Where can I lookup very specific Mainboard informations?

MachineDeth

Commendable
Jun 29, 2016
24
0
1,510
Hello,
i've just recently build my own first PC and changed parts already once and am about to do so again... That's partially my fault, but also kinda the develepors, cause they don't list all the details in their specifications. Right now I have an GA-G170-Gaming K3 EU rev. 1.0 board with an i5-6600K on it. Now I changed from another chipset board, cause I didn't know at that time, that only Zxxx boards can overclock Intel CPUs (and I've also read that some others do as well, but didN#t get any prove or anything, again cause I just can't find those informations black on white on a trusted source!). So I've just to my current one just to realize, that it is NOT! possible to set the multiplicator as you wish, without boundries! No! You have to go strictly by Gigabyte's implemented presets! So right now my CPU's running at 4,4GHz, which isn not bad! But since it only got 5°C hotter under full usage, than with stock clock, I of course want to give it a little more! I'd go to six.
Now, that is not the only issue with particular or not particular board. Also I am unable to change the clock of the ram! So, what is nessecary to do that? I really can't find any infromation, that you need to have ANYTHING special to overclock the RAM! Nontheless, I just can't change the clock speed...
And here's the third and biggest one, which also is my fault, cause it says it in the specs and I was just too dumb to read properly... I want to go multi GPU some time later with the RX 480, sometimes when I feel that one card's not giving enough power anymore. NOW, I know multi GPU's bad, cause of many reasons, but that's the way I want to head you really won't convince me otherwise biggrin.gif. The simple problem is, that my board runs the second (now, here it comes!) PCI-E 16 LANES slot WITH 4 LANES! Why, that is just retarded, imo! You don't wanna sell a CrossFire board, which runs one of both PC-E slots with 1/4 of its bandwidth speed! And I misunderstood the litle remark, that stated that the card runs ONLY in PCI-Ex4 mode on the second slot with the card runs with PCI-Ex4 on the second slot, if the PCI-Ex1_3 (so the third PCI-E 1x slot, which is truely a 1x slot, even form factor based) is populated. When in reality the second PCI-E slot runs actually ONLY with 2x, when the PCI-E_3 slot is used! That sounds confusing to you, whixh may result of me, being not so clear here, but to put it simple: In a 2-Way-CrossFire configuration, the second PCI-E 16x form factor slot runs with a max bandwidth of 4x.

SOOOOO! Now I'm about to switch again, and I want it to be the last time! I'm lookingat this MSI Z170-A PRO board. IT HAS AAAAAALL I NEED! I am very certain! EXCEPT! The mentioned above!
SO: In clonclusion: tl; dr: How can I KNOW? FOR SURE! That this particulr board can OC my CPU, if it can OC my RAM and WHAT are the bandwidths of the PCI-E slots if both are used?
 
Solution
RAM:
like said before, it´s no OC RAM, and therfore 2666MHz with this latecy is the best you can do, without raising voltage for it.

Raising voltage can physically damage the hardware, so be extremely careful with this option.

CPU:
The thing with overclocking is that every single 6600K CPU is different and some can reach higher frequencies than others. Some need more voltage than others. The presets you were reffering to, do more than just raise the multiplicator. Thes also raise the blck and the voltage , which increase the heat. Just raising the multi will not succeed in higher spheres of overclocking. The CPU demands more power, when raising the freuqency to a certain point. So you will have to raise volatge too, to get more out...
I understand that you are frustrated, but in your text doesn´t seem to be written any information for us to work with.

Can´t find a GA-G170-Gaming K3 EU rev. 1.0 . Did you mean H170/Q170, Z170?

First of all:
which z170 board do you have now? is it the GA-Z170-Gaming K3
which RAM brand and model is it
which bios version is on the z170 board

chipset differences are clearly specified by the manufacturer Intel. Only "Z" boards are ment to be overclocked and can change the multiplier freely.

here some facts you should know too:
http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-s-platform-specifications-detailed-z170-100series-chipset-replace-z97-2h-2015/
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/motherboard-buying-guide,4596-2.html

to overclock the RAM you have to get into bios and select a xmp profile or select manual mode and choose the frequency you wanna set. You have to look a bit closer to see it, it´s there, promised.

information about the motherboards can easily be seen at the manufacturer´s hompage, and read the manual like:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5760#sp
it really just have a x4 slot :/

the MSI page (select detail on this page):
https://msi.com/Motherboard/Z170-A-PRO.html#hero-specification

MSI Z170-A PRO is very similar to the gigabyte you have, just 1 x16 and one x4 for crossfire

here are some which support minimum 1 x16 and 2 x8 PCIe
http://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#c=110&sort=a8&page=1&l=2

some advice to the rx480, get the 8GB version because you plan crossfire and with just a 4GB card you will be limited to 4GB all the time. The VRAM can´t be used from the second card in crossfire
 

ThomasLeong

Honorable
May 27, 2013
305
1
10,960
The ASUS Maximus VIII Gene provides x8/x8 when the two grey x16 slots are occupied. So does the ASRock Z170 Extreme 4. In fact most if not all the higher end Z170 boards all do. You have to expect to pay more for such features.
 
the manual says to the asrock board: x16 and x4 while two graphics cards are used

It´s really simple. Crossfire can work wit x8 and x4 , while SLI require both to be at least x8 to run.
so all boards which are sli ready have at least x8 on two PCIe slots. If you want that, then you have to buy one of them.

