Aurora R7, 8700/1080, insane heat

OK - really did some tinkering tonight and discovered Current Limit Throttling and Power Limit Throttling. Seriously, what a major pain. I ruled out PSU limitations. Then I discovered and played around with ThrottleStop. I was able to play around with turbo boost and voltages. I could keep the watts up, but the heat - yikes. My PC with the 8700k doesn't need more than 88w to run at 4300 all day long at 65c. The Alienware with the 8700 needs 105w to hit 4300, but the temps jump to 91c. Could this just be a limitation of the z370 board Alienware uses? Ugh - so frustrated.

@Guapo 

You have changed the fans on the AIO? Before or after the problem initially started. The OEM fans go up to 5000RPM and AWCC may not manage lower speed fans correctly with the default thermal profiles.

More info needed, have you changed the GPU?

I guess if you have been playing around with fans, you have repasted the CPU with good thermal paste?

I tried swapping the original fan and the Corsair ML120 Pro around a couple times.  I did re-paste it too.  I just don't understand why the non-k 8700 would need so much power to turbo boost compared to it's K version sibling.

Maybe I'm only seeing these issues while running synthetic benchmarks?

I just don't understand why the non-k 8700 would need so much power to turbo boost compared to it's K version sibling.

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I've always heard that non-K chips were not quite as good as K-class chips (that is why they were not chosen to be K's).

I think being able to handle higher-frequencies (and still staying stable) is part of the selection criteria. Seems like better thermals goes hand-in-hand with that.

My R8 Z370 runs a i9-9900k without problem, maybe not comparable, but adds some light to "Is the Z370" chipset limited.

If you want to rule out the MB/chipset, test the i7-8700k processor in it, I insist however with standard OEM Fans.

On to CPU specs and assumptions   (just some useless blah blah really, you can skip, question, correct me, bear in mind I am no expert in this electronic technical physics quantum stuff)

The K version requires 95w for Base Frequency 3.7Ghz, the non K version requires 65w for Base Frequency 3.2Ghz.

Intel Product comparison

Iirc, Intel produces chips and then classifies them based on their efficiency, power, whatever, etc. Then they fix the limits somehow on the chip to give it 8700/8700k/whatever product id. Forgive me simplifying, but a K processor is a higher quality result than a non-K processor afaiac, especially obvious within the same serie/production line, 8700 in this case takes out all doubt of being on a different production line.

So, an 8700 processor is much happier at it's base clock and less tolerant at higher clocks, although it can run up to 4.6Ghz within limits.

If you want to rule out the MB/chipset, test the i7-8700k processor in it...

I thought about doing this very thing last night, but it was after midnight and I couldn't bring myself to do it even though I was on a mission!  The 8700k PC is so dialed in right now that I don't want to mess with it, but I know that it's just a matter of time before curiosity gets the better of me and I'll tear them both apart.

This is off the top of my head, but the cost difference between the two chips when new was around $25 I think.  The K version boosted on single core to 4.7.  The non-K boosts to 4.6.  Both are supposed to boost to 4.3 on all cores.  I'll probably drop the non-K version into the z390 board to see what happens because there aren't as many limitations with a non-Alienware board.

@Guapo 

That was a lot of work, quite sad to see the results because if it was the other way, a new CPU is easier to drop in. Swapping out the Motherboard will be quite a bit of work.

Swapping in the H60 may include a little afterwork to get a tangible result as AWCC will need tuning. But this would certainly rule out the AW Liquid Cooling assembly if the AW still has the same problems. If you do that, the final test would be the 8700k in the AW.

It may seem a lot to do, the alternative would be to rebuild on a new motherboard, you will need a new PSU (8pin power for CPU instead of 4pin), you will need to rewire the power button and the leds as the propriety connector will not be present if you stay in the same case. You may not end up with the result you hoped.

Once you start the route of a new motherboard, you may end up moving to a new case, you may have fun with the AW cooler. If you go that far, all that you will end up transferring to a new case will be CPU/RAM/GPU/DD

Example, new case (100-200$) + Z370/90 MB (150-300$) + 850W PSU (150$)  + Corsair cooler (100-180$) gives you a price range from 500-830$ depending on you choices and availability. Weigh up your choices on the value of your three potentially most expensive parts, CPU/GPU/RAM/DD.

Cost me 700€ to transfer the same worth around 2000€ from my R8 to my H500 ARGB.

Alive and all systems go

An R7 is not that old. It does, as do all Aurora nano cases, suffer from lack of cool air above the GPU.

If it is a faulty motherboard, the cheapest route is to get a replacement, albeit with more money you can choose the route you want to take.

I would advise to keep testing to isolate the proble, it is not normal a CPU is throttled by a properly functioning AW Motherboard, it seems obviously related to CPU temps not being cooled, thus throttling the CPU.

