I've inquired with a few well known overclocking websites that sell what they called "binned" CPUs ... for example a 9900KS that runs at 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 Ghz ... but when I research their "guaranteed" values, they list their "test" setup as:
1. Water cooled
2. RAM at low frequency 3600Mhz
3. An most important AVX at 2,3,even 4!
AVX is used A LOT in gaming and flight simulation so when they list a CPU (9900KS) at 5.2 Ghz but with AVX at 2 and RAM at 3600Mhz, that's essentially a 5.0Ghz CPU ... not impressed and certainly not worth almost 2X the cost.
For example, I've managed to get several 9900K CPU's operating at 5.0 to 5.4 GHz with AVX 0 and RAM at 4166Mhz with water cooling ... passes Prime95 and Intel's own Diagnostic test and various other benchmarking tools. I find it hard to believe I just keep getting "lucky" with CPUs, so are these sites being "opportunistic" and taking advantage of the human ego? Something just doesn't add up.
I do understand there are slight variances with CPU manufacturing, but when I approached Intel they suggested otherwise and simply state do NOT exceed our specifications. Intel also indicated they do NOT provide anyone with information regarding CPU quality control, strictly internal, not public information.
So this seems to me to put the "Binned" concept along the lines of urban legend evolved out of "the internet" and propagated but not from any official source.
I can see some advantages to improving heat transfer when done correctly, removing the IHS and using a special water block and mount for direct contact ... that's real and quantified.
Trial and error and luck, seems to really rule the day. Sure there is some "science" to the process of overclocking but what I've seen on "the internet" amounts lots of suggestions but nothing technical to support the suggestions. Other than going thru the BIOS and reading the descriptions of each parameter and hooking onto "set this to XYZ for overclocking", but no description of exactly what that parameter is controlling.
So with this said, is there really any definitive guide to all the BIOS/EFI values for Asus motherboards?
Cheers, Rob.