14700k getting too hot?

[Clarence Boddicker]

I noticed the other night that my 14700k is getting up to just shy of 90c when processing and encoding video. Theres a lot of videos and advice out there to undervolt to get temps down but Im kind of reluctant as Im very new to pc’s and theres probably a high risk of me cocking something up.

I havent checked temps while gaming and have only played warzone on it so far but Im not sure my fps is where it should be at (might be due to my ram speed?) so im also wary about losing performance and fps by undervolting. Idle temps are fine, 31-33 but Im just wondering what that 90c will be in the summer time.

Should I even be concerned by 90 and would you advise undervolting?

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

Can you give us a screenshot from a monitoring program like hwmonitor or hwinfo so that we know what the power draw is like.

In short: if your CPU is hitting max turbo, then 90 C is not unusual (especially on air), though it depends on the cooling that you have.

I'd suggest turning off any automatic overclocking that the motherboard enables by default, see here:

Motherboard Default settings could be COOKING your CPU!

Motherboard manufacturers NEED to stop doing this!!! Enough is enough! Learn more about the NZXT BLD series Custom and Prebuilt PCs here - https://nzxt.co/Ja...

www.youtube.com

Its being cooled with a 360 aio, which is another reason that I though it might be too hot.

Im not sure that Ill get time today but Ill post a screenshot of hwmonitor when I get a chance.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

Well I just did everything the same as I did the other night except for Ive now got the aio radiator fans and exhaust fan set to hit full speed when the cpu gets to 60C.

The temperature seemed much better this time. It briefly touched 85C but mainly sat between 70 and 80. It was mainly at 85-89 before.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

That might point to some other issue. A 360mm rad should be good for many hundreds of watts of heat dissipation. What position is the AIO fitted?

Its fitted to the top with the fans as an exhaust.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

What AIO is it?

EK Nucleus CR360.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

So if there is any automatic overclocking enabled and I disable it, will I get any loss in performance? If so, then Im kind of inclined to leave it enabled as these temps dont seem to be too problematic.

One thing that I did wonder about is the aio pump. I see lots of comments from people about their aio pump being noisy but mines completely silent and Ive got it running at full speed all of the time. That said, it must be working otherwise Im guessing the temperature would head straight to 100.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

Mad to think a **700 series chip can put a 360 AIO cooler to the sword.

In your screen shot you've got fans (aio I presume) only hitting 800-900 RPM. Have you got the fan all in the right mobo headers? Have you any fan curve set up in the BIOS? Do you have the fan headers in a splitter cable or how are they plugged into the mobo?

1.38V in the CPU is quite high too, might be the boosting doing that though.

Ive now got the aio fans and exhaust set to hit full speed when cpu temp gets to 60c. The temperature is now under control, the noise is no joke though.

By default my Gigabyte motherboard would have both power limits set to unlimited. I reduced those to 253w, the max for the 14700k.
Also I added an 0.07v negative offset to the vcore.
The cores seem to boost to where they are needed and the 420mm AIO seems fine.

The power limits should be set at the CPU's maximum by default, but it seems that often does not happen.

Then again I am not typically using an all core sustained full load on the CPU for extended periods.

The max vcore on that screen would suggest that you are at defaults.

I looked into undervolting it but ive got a b760 and apparently b boards aren't meant to be undervolted and can only be done by changing back to the old microde. Ive read that it can cause instability so I think ill put up with the noise from the fans for now as Im a pc newb and dont want to cause any issues that I cant fix.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

Well Ive just had a go at undervolting and overclocking my 7800 xt. It seems to have gone quite well as Ive got a descent score but was wondering if cpu data is ok.

I Used timespy and during the cpu test I got these numbers:

CPU VCORE 1.476V
Package 92C
Package 266.84W
P-Cores 5487-5586MHz
E-Cores 4290MHz

Im not sure how intensive the timespy cpu test is but Im guessing that the voltage is going too high?

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

Ive just run cinebench for the first time. The temperature briefly spiked to 96C but that was only for a second or two.

The p-cores only briefly rose to what the max shows. They spent most of the time at about 5100-5200MHz. Is that normal? Should they not be at 5500-5600MHz?

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[Clarence Boddicker]

if your clock clocks were at 5.5-5.6ghz your temps would likley be around the 100c mark, voltages would have to be increased a fair bit to get those kind of clocks, out of box settings would allow this but at the cost of very high temps.

There's a few things you might want to be aware of: CPU benchmarks aren't always @ 100% workload all the time and if they use AVX the turbo boost can be lower, depending on the offset.

Ok so in regard to my temperatures (95C timespy, 96C cinebench), do you guys think that I need to pursue undervolting the cpu? My motherboard doesnt support it without changing the microde which can cause a lot of problems in some cases, so Im not sure if its worth trying?

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

What are your temps in the kind of things that you do normally with the PC?

Its a bit cooler now that the cpu fans and exhaust are set to hit full speed when cpu gets to 60C. So gaming is in the 50-70’s, video processing up to 85C. Very noisy though.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

Did you set the power limits and check the automatic overclocks in the video I linked?

I didnt set power limits as I was concerned about loss in performance. I did look into disabling the automatic overclocks but my bios is different to the one in the video, he did say what to change in the gigabyte bios but mine doesnt have the options that he mentioned so I couldnt identify the right ones.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

It is these types of motherboards that are having unlimited power limits by default that are the issue.

