Some clarifications/responses
The Delid modification I mentioned in my tip is somewhat commonly done on recent Intels. Since Ivy bridge, Intel has not soldered the IHS (integrated heat spreader) to the CPU die even on their high-end chips. Instead they use regular thermal paste, the same goop you would normally use between your cooler and your CPU's IHS. (I note that nearly all AMD chips, including Ryzen, use solder.)
Dilidding a soldered CPU is only done by mad folks, imho. But these aren't soldered, so the modification is fairly safe if you know what you are doing. The IHS is held to the chip by a form of black silicone glue.
The modification on post-Ivy Intels basically involves removing the IHS (there are specific delidding tools that can be made, some use the hammer-and-vise method, others with more money than sense use razor blades.) The crappy TIM is removed and either better paste or liquid metal TIM is applied. The IHS is then replaced.
I have an i7-7700K. The K skus have an unlocked multiplier. This is a feature that's there *explicitly* for overclocking (or in my case, underclocking.) Intel even sells an enhanced warranty for K chips covering overclocking.
Even the Pentium 4 didn't behave this badly.
It's my understanding that the issue affects some non-K chips of this generation too.
Launching a web browser should not cause a 30-50C temperature spike. I probably have a particularly bad chip, but there's enough grumbling about this to suggest that there is an actual issue. The fan and pump ramping is just an added annoyance.
It's possible that this is just an antsy thermistor. I sorted the problem for now by downclocking and undervolting the Vcore and PLL and setting my cooling system to run at a fixed, tolerable speed until 60C is hit. It no longer spikes into the scary zone. I now have an antsy 6700K, basically.
Yes, gaming boards do tend to overvolt the CPU Vcore a bit out of the box. Correcting to Intel's specs did not remedy the issue for me. Indeed, this seemed to have no effect on the spikes until I also tweaked the PLL and downclocked.
To sum, here's what it took to make the spikes (or buggy thermistor) manageable:
-Delidding
-Using a fancy-pants water cooling system
-Setting voltages and clock speeds to last generation's specs
It works now and I can now fire up a web browser without fear of a meltdown.
Intel's response is quite poor given just how many people seem to have some form of this problem. I'll definitely give Ryzen a look once the kinks are ironed out.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