Your memory is not really for overclocking and you should have bought a kit of 2 for dual channel (double bandwidth than single)

edit:
here is a little help for the gigabyte OC
https://youtu.be/CV-J2TU08Qk?t=336
 

MachineDeth

Commendable
Jun 29, 2016
24
0
1,510
what about the Z170-PRO-GAMING from asus, mentioned before? is that also alright?
what do you mean??? but i CAN overclock my ram right? u mean its just not very well suited for this? cause i dont care if its just a little but, its better than nothin...

thank you also for the video, ive tried searching for my mbs model but didnt find anythign that way... ill watch it and try what they show!
 

MachineDeth

Commendable
Jun 29, 2016
24
0
1,510
wait? i dont understand! u can buy ocram sticks? what do those 2800mhz sticks stock clocks like? 2133mhz as well? and why would a developer put a recommended oc tact on his product, when he could tact it himself to that clock???
 

MachineDeth

Commendable
Jun 29, 2016
24
0
1,510
youtube vid at 6:24
im feelin so retarded right now! no i gotta test that! i seriously thought tried this too! omfg man!

EDIT:
so ive just tried my first "real" overclocking. and i totally failed at it :D
are you good at this stuff? cause i feel like ill raise a ot of questions, concerning this topic.
firstly, ive tried to oc the cpu and the ram simultaneously and had to reset my bios config... ive oced, just as the guy in the vid u linked me, the cpu (ive an i5-6600k if i havent mentioned this before) to 4,6ghz thru the multiplicator, so i set it to 46 and my bclk at 100 so it was 4600mhz and my ram to 2433mhz, i let xmp enabled btw, which all in all didnt make any problems at all in any of my attempts later on, at least not that i had been awaare of this. i saved the bios settings and restarted. after this the pc gave me some beep error tones, which i cant remember but it sounded not good :D and after a restart the uefi asked me if i want to load the omptimized standard settings which did. btw, ive mentioned before i think that my mainboard has some presetes for my cpu 4.2, 4.3, 4.4ghz for the 6600k and 4.4, 4.5, 4.6 for the 6700k. previously (and right now as i write this) i used the 4.4ghz presets, which is/was running stable, no problems. now the thing is when i clock my cpu manually, so just adjusting the multiplicator to 44 and try to run my pc that way with the preset disabled, i get some weird issues! everything works normal if the cpu isnt loaded at its peak, like it is when stressing it out with cpu-z, cause thats what i did when encountering those problems (they involve a sudden freeze, no lag or something, just straight up freeze) and i tried this with 4,5ghz twice and once with 4,4ghz each time my pc froze and windows 10 gave me his new version of bsod, each time with an new "error" message, some irwl driver issue, some watchdog issue, and the thirdd time it was something different. each time that happened i had also to reset my bios. so.... why is this? how do i overclock properly and what could have caused this problem? ive monitored the temp ofthe cpu btw and the max of all core temps were of all oc's 56 °C. so idk, either the temp sensores r defect or its another matter than the temperatur...
another thing, when activating the rams xmp profile and working at stock clock (2133) my bios sets the latency natively to 13 cas (like the dev intended it) now when i oc the ram the latency always switches back to 15 cas! although i leave the xmp on! why is that? and my last attempt was ocing the ram while then deactivating the xmp and manually setting the lattency which was 13-13-13-36 before. although, when i just do this and leave every other setting at auto i get memory errors. oh shit forgot to say this, ive used memtest (thats literally all the prog says, i hope you know which proogram i mean) to determine any issues and the only time i got instantly so mkuch of them i couldnt click them all away is, when i tried to set the latency myself. as i overclocked the ram but did not change the latency (with ot without xmp enabled) everything went smooth. just right now i am using my ram at 2666mhz. can you help me set my latency properly? and does it make much of a difference if i do that? will it speed up load time of apps or something?

i hope you could understand what i wrote there, this is obviously not my mother tongue and always when i write long texts it might get real awkward reading it... :p
 
RAM:
like said before, it´s no OC RAM, and therfore 2666MHz with this latecy is the best you can do, without raising voltage for it.

Raising voltage can physically damage the hardware, so be extremely careful with this option.

CPU:
The thing with overclocking is that every single 6600K CPU is different and some can reach higher frequencies than others. Some need more voltage than others. The presets you were reffering to, do more than just raise the multiplicator. Thes also raise the blck and the voltage , which increase the heat. Just raising the multi will not succeed in higher spheres of overclocking. The CPU demands more power, when raising the freuqency to a certain point. So you will have to raise volatge too, to get more out of the CPU.

You should really read a bit more about overclocking before attempting more advanced overclocking.
e.g. this OC guide:
http://www.tweaktown.com/guides/7481/tweaktowns-ultimate-intel-skylake-overclocking-guide/index.html
 
Solution