What do you guys think of the i3-7350k?

Woomack said:

How do you check VID ? I haven't seen any skylake with VID above 1.2V. Most have ~1.15V. Many motherboards are setting wrong voltage when you leave them at auto. Early ASUS BIOS was causing it to run at 1.3V+ and users were thinking they got the worst possible chips. The same CPU on 3 different motherboards had between 1.15 and 1.35 auto voltage.

Btw my luck is that i3 was overclocking better than i5 and i5 was overclocking better than i7. I had couple of i3, i5 an i7 Skylakes and the best for overclocking was i3 6320. Maybe it's my luck but I can't really see differences in silicon quality. It's all matter of batch/factory and simply luck. CPUs from the same factory and the same batch usually show similar OC potential but it's not a rule.

I don't think that Intel lower prices on their CPUs anytime soon as most users won't be convinced to AMD no matter what will be released. Enthusiasts will try new AMD chips but most users don't care about AMD anymore and it will take a lot of time to rebuild trust to this brand. I will only tell you that I work for a company which has about 1000 active clients right now and I sold 1 AMD based PC in last 5 years. Those who buy AMD right now are enthusiasts or those who want cheap PC and have no idea what are they buying. I'm not saying that AMD is pure evil but again it will take a lot of time till AMD back on track. So far we see they are reducing loses on the market and ZEN can bring them some profits.

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Serial Voltage Identification "SVID": A few generations back, Intel introduced serial voltage identification (SVID) which is a protocol the CPU uses to communicate with the voltage regulator. The power control unit inside the CPU uses SVID to communicate with the PWM controller that controls the voltage regulator. This allows the CPU to pick its optimum voltage depending on current conditions (temperature, frequency, load, etc.). You can actually use a combination of SVID and LLC to get an optimal VCore instead of manually setting it. If you start your system without making any changes, your VID (which some refer to as the stock voltage) might be 1.25v, but if you lower your CPU multiplier and restart, you will find your VID has dropped automatically. The reverse happens if you increase your clock and do not set any VCore. Intel's latest CPUs are able to pick their own voltage, and this comes into play if you want to utilize "offset" / "adaptive" voltage. The good news is that if you come from Haswell, you should look forward to a CPU that has the same or better durability.

Read more: http://www.tweaktown.com/guides/748...-intel-skylake-overclocking-guide/index5.html

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The CPU also does this on its own through SVID with the different VID for each frequency. Motherboard manufacturers can override this with their own core voltage for a set multiplier, but this is not as common as it once was.

Read more: http://www.tweaktown.com/guides/748...-intel-skylake-overclocking-guide/index5.html

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Woomack said:

Because of load balance even if you set 1 thread in Prime95 then Windows is not using 1 thread. To check only 1 thread you have to disable all other cores and HT. It's also the only way to see max turbo clock on new mobile chips.
Btw your links are not working but tbh I've never seen TT as good source of info. Some of their tests and reviews are just weird but I guess the same is on many other sites. I'm not commenting linked articles, just saying in general.
When you turn off all power saving options and leave cpu at auto then it should show you default VID range. However it's hard to check it because each motherboard is setting something different and as you said there are variables that affect voltage read.
As I said, I've never had any Skylake CPU which was running at more than ~1.15V but it doesn't mean there are no chips like that. I don't want to argue what way to check is better. I only wanted to know how you check it as 1.25V is generally top of the VID range for these chips.

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The correct supply voltage is communicated by the microprocessor to the VRM at startup via a number of bits called VID (voltage identification). In particular, the VRM initially provides a standard supply voltage to the VID logic, which is the part of the processor whose only aim is to then send the VID to the VRM. When the VRM has received the VID identifying the required supply voltage, it starts acting as a voltage regulator, providing the required constant voltage supply to the processor.

Instead of having a power supply unit generate some fixed voltage, the CPU uses a small set of digital signals, the VID lines, to instruct an on-board power converter of the desired voltage level. The switch-mode buck converter then adjusts its output accordingly. The flexibility so obtained makes it possible to use the same power supply unit for CPUs with somewhat different nominal supply voltages and to reduce power consumption during idle periods by lowering the supply voltage.[5]

For example, a unit with 5-bit VID would output one of at most 32 (25) distinct output voltages. These voltages are usually (but not always) evenly spaced within a given range. Some of the code words may be reserved for special functions such as shutting down the unit, hence a 5-bit VID unit may have fewer than 32 output voltage levels. How the numerical codes map to supply voltages is typically specified in tables provided by component manufacturers. As of 2008 VID comes in 5-, 6- and 8-bit varieties and is mostly applied to power modules outputting between 0.5 V and 3.5 V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltage_regulator_module

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