What makes it worse is that they dont support undervolting, which would help solve the problem that they've created.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

You do lose some performance, but it really needs to be done to get the power usage and temperatures under control. Most of these CPUs are very effective when they're power limited, even 125 watts loses very little performance in the majority of apps.


You could take some pictures.

Do you recommend just limiting the power for now or disable the auto overclocks as well?

I think that for the auto oc, I need to disable intel turbo boost technology but not sure if if turbo boost max 3.0 needs to be, or if anything else?

Power limits should be the turbo power limits if Im not mistaken. What power limits do you think i should set, start at 253w?

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[Clarence Boddicker]

Turbo boost 2.0 & 3.0 are part of the stock features, but some motherboards apply the max turbo to all of the cores and that is an OC. I don't know if Gigabyte has this feature.


What is the most demanding task (on multiple cores) that you do and how long does it take for it to complete (typically)? You want your power limits to be high enough that you're not losing much performance, but low enough that it is easier for your cooler and doesn't make so much noise. I'd probably start with Boomstick777's suggestion and if you notice a drastic loss of performance, then increase the power limits from there.

What kind of power usage can your cooler handle before things get intolerably noisy?

Things tend to get noisy pretty quickly and often, as Ive got the cpu and exhaust fans set to hit full speed when the cpu gets to 60C.

Can these temperatures Im getting actually cause any problems with the pc? Because if not I think it might be just easier for me to put up with them. I dont think Im experienced enough to start tinkering with bios settings without a guide, and I cant find one for my bios/motherboard. Im not really up for losing any performance either, as my cinebench score isnt particularly great compared to others that Ive seen for 14700k’s.

Ive started to use headphones when gaming beacause of the added noise from the 7800 fans, so the noise while gaming isnt a big deal anymore. Like I said if its just noise thats the issue, Ill just put up with it.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

@Clarence Boddicker Was it a cost thing as to why you bought that somewhat restricted board, or did you not know at the time how restrictive it was..?

I didnt know at the time. Its my first time owning and building a pc, so i didnt know to check for for this sort of thing. The manufacturer doesnt make it clear or advertise that you cant undervolt on these boards. I find it odd that they're made to be used with these intel cpu’s but then wont allow undervolting when its something that probably needs to be done.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

Well, they're designed to run hot, so no, it shouldn't, but with these kind of CPUs I'd always set your temp and power targets for your realistic workloads.

What I mean by that, is there's usually no point optimising your PC for Cinebench if you rarely run intensive multithreaded programs. On the other hand, if your PC is running intensive tasks for hours on end (this doesn't include gaming), then you'd need to optimise it more cautiously.

For gaming, temps between 60 - 80 (maybe 85 or so, in the summer) are fine, there's no problem with that. For long-run heavily multithreaded work I'd try to stay below 90, ideally 70-80. For very short run intensive benchmarks like Cinebench, 90 odd is fine.

They are capable of being run on the limit 24/7, but it is just not necessary to have them operate like that.


This is one of the first articles to explain how the newer Intel CPUs work with the power limits / turbo modes:

Why Intel Processors Draw More Power Than Expected: TDP and Turbo Explained

www.anandtech.com

Let me put it another way: allowing these CPUs to run unlimited is wasteful and unnecessarily hot. The compromise depends on exactly what you're doing, but in most cases, you can cut power usage in half, dramatically lower temperatures and noise and lose practically nothing for the vast majority of apps.

The only way to know if the performance matters to you is to actually run the things you normally use, for example: do a fixed task (like editing a video, I don't know what you use the PC for) and time how long it takes. Set PL1 & PL2 to half their stock values and then see: 1. how much power it uses and 2. how long it takes. I think you'll find that you don't lose anywhere near what you're expecting to lose.

Ok I’ll have a play around with the power limits today.

Is it ok to set the lower power limits but leave the automatic oc enabled? Im still not sure on how to turn that off.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

Have you tried, if it would work, something like Intel's XTU..? perhaps it is not supported with that board, or the undervolting..? But I know that it can be done using that app, albeit I have a Z690 board and use it.

The undervolting options are greyed out unfortunately. On the bright side, I havent actually reached thermal throttling yet with xtu/cinebench stress tests or everyday use so I suppose things could be worse.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

Quick update.

The gigabyte BIOS manual states that selecting auto for turbo power limits "sets the current limit according to the CPU specifications". This is wrong as I had it set to auto and my power draw was going way over the intel specs.

Ive now changed it to Intel POR. Running cinebench, it now doesnt draw more than 253w, 4C cooler and its added nearly a 1000 points onto my score.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

Ah, just realised for mine to work I had to disable the undervolt protection in the Gigabyte BIOS. Yours does not seem to have that. Stress type tests have their place, but base your concerns of noise etc on actual use that you will be using the PC for. It might work out well for you

Its a shame about the lack of ability to undervolt but I had a play around with different power limits yesterday and Ive got it to the point where im quite happy with it. Ive set PL1 and PL2 both to 200w and adjusted the fan curves. Noise levels are acceptable now and temps are over 10C lower. It seems like there is also hardly any loss in performance.