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5820K power states help/discussion

Jono8

Jono8

Jono8

Caporegime
Joined
20 May 2007
Posts
40,400
Location
Surrey
Hi Chaps,

*long boring post incoming!

I purchased the X99 5820k Black Friday bundle a little while a go and was using the 3000mhz ram and 4.1ghz overclock for a bit all fine.

However I decided that for my music production work 32GB would be better really and found a good deal on a 2400mhz 32gb (4x8) kit so have replaced the ram ( I went for lower frequency ram for stability as 32gb at 3000mhz and an overclock might be troublesome and I cant see the 600mhz making a massive difference to things especially when the 2400mhz kit's timings are tighter).

Anyway, played around a bit today and all seems stable at 4.3ghz at 1.2v ( which is pretty I good I thought) with ram at 2400mhz - Have done several loops of Realbench's benchmark and a 30 minute Realbench stress test. Max temp seem to be 67 on the hottest core (~63 on the rest). I don't have any real need to go higher so I am happy with that. I realise it might not be 100% stable without more testing but it must be in the ballpark so will leave it and tune as I go if I experience any problems.

Anyway, I have one issue which I am not sure what to do about and it relates to the cpu's power states. Basically I noticed my image editing score was way off on the realbench benchmark (lower than what it should be and lower than when I had the 3000mhz ram using 8pack's settings). I noticed that during this test the cores weren't always maxing out at 4.3ghz as the cpu usage isn't constant. In the video encoding test the score is fine and all the cores get loaded at 100% and therefore boost to 4.3ghz.

The fix I found was to set the windows power management mode to high performance. With this on all cores are constantly at 4.3ghz and the voltage is always at 1.2v. This gave me the score I expected in Realbench.

I guess I didn't have this problem on 8pack's settings as I wasn't changing the multiplier ( just the strap) so there wasn't such a large range for the multiplier to change through. Does that sound right?

However, I am not sure I want to run it at "full chat" all the time as it would be nice for it to downclock and lower the voltage at idle. I would turn it back but having seen the affect this has on the image editing in Realbench I am worried that having the power set to balanced to allow the cpu to change frequency is going to result in lost performance in some games and also in Cubase for my music production. It seems like if the task isn't taxing the cpu enough, it won't be boosting to the full 4.3ghz.

So essentially I wanted some advice on what you think I should do and also what you guys tend to do. Do you find having power saving modes on affects performance in certain applications and if so do you therefore have the voltage and frequency on full all the time? I mean maybe it is just an issue with how Realbench implements that image editing benchmark but I am really not sure. Also, I don't want the cpu to degrade and I am worried running 1.2v through it 24/7 all the time might cause issues.

Advice and experiences are most welcome! Thanks.
 
I run full speed always!! Clock down for what?? Lol.

Enable speed step and c states in BIOS and in OS power management set to balanced or low power then the CPU will clock up and down under loading.
 
Even in performance mode it should down clock of sorts anyway and should drop to lower than top voltage. Download CPU-Z that should tell you if its down clocking. Other than that try enabling Intel speed step in the bios that should keep the clocks down until the power is required.

1.2v is still very much safe for 24/7 usage, probably uses more on stock to be honest as stock volts tend to use too much. You may even be able to drop the volts a little.

Mine is on all the time at 4.5ghz 1.25v. 1.4v is about the safe limit.
 
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No, it is definitely downclocking, that is the issue. In the image editing test with realbench, I get a real low score as it doesn't seem to run at 4.3ghz all the time for the whole bench. For the encoding, because the load is high, all cores are pegged at 4.3ghz so I get the correct score.

The only way to get a high (correct) score for the image editing part is to put the windows power plan to max performance because then all 6 cores are constantly at 4.3ghz no matter what I do.

I was just wondering if this was essentially normal?

My only worry is that I might get low performance in other applications like games if the load isn't enough and therefore not making the core(s) go to the full 4.3ghz.

I guess this is just how c states work and I have to choose whether to have it running at full voltage and clocks all the time (ensuring all that I run runs the fastest it can) or leave it as it is and live with the fact that I might lose some performance where the load isn't that high.
 
I take the opposite view of 8 pack. Why waste electricity?

For music production the only reason NOT to use the power saving modes would be if clocking down is causing underruns (live/real-time only).

For "offline" production (mixing/mastering) there should be no difference.

You say "way off" - how far off was the realbench image editing score with power saving compared to not? Sounds more like an inaccurate benchmark than anything else to me.
 
I told him how to enable power saving features.

My opinion will always be clock down for what.
 
Depends what I'll use the system for. If I'm just overclocking/gaming/short use then all dynamic settings get disabled. If it's a PC I plan to leave on for long periods of time, then I might enable C states etc. But I find it easier to get a stable OC keeping everything constant.
 
Interestingly, I have just done a bit more looking into this and with the windows power plan on high performance, the core speed is always 4.3ghz acorss all cores but the voltage still goes down when idling/not doing anything ( verified by hardware monitor)

Does that sound right, I would have thought it would need a higher voltage at 4.3ghz even if idling/not under load or is that just how it works? Does the CPU work out how much voltage it needs for 4.3ghz, depending on the load and up to the maximum of 1.2v?

The idle voltage seems the same whether I have the powe plan set to balanced or high performance ( so idle voltage is similar whether the cores are at 1200mhz or 4300mhz).

If this is all correct then I guess I may as well leave it on high performance as I will always have the top speed, but still get the power saving at low load/idle.

Another thing is cpuz shows my core voltage at 1.2v at all times regardless of the load where as HW monitor shows the cpu v core fluctuating whether on balanced or high performance windows power plans.
 
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Jono8 said:
Another thing is cpuz shows my core voltage at 1.2v at all times regardless of the load where as HW monitor shows the cpu v core fluctuating whether on balanced or high performance windows power plans.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you noticed this. Software voltage readings aren't very accurate. Therefore the premise of the rest of your post is shaky.
 
joeyjojo said:
I'm glad you noticed this. Software voltage readings aren't very accurate. Therefore the premise of the rest of your post is shaky.
Click to expand...

True, although HW monitor clearly shows the Vcore fluctuating from 0.132 ( which from a search is accepted as the lowest a 5820k will pull) and 1.2v which is what I have se the voltage to so I am inclined to trust HW monitor. I doubt it could just pick those vcore fluctuations out of thin air.
 
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