go into the BIOS with a wrong RAM configuration and you might need to open the PC and move a jumper.
My Mainboard tries to start 3x and then resets the BIOS but keeps my BIOS profiles. Other Mainboard might work better or worse. No idea, sorry.

However in theory you just need to find out the exact specs of you RAM and set this in the BIOS and it should work. Also there are "Intel XMP Profiles" which should be available in your BIOS. One of these Profiles should be 3600 MHz. Select it and everything else will get adjusted. My RAM doesn't have a fitting XMP profile so I went down the manual route...

If you want to do this and XMP profiles won't work I would suggest we go into TS/Discord/Skype and do a video chat via Smartphone so I'll see your BIOS and talk you through it

Project Cars 2 runs ok (much better than on the old machine) but I find curiously that the CPU (both overall load of all cores and single core load) barely gets any work.
The GPU is fully taxed when cranking the graphics settings up, the CPU not at all.

I run 3x 1920x1080@60Hz and all settings at high, shadows at ultra (because of the still existing shadow flicker bug with PC2 + triple screens) and MSAA at highest settings gets stable (vsync on) 60 FPS and a GPU load of about 55-70% during a wet night race, watching the replay of the same race though, I get barely 50 FPS

That is what I mentioned further above:
The program runs on too few threads. You don't see these threads (with process explorer you can but it doesn't matter really).
Now you need to imagine a super-slowmotion-view of the CPU work: (numbers are fantasy!)
Core 1 gets loaded 100% for 0.1 seconds
Core 2 gets loaded for 100% for 0.1 seconds
Core 3...4 5 6 7 8 9 10.
Now you have 10 cores, loaded each to 100% for 0.1s only.
Taskmanager refreshes every 1 second. You will see 10% load on all cores but that's not the real truth!
Now my thought was always "okay so I only need one core in theory.. as that would be running at 100% then. Same performance".
Again, not the real truth... CPUs are complicated and I'm just scratching the very surface of it all but that's how you can explain why you see only 10% load but your CPU is still limiting the game!

Another thing to prove this: With process explorer you'll see the threads of a program. You will see a lot of threads but only 1-3 will have numbers that are way higher than the others.
The calculation here goes like this:
4 cores / 8 threads (i7 2600k with Hyperthreading).
8 Threads = 100% -> 1 core at 100% = 12.5% overall load. 100/8=12.5!

Now you have AC for example limited with Vsync to 60fps.
You open process explorer, navigate to where you'll see the threads and the moment one of the threads goes above ~12% (it doesn't hit 12.5...) the fps will drop!
That's because you can not split that thread into more pieces! But one of these threads hitting the limit of a single core will drop the FPS.

I hope you can still follow me as it's difficult to get that all into one little post but I tried my best without reading for correction

In short: If your graphics card is in 3D mode (1500MHz+) and not hitting above 90% load, it's your CPU no matter what any graph,tool etc will tell you!
RAM clock improves this, CPU overclocking too!

What can I do to improve this?
Will getting the RAM from it's current 2400 MHZ to it's advertised 3600 MHz do any good here?

Yes!

Is this normal?
If not, what are normal temperatures for CPU and GPU?

Totally normal! Hardware got a LITTLE more efficient!
Pro Tip: reduce the FAN curves so your GPU hits ~80°C and your CPU ~70°C and "enjoy the silence"

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Hey Rasmus, you blow my mind ;-)

I believe I have taken more than I can chew for starters.

After a bit of googling over a good strong morning coffee I have found:

1) the combination of the Asus ROG 370E Gaming mainboard and i7 8700K seems to be fairly popular for overclocking and there are readily available manual overclock guides with all settings available by users on the Asus forum (I had no idea)

2) (the safe and easy way I suppose) I have found out that you can nowadays simply overclock RAM and CPU with pre-made, manufacturer approved overclocking profiles in the BIOS - WOW !!! Times really have changed from setting jumpers and painful tweaking.

I will give number 2 a go after giving this whole thing a little more time to understand, run benchmarks and see what performance this computer now really gets to at rather stock settings.

My mainly used racing sims run much better then before and that is all what counts to me ;-)

I have also found yesterday evening the cause of the strange instabilities and non-loading issues I had son my initial Assetto Corsa installation - the HDD I installed AC on was faulty (!)
As I mentioned earlier, I made the number one computer sin one can do and recycled HDDs out of my de-commissioned bin, well it turned out that 1TB Samsung drive had sector faults which I learned about with this tool:

https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

Now I am looking into performance of Project Cars 2.
Comments, reviews and tech demos from 2017 state that PC2 should run at 4K resolution with ALL settings completely maxed out at above 120 FPS with a NVIDIA 1080 Ti.

