MSI Unify Z490 - 10700K - Gskill Flare x 3200c14 overclocking

[Yondaimev2]

Hello everyone, joining from Turkey. I may not sprak English well, apologies for it.

Was a Ryzen user for 3 years but buggy bioses, prolonged boot times, being limited on gaming let me decide this and even at default settings i am better.

My system is,

Msi Unify Z490
10700K
Gskill flare x 3200 c14d at 1.35v
Arctic Liquid Freezer
Evga GQ 750w gold PSU
Evga GTX 1080 FTW2 at 1080P (Gpu is going to change soon to 2080s or 2080ti)

I mostly play competitive shooting like call of duty etc. At ryzen, with only dram overclocking to 3800 c18, was having about 140 fps in warzone but whatever i do it was not stutter free. Though i realized it on my friends computer with same system but with only cpu and mobo change. And yes i solved that problem even while everything at default speeds giving about same results but its all clear. Yet i want to see more in safer ways, i know auto settings are not ok for voltages so i want see potential more and make my stuff life prolonged.

How do you suggest me to overclock it. I tried some settings but i got questions.

I saw my bdies stable at 4400 mhz and 20 20 20 46 but dram voltage 1.6v and i know first generation bdies can go beyond 1.5v but i dont want to see io and sa voltages are both high or seeing them burn or degraded. At 4133 mhz dram voltage is about 1.55v but io and sa voltages can be lower. In both conditions dram temps are not higher than 40 celsius at idle and not more than 43 in gaming or while surfing.

I let my cpu all core 5.1 and making ring 4.8 and llc4 with 1.32v stable..but i cant see beyond 5.1. I think it is because of wrong settings because temps are ok.

How do you suggest me to overclock it?

What are the max safe values i can set for these?

Core voltage
Dram voltage
Io voltage
Sa voltage
Dram mhz and dram timings
Llc rank
Should i disable c states while cpu overclocking?

Thanks.

 

[Woomack]

I was recently setting HyperX Predator 4266/B-die at 4533 18-18-18 1.45V on the MSI Z490I Unify. It literally goes at all auto IO/SA etc. voltages.
On Z490 motherboards voltages will go up to 1.5-1.6V+ when you leave IO and SA at auto so you may adjust that manually after you find stable settings with auto IO/SA. You can set something like 1.30-1.40V and check how it works. Depends on the CPU and its memory controller, it will require more or less or it will hit a wall at ~4600 regardless of voltages. For example, my i5-10500 can't pass DDR4-4700 and with Samsung is stable at max 4533, while the i9-10900K works at 4700 with Samsung and up to 4900 with Micron/Hynix on MSI Z490I Unify.

CPU overclocking is a joke on this series. It's more like you set CPU voltage and CPU ratios and that's all. Not much more is helping. No matter if you have below-average or the best chip, it won't OC much past 5.0-5.1GHz on all cores.

 

[Yondaimev2]

Want to have some safe and cold spots for longevity. Tried vcore 1.28v llc5 5.0 and ring at 4.7 ghz and 4000 mhz 18 18 18 42 700 at 1.45v but problem is i cant lower io and sa. They're stuck at 1.25 and 1.20. Dimm temps are about 45 celsius i know its safe till 50s but i got these temps at 4400mhz at 1.6v and io sa voltages were 0.1 higher.

I dont want to harm imc and chips. So wanna learn safe max limits.

 

[Woomack]

1.25V SA / 1.20V IO is actually good and low at the same time. I didn't check intel specs for these processors but 1.25V is like stock/default voltage range. These voltages are usually good for the 3600 mem clock range. 4000 usually requires ~1.30V. Actually, up to 1.35V SA / 1.30V IO is standard for 24/7 use and still perfectly safe.

One additional comment. For some reason, Comet Lake-S has auto SA up to 1.65V+ when you set a higher memory clock. Coffee Lake-S had it much lower. I had the same on ASUS, ASRock and MSI. Why this is weird to me? Because memory controller is the same as in Coffee Lake-S and back then, 1.6V+ was marked as a warning, may instantly kill the CPU ... I still went up to 1.8V+ but I don't recommend that.
I asked some motherboard vendors but I didn't get a clear answer to that. They assume that SA up to 1.65V is now still safe, at least for typical daily work.
Considering that, I wouldn't worry about SA/IO voltages but of course, keeping it lower is a good idea.

