Thermal throttling by motherboard chipset? Gigabyte GA-Z170N-WIFI

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Mathias_8

Commendable
Apr 8, 2016
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Hello,
I've occasionally read about thermal throttling by the motherboard chipset, completely independent of the CPU's and maybe case's own temperature.

For example in reviews about the mini-ITX board Gigabyte GA-Z170N-WIFI:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3H6AFBMJO6VGK/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B015IOOJ54

It also quotes at least one real review by SilentPCReview.

Here's another user-reviewer which tries to address these complaints:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1XRKZI9WCXVZ7/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B015IOOJ54

It seems to say it's not due to the board at all and a windows power saving feature? Can it be as simple as that? Why are there specific complaints about the board and why didn't a professional reviewer notice?

How is this stupid issue even possible? And can one in any way see this on the boards themselves? This particular board seems to have a decent passive cooler on the chip.
 
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GhislainG

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Jul 16, 2008
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You linked 2 unrelated posts; the first one obviously has a throttling issue, but the poster didn't provide enough info to determine if its the CPU cooler or something else (I'd presume his x61 kraken cooler isn't working properly, but since no Intel XTU results are provided, I'd ignore that post). The second one describes an absolutely normal behavior where the CPU frequency drops down to 800 MHz when the CPU isn't busy; read his update. That poster obviously doesn't know much about processors.
 
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Mathias_8

Commendable
Apr 8, 2016
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Whether they are related in fact is not the same question as whether are trying to refer to the same issue. That's why I'm posting them and the issue as an open question. And "UPDATE: The issue people are having [is not temperature]" seems to refer explicitly to the same thing that the other review talks about (citing other people).

In fact it's the first one complaining about throttling by the board who describes throttling down to 800MHz. And he says this happens during benchmark, not idle. And mentioning a cooler which is in and of itself apparently much better than the stock cooler I don't strictly regard as "not providing enough info". Anyway, presuming and speculating I don't find convincing enough, considering that he clearly doesn't seem to be the only one with the issue.

Does this issue even happen based on board quality alone? If yes, then these reports are to be taken seriously.
 
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Mathias_8

Commendable
Apr 8, 2016
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It's not a purely statistical or numerical issue but very specific, confirmed by two professional reviewers by the way, not just one, as I've now seen (quoted in the same review). Unfortunately the board is the cheapest I can afford with Z170 (although it's not cheap by ATX-standards). Aside from the Asrock which has a more purely statistical rating, but a very, very low one indeed.
 
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GhislainG

Titan
Jul 16, 2008
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Ultimately it's your call. Even the most expensive motherboard isn't without flaws and it will never receive 100% positive feedback. I have a few motherboards that aren't well rated, but they work fine in my environment because I keep my house comfortable all year round.
 
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