Downvolting i7 13700

SkyTerran · 8 Jul 2023 at 00:41

So I have an Asus PRIME Z790M-PLUS D4 motherboard. I used to use it with an i5-13600K and it was working perfectly - under multi-threaded load, like Cinebench R23 all the P-cores were turboing to 5.1GHz, the CPU was consuming around 150W, which the cooler - a Noctua NH-U14S could dissipate without any thermal throttling.

My problems started when I upgraded to an