 

[EarthDog]

1.65 SA? Wow... never saw that before... but I only run 4k sticks...

 

[Woomack]

Try to set something like CL19-19-19, everything else at auto, VDIMM maybe 1.6V just for the test and DDR4-4600. Samsung B, Micron E or Hynix D should work without issues if you have i7/i9 on the Z490. ASUS, ASRock, and MSI will set 1.6V+ SA on Comet Lake-S. I was also surprised knowing that on previous gen it was already telling me I can kill the CPU

Btw. I was setting 1.8V+ SA on Coffee Lake for 5200+ mem clock, not for something daily

Right now I'm editing SPD tables in SODIMM. This is tricky as when I set too tight timings and it won't boot then I have to hot-swap memory while booting to be able to correct it

 

[Yondaimev2]

Try to set something like CL19-19-19, everything else at auto, VDIMM maybe 1.6V just for the test and DDR4-4600. Samsung B, Micron E or Hynix D should work without issues if you have i7/i9 on the Z490. ASUS, ASRock, and MSI will set 1.6V+ SA on Comet Lake-S. I was also surprised knowing that on previous gen it was already telling me I can kill the CPU

Btw. I was setting 1.8V+ SA on Coffee Lake for 5200+ mem clock, not for something daily

Right now I'm editing SPD tables in SODIMM. This is tricky as when I set too tight timings and it won't boot then I have to hot-swap memory while booting to be able to correct it

Aint 1.6 VDIMM too high?

I just ran 4500 max yet it was unstable, crashing at warzone.

I think that call of duty warzone thing better than a lot stressers ahahahah. I run stability at aida, no worries. Run it on cod, it crashes.

I did what you said at 4400 mhz, gave 1.5 DIMMV. Worked at 20 timings.

 

[Woomack]

I should've added that it was a reply to EarthDog on how to quickly check auto SA on new motherboards I said 1.6V only not to waste time on settings as it should work without issues for quick tests.

For gaming, 4400 19-19-19 should work at about 1.40-1.45V on above-average Samsung B. Depends on your memory, it may also work at 18-18-18 and the same 1.40-1.50V.
I think there was a new BIOS for MSI Z490 mobos which improves memory stability and compatibility. I had no time to check it on my ITX version but on the QVL appeared a bit higher memory kits so I guess they improved something.

 

[Yondaimev2]

I should've added that it was a reply to EarthDog on how to quickly check auto SA on new motherboards I said 1.6V only not to waste time on settings as it should work without issues for quick tests.

For gaming, 4400 19-19-19 should work at about 1.40-1.45V on above-average Samsung B. Depends on your memory, it may also work at 18-18-18 and the same 1.40-1.50V.
I think there was a new BIOS for MSI Z490 mobos which improves memory stability and compatibility. I had no time to check it on my ITX version but on the QVL appeared a bit higher memory kits so I guess they improved something.

I checked the site for new bios, installed, it's better in default settings. And now I can set 4400 mhz VDIMM 1.5V 19-19-19 BUT I can not lower VDIMM. Whenever I do, my game crashes (COD MW)

CPU was 5.0 ring ratio was 4.5 LLC4 Vcore 1.375 VSA 1.4 VIO 1.3. DIMM temps saw 51 peak while gaming at these settings but had no crash while VDIMM 1.5V. What can you suggest me?

 

[Woomack]

These MSI motherboards are a bit weird with VDIMM. For example, I was testing 2x16GB Team Group memory and it required 1.45V only to boot at 4000, and at the same time, it was enough to stabilize it. The weird part is that 1.45V was required for CL15-15-15, 16-16-16, 17-17-17, and 18-18-18. Even at something as relaxed as 19-26-26 it still needed 1.45V only to boot. I guess you may have the same issue. On the other hand, 4400-4600 memory kits have usually 1.45-1.50V in XMP. 1.50V is still considered safe or memory manufacturers wouldn't use it for their products with the lifetime warranty.

If you don't feel comfortable with these voltages then simply set lower clock like 4266 CL18-18-18 and 1.40-1.45V. The performance in games should be about the same.

 

[Yondaimev2]

A little update on this topic.

I tried all bios that shown in board's support page. A10 - A20 - A23 (beta). With A20 I had better overclocking according to other two. Yet It was not stable in stress tests. 2 of my friends are stable at beta bios which MSI removed from the site. My problem there is I should give more cpu vcore there (1.30V for 5.0 cpu-4.7 cache, 135 for 5.1 - 4.8). This makes me think my chip is bad and demoralize. Gonna try same settings with A20 bios again. My current settings:

Cpu 5.0 ring 4.7 @ 1.30V
4000 Mhz 19 19 19 47 480 @ 1.48V
VIO 1.15
VSA 129
LLC4