I don't get anywhere near that performance (settings on HIGH instead and getting ~60 + FPS).
I doubt that it has to do that PC2 does not scale a single 4K screen equally to three 1080 screens when using triple screen rendering mode and performs much worse in triple screen mode.

For now PC2 is running solid at HIGH settings and it works more then well for online racing purposes. With the old computer it did not, so I am giving the whole overclocking adventure a bit of time ;-)

Thanks a lot for your explanations regarding the RAM - this helped immensely!
It pushed my nose on those XMP profiles that can be easily loaded in the BIOS.

There are three options with XMP:
- normal (RAM runs at 2400MHz)
- 3000 MHz
- 3600 MHz

The faster the overall clock though the higher the CL times (I vaguely remember those to be better, the lower the numbers).

What is a rule of thumb - higher MHz with slower CL times or the other way around or can it only be determined with benchmarks?

I found some answers also regarding the CPU temperatures on the Asus forum overclocking guides - once that i7 8700K is getting close to 5GHz CPU temperatures are getting … warm. I won't go there just yet - too much new tech to learn first.

Last question for easter Monday:
Which benchmarking software is the closest to be directly relevant for current gen sim racing?
Is 3DMark any good or has it little relevance in regards to rF2 and Project Cars 2 (those are the only ones I cannot fully squeeze out as I would like to)?

 

[RasmusP]

Only quick reply via phone:
Don't use the overclocking profiles. They almost always put higher voltages on the processor than needed!

Xmp 3600 is the way to go for the memory! MHz always over CL! I read some benchmarks about that and CL only makes a difference when comparing the same MHz but different MHz was always a bigger difference!
Check what's the specs for your ram and see if the Xmp profile loads the same CL.
If not, load the Xmp profile for 3600 MHz and customize the CLs manually to the ram specs. It should work... No guarantee though!

Benchmarks... Honestly I don't use them other than to check the overclocking. Gaming is so different especially when your hardware isn't fully utilized.
There is a difference between maximum core usage, memory usage and power usage. I use msi kombustor to simulate the extremes of each. It also has a CPU burner function where you can set a thread number. On 6+ CPU threads I always use it with CPU threads minus one. So 7 for me.
The temperature is around 2 degrees less with this while the one left out thread can handle the refresh of the hardware monitors etc.

For gpu testing I use "lake of titans x64" in 720p or higher with 8x anti aliasing. Gets between 70-200 fps and only drains the core to 100%. Good for maximum oc clock checking. It's the closest to normal games too.
If you wanna burn the crap out of the gpu you'll have to use the "furry donut" which has the highest power drain so my gpu clocks down from 2012 MHz to 18xx! It also generates the most heat

For real fps comparison I always just use the game itself. Run 3x the exact same race config and note down the fps you get. Take the values your brain reads from it. That average/min/max are good enough.
Then overclock and do the same.

For each game the same procedure.

And just to repeat: if your graphics card is in 3d mode (1500 MHz +) and not over 90% load, it's the CPU/ram you need to overclock
A little advice to the CPU oc: the 8700k runs at 4.7 GHz turbo out of the box afaik.
You would need to lock all voltages to these defaults and then just put the max turbo to 4.9 GHz for example. It should run stable as Intel always puts in some reserve

And another advice: while overclocking, never open files you can't lose. The PC might crash randomly. While nvidia driver restarts (like a hot bluescreen) only crash the game and don't hurt anything else, a CPU related bluescreen will lose the currently cached things in the memory. So settings etc will be reset to the latest windows start.
Bluescreens etc don't hurt though. Test the limits of your hardware without fearing for crashes. Only have an eye on temperatures (and CPU voltages).

@RainhamIron has a slightly OCed 8700k. If you ask him nicely he might send you his exact voltages etc so you just throw them in and have a nice and stable OCed CPU

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Only quick reply via phone:
Don't use the overclocking profiles. They almost always put higher voltages on the processor than needed!

Xmp 3600 is the way to go for the memory! MHz always over CL! I read some benchmarks about that and CL only makes a difference when comparing the same MHz but different MHz was always a bigger difference!
Check what's the specs for your ram and see if the Xmp profile loads the same CL.
If not, load the Xmp profile for 3600 MHz and customize the CLs manually to the ram specs. It should work... No guarantee though!

