I can only speak for myself. Different mobo and cpu. I use x299 platform. I believe in manual mode you disable c-states. In adaptive you enable c-states. I did per core offset in negative increments. But this might not be the case for you. In max turbo voltage I put my preferred voltage. But it didn't register in testing. For my mobo and platform the voltage would do whatever it wanted. So I would run aida64 and monitor whatever voltage it was assigning. Then take a snap shot with my phone or write down each core voltage. Then I would go back into bios and do the math on each core to reach whatever my goal voltage was. So let's say I wanted 1.18voltage. But in testing it was 1.23. Subtract 1.23 and 1.18 which equals .05. In this scenario your offset would be minus .05. When I would re test it was exactly the voltage I was searching for. I'm not sure if this is the case across all platforms. So please keep that in mind

Perfect thanks! And then that .01 adjustment to ia/DC voltage is good to do as well? I keep seeing that but I'm not too familiar with it.

Testing 5.0 with real bench now! Under load I'm 1.36v with no avx offset. Might tick it back one notch after running real bench and some prime a bit and see if she's unstable. Vccio is about 1.32 stock. I'm fairly certain right off the bat I can drop it to like 1.28 or so, what do you all think? I've always left it to auto but that might be a bit high.

Just an update, thanks for the input everyone. Those settings worked perfectly for 5.0/4.9avx. not going to push higher because of heat at this point. Seems to be stable in multiple hours of various tests. Realbench and others peaked around 72-75. Prime avx small fft got to 85 so I'm going to cap myself there. Not sure why there is a complete absence of this information except for maybe one or two sources , and why people are so much for the manual overclock when there was literally no difference once I found the kaby lake guide, and it clicked in my head.

I want to set my sights on fine tuning cache next. Not so much for absolute speed but because I know the auto voltages are probably higher than they should be. Stock is 4.4 correct? I'm thinking of 4.5 and 1.25v as a start. Thoughts? Will reducing cache voltage impact heat under load a lot?

Manual is typically more reliable for benchmarking. I agree about adaptive. There are very few guides that get into adaptive mode. To me it just makes sense to be in adaptive. Why milk the power when it's not fully being utilized