A much less expensive test is add an upper front fan in the HDD cage to pull in cool air to the upper half of the case. NF-A12x25 PWM. I had 100° on my CPU and pulled it down to 82° in Timespy tests during my adventures on my R8.

With a lot of other tinkering I got it to 75°. At that point CPU-Z Stress Test resulted around the 66° mark as the inside case temperatures were moreso around the 35-40° instead of 60° after GPU tests.

Comparing CPU-Z to now, I get around the 60°.

I did a Cinebench test, each pass progressed from 61° max to 67° max.

So I believe you could get a similar result with adding an upper front fan.

I wish I had some constructive input for you. After I received my R11 my wife literally stole my R7 from me. I blinked and it was gone and she had it hooked up in her setup    She has been playing tombraider almost all evening and based on this post I asked what her temps were. Her temps while playing were comparable to the temps of my R11 @ idle. High 30's C cpu and low 50's C gpu with a 1070.  

I wish I had some constructive input for you. After I received my R11 my wife literally stole my R7 from me. I blinked and it was gone and she had it hooked up in her setup 

  She has been playing tombraider almost all evening and based on this post I asked what her temps were. Her temps while playing were comparable to the temps of my R11 @ idle. High 30's C cpu and low 50's C gpu with a 1070.  

Your R7 has some great temps.  #jealous.  Seriously, under 40c while gaming??  Do you live in the mountains and have the window open at night?  Are you using the stock radiator fan - that great big one that sounds like a vacuum cleaner at full speed?  I'm kind of curious if it also has the 8700.  I'm left wondering if the z370 / non-k combo have a few things disabled that you would normally get with the K version.  I just jumped on my R7 and loaded up Doom & Rust.  MSI Afterburner says the CPU was working around 26% with temps around 70c.  I checked HWMonitor after I got out of the game and it shows a max temp of 85c and 78 watts.  Quite the disparity between Afterburner and HWMonitor.  Something seems odd.  I'm still considering my options.  I thought about moving the fan to the top of the radiator and have it pull the air through instead of pushing it out.  I have an extra case and thought maybe I could pick up a B360 or something and swap all the parts.  That way I could mount a D15 I have sitting on a shelf and know for 100% certainty that it's getting enough cooling.

Yeah @DrkHwk if it has a 8700 non-k, sneak in there before tonight, grab the PC and tell her you need it for some national security research  Just don't do it tonight, she may not be very happy 

@Guapo  I'm still considering my options.

Do, I did add a pull/push ML 120 Pro non rgb/led to my stock radiator, my temps did not change much for my CPU 77° @100% compared to the stock push fan 5000RPM

CPU temps do depend on the game, some games thrash the CPU like would Cinebench/CPU-Z/Timespy CPU Test, other games idle the CPU pretty much most of the time. Often CPU intensive games are not with the latest GPU technology or old DX versions, coupled with bad rendering engine design sometimes means very low FPS irrelevant of your GPU. My CPU in the R8 was at 50° during CS:GO for example, however that was with an upper front fan.

GPU Temps depend on the game too for sure, but in my experience very highly on vertically synced monitors which lower singnificantly the load on the GPU, single player games above 60 FPS is overkill except if you like the ultra violent or equivalent modes  still I personally see no point in challenging my reactions with adrenalin/stimpacked boosted bots 

The music and sound effects in Shadow of Tombraider are stimulating enough, and the storyline was addictve, I loved it

One thing you could check would be to bring up task manager and see if any CPU intensive apps are running in the background.  I had this issue recently with my R11.

@Guapo 

 It has an liquid cooled 8700 Non K cpu. I haven't really done anything with this R7  other than install 970 M.2 SSD, disable raid, clean windows install a few months back. Pretty sure it's approx. 3 years old, I haven't even repasted it. I've been a little confused and happy with it's thermal performance, its runs extremely cool compared to the R11 and that's with quite a few thermal upgrades to the R11, up to now I have just attributed the thermal differences to the 10900KF and 30 series gpu. I have been considering putting some extra fans I have, originally intended for the R11, in the R7 but probably just gonna leave it be.  Our altitude here is approx 1300 and no open windows  Temps here lately have been sub zero. I hate cold  

Edit: FWIW the version of the game she is playing was released in 2013 so it probably isn't as CPU intensive as the newer games.

@Guapo 

Been pondering quite a bit, as you have bad temps on Cinebench, we can rule out the GPU overheating the upper half. You are liquid cooled, you have tested the CPU in another machine. Given @DrkHwk has a similar config and that you have ruled out the CPU in a different machine, I think it is safe to say it is not an airflow problem, you ether have a faulty MB.or a faulty cooler, I cannot after all this discussion see anything else unless you do not have the VRM heatsink 

Seems pretty clear to me, just had to get my head round all the different info you shared in various posts. I should have drawn it all up on a checklist 

Your gut feeling is a faulty MB, you are probably right.