Benchmarks... Honestly I don't use them other than to check the overclocking. Gaming is so different especially when your hardware isn't fully utilized.
There is a difference between maximum core usage, memory usage and power usage. I use msi kombustor to simulate the extremes of each. It also has a CPU burner function where you can set a thread number. On 6+ CPU threads I always use it with CPU threads minus one. So 7 for me.
The temperature is around 2 degrees less with this while the one left out thread can handle the refresh of the hardware monitors etc.

For gpu testing I use "lake of titans x64" in 720p or higher with 8x anti aliasing. Gets between 70-200 fps and only drains the core to 100%. Good for maximum oc clock checking. It's the closest to normal games too.
If you wanna burn the crap out of the gpu you'll have to use the "furry donut" which has the highest power drain so my gpu clocks down from 2012 MHz to 18xx! It also generates the most heat

For real fps comparison I always just use the game itself. Run 3x the exact same race config and note down the fps you get. Take the values your brain reads from it. That average/min/max are good enough.
Then overclock and do the same.

For each game the same procedure.

And just to repeat: if your graphics card is in 3d mode (1500 MHz +) and not over 90% load, it's the CPU/ram you need to overclock
A little advice to the CPU oc: the 8700k runs at 4.7 GHz turbo out of the box afaik.
You would need to lock all voltages to these defaults and then just put the max turbo to 4.9 GHz for example. It should run stable as Intel always puts in some reserve

And another advice: while overclocking, never open files you can't lose. The PC might crash randomly. While nvidia driver restarts (like a hot bluescreen) only crash the game and don't hurt anything else, a CPU related bluescreen will lose the currently cached things in the memory. So settings etc will be reset to the latest windows start.
Bluescreens etc don't hurt though. Test the limits of your hardware without fearing for crashes. Only have an eye on temperatures (and CPU voltages).

@RainhamIron has a slightly OCed 8700k. If you ask him nicely he might send you his exact voltages etc so you just throw them in and have a nice and stable OCed CPU

Thanks for the hint re. better not using the pre-made profiles in the BIOS.
I tried the 5GHz profile on an otherwise unaltered configuration, it booted fine, showed the specs as overclocked ok, showed normal temps at idle on the desktop but the moment I would start 3DMark the computer would crash.

I went back to stock BIOS settings, overclocked the RAM via XMP profile to 3600 MHz, overclocked the GPU with the official Asus supplied app by 120MHz core clock and achieved a 9200 points 3DMark score with an otherwise completely unaltered computer.
That's ok for now and I will look into going further at a later point.
I feel overclocking the CPU to get to higher clock speeds than the 4.5 MHz I see now in Project Cars 2 via MSI AB overlay would unlock some performance but I can live with what it does for now.

The RAM XMP profile for 3600 MHz loads the exact same specs in the BIOS as the RAM is advertised at on the package - seems safe to me ;-)

So, @RainhamIron … I'll ask nicely - would you mind to share your specs to overclock the i7 8700K CPU ?

I do not understand so far how one would go about to overclock:

- just change the base clock of the mainboard from 100 MHz to a higher value,
- just change the maximum CPU multiplier from 47 to a higher value,
- change a combination of both ?
- what are the implications of setting each CPU core multiplier from Auto to a fixed multiplier?

Will the CPU be cooked and will constantly run at high clock speed ?

So many questions - probably too much for this thread and I am going to read up on all of this sooner or later …

 

[RasmusP]

I went back to stock BIOS settings, overclocked the RAM via XMP profile to 3600 MHz

The RAM XMP profile for 3600 MHz loads the exact same specs in the BIOS as the RAM is advertised at on the package - seems safe to me ;-)

Nice! That's how it should be

overclocked the GPU with the official Asus supplied app by 120MHz core clock

Kick that ASUS app if it isn't something nice for Motherboard + GPU and you like it. MSI Afterburner can overclock too and you already have it installed. Also I can show you around in MSI Afterburner since I know it. These tools from the manufacturers are mostly nothing more like some fancy gaming garbage. MSI has some "gaming app", Asus, Gigabyte.. they all have something. The only tool I can recommend would be EVGA Precision but that doesn't have the awesome overlay from MSI AB + Riva Tuner!

Thanks for the hint re. better not using the pre-made profiles in the BIOS.
I tried the 5GHz profile on an otherwise unaltered configuration, it booted fine, showed the specs as overclocked ok, showed normal temps at idle on the desktop but the moment I would start 3DMark the computer would crash.

Totally normal. The important thing is the temperature! And not too high voltages but when it crashes at 5 GHz under load, the voltage was too low anyway

I do not understand so far how one would go about to overclock:

- just change the base clock of the mainboard from 100 MHz to a higher value,
- just change the maximum CPU multiplier from 47 to a higher value,
- change a combination of both ?
- what are the implications of setting each CPU core multiplier from Auto to a fixed multiplier?

Will the CPU be cooked and will constantly run at high clock speed ?

That is... complicated and very easy at the same time...
NEVER touch the Blck (100 MHz) as this will overclock your whole MB... PCI Slots, Memory controller etc etc. Only pro-overclocker touch it and then only very carefully for the real maximum performance. You won't need to ever touch that!!!

Now the easy part: You raise the multiplier and you'll get higher clocks. The scaling stays the same so only the MAXIMUM will get raised!
At some point you will need more core voltage to make it run stable. Intel has built in a voltage curve so if you put the core voltage to "auto", it will raise it along the multiplier automatically but this value might either be too low or way too high, depending on the chip you've got!

There are guides from very experienced overclockers and they mostly recommend a "safe 24/7 voltage" and a "maximum performance benchmark voltage". Put in the "safe 24/7" one and raise the multiplier until you get bluescreens.
That's the basics and the theory...

Now you have all the controller voltages, a "ring bus" for Haswell (4xxx series) and newer and some other stuff... Most things can stay on the default (switch from "auto" to the default values that should be listed somewhere as you've got a good MoBo

And now comes the last bit, which is more complicated...
Voltage and Multiplier are independent of the speed steps of the CPU. So with a locked voltage your CPU will still go down to 1600 MHz when idling!

You have a voltage-curve and clock speed steps. Looks like this (fantasy numbers):
1600 MHz - 0.857 V
1800 MHz - 0.879 V
.
.
.
.
4500 MHz - 1.153 V
.
.
.
5000 MHz - 1.400 V

You now have the following options (different from MoBo to MoBo):
- "fixed" which means always a specific voltage, like "1.350 V"
The voltage will always stick to 1.350 V but your CPU will still go down to 1600 MHz (I think it's 1600... for Laptops it's 800 or something!).


- "offset" which means your voltage will differ from the above listed voltages about a certain value, like "-0.040 V"
All voltages from the voltage-curve will be lowered by this amount. While it's nice for the maximum clock speed it can destabilize the lower clock steps as the buffer from Intel is way smaller there since you won't need to "safe the CPU" down there!

- "offset above X" which means your voltage will only be raised/lowered by X-amount when you hit the overclocking range of clock steps. Very nice feature, didn't see that often yet though...

Important to know is that there are two things that will make a CPU suffer. Heat and overvoltage! Basically similar to a human being. You are able to run longer when it's not too hot outside but running faster than you are normally able to will make you fall at some point.
Normal temperatures are everything below 80°C though, not the "don't go over 60°C" garbage you will come across while searching for good temps. My i7 2600k is running at 4.4 GHz since 2011 and always had it quite cozy at around 75°C.

The generated heat is depending on the power drain of the CPU. More voltage = more wattage. Higher frequency = higher possible load and therefore more wattage.
Crucial to know here is that a table of wattage would look like this (fantasy numbers!):
0.857V - 1.6 GHz - idle = 5W
1.400V - 1.6 GHz -idle = 20W
1.200V - 4.5 GHz - idle = 25W
1.400V - 5.0 GHz - idle = 30W

1.200V - 4.5 GHz - 100% load = 90W
1.200V - 5.0 GHz - 100% load = 110W
1.400V - 4.5 GHz - 100% load = 110W
1.400V - 5.0 GHz -100% load = 120W

The goal you aim for is the highest clock speed at the "24/7 safe voltage" possible that's running stable!
Important to know is that most CPUs tend to have "plateaus" at certain points. My old i7 2600k runs at ~1.15V at 3.4 GHz stock speed. You can raise the voltage alongside the speed quite linear up to the "24/7" voltage of 1.35V and 4.4 GHz.
To run stable at 4.5 GHz I need to raise the voltage to 1.45V!!! It then goes up to 4.7 GHz and then only goes higher at the maximum of 1.5V. 4.9 is running and 5.0 doesn't even boot.

Same CPU of a friend runs nicely up to 4.6 GHz at 1.33V and needs 1.45V for 4.7 GHz.
I can only recommend to just put the Voltage to the safe value and raise the multiplier in some big steps and check when it crashes. Then you go one step down etc. until you hit your very own "plateau" and you'll be good to go for years

Well... again too much to chew, lol.
We should have a video call at some point rather than you messing around and gathering wrong info from inexperienced people on the internet. As hard as it sounds...

One BRILLIANT GUY: "der8auer" (Der Bauer). Roman is his real name and he's "the German Benchmarker"

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Hey Rasmus, this is like over-clocking university here ;-)

I definitely look into stop using "ASUS GPU Tweak II" and will start using MSI AB also for this new setup.
I love how MSI AB works and how so very flexible it is (I am using it for years and it kept my MacPro Windows bootcamp installation alive with that unsupported dual AMD FirePro GPU setup. MSI AB rocks BIG TIME ! ;-)

The GPU temperatures during racing are pretty cool, way, way, way cooler than my dual AMD GPU (overclocked) ever ran. I think there is potential once switching to MSI AB for overclocking the GPU.

I also got a big reality check re. Project Cars 2 and expected performance.
It turns out to get 120 FPS at ULTRA settings one definitely needs a dual 1080 Ti SLI setup which is definitely not going to happen on my end (I just dumped the difficult to handle AMD diva twins in favor of a wonderful single NVIDIA GPU amd I am not getting greedy and trying exotic stuff in order to get PC2 running a bit nicer.

I also found some very sweet settings in teh NVIDIA driver panel to improve on teh "horrible out of the box anti aliasing of PC2" and it looks ok now (by far not as clean and crisp as Assetto Corsa, but clean).
In essence I use maxed out MSAA settings only in game (PC2 has an ongoing bug that prevents the use of Super Sampling with triple screen setups).
Then I add in the NVIDIA driver panel "enhance AA" and use just 2x AA on top of PC2's own MSAA and then I add another 2x Super Sampling transparency AA in teh NVIDIA driver panel to top it off nicely.

Performance is still ok (80-90 -ish FPS in the dry, 65 -ish FPS in the wet and no visible break downs).
I guess when coming to overclocking the GPU with MSI AB and refining that cooling issue with the CPU over clock I squeeze another few FPS out of PC2 and throw that towards a little more AA or just keep it in reserve.


Your tips re. CPU overclocking and a nice guy over at the Project Cars 2 forum who has the exact same mainboard, GPU and CPU helped me to a mild overclock for now.

I have the CPU now at a conservative 4.7MHz
I had it already higher at ~ 4.9 but when running CPU stress tests (Cinebench, 3DMark and Aida64) CPU temperatures would rather quickly go towards 100 deg C.

I have also attached a temp alarm kicking in at 95 deg C into MSI AB which is super sweet as it warns me the moment I do something stupid.

With this mild CPU overclock I am running now this 3DMark result whch for now I am happy with:
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/25926133?

9 691 points
with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti(1x) and Intel Core i7-8700K Processor

 

[RasmusP]

Nice!
To gpu overclocking: for pascal you can't just say "+200 MHz" as it has an inbuilt clock curve which means you will exceed stable clocks when the gpu is at low temps and not full load but when getting hotter at full load the clock will also go down much further than you want!
You need to define a custom curve that works "against the inbuilt one" so the voltage will vary a bit but your core clock will stay in between +/- 20 MHz.
We will need to have a video call to get it right though. Takes 15 minutes only

100°c is a bit hot! Grab openhardwaremonitor and check if your fans go faster and slower when the CPU gets hotter/cooler. Or if they don't, check the constant speed they have.
Do you have custom case fans or just the ones that come with the case?
Case fans are 2x 200mm in the front with 800 rpm Max, rear 1x 140mm with 1200 rpm max and your CPU fans should be maxing out at around 1800 rpm.
Just post a Screenshot from openhardwaremonitor while running the msi kombustor CPU stresstest at 10 threads. Of course end the stresstest when going too hot but grab that Screenshot with the fan speeds!

Should look like this:

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Yes, there is a lot of reading material to consume before I dive into the GPU over clocking on this one.

The 100C CPU temps ONLY happen when overclocked @ 4.9 GHz and running a CPU stresstest on all cores - ONLY then do the CPU temps climb that high.
When racing Assetto Corsa with the CPU @ 4.7GHz the CPU temp never even climbs above ~75C

I will look into the cooling and will document the findings when I will have more time to sit down and tinker again - tinkered the whole easter weekend on this one, that's enough PC tinkering for a lifetime ;-)

The fans in the case came with the case, nothing custom as I am aware of.

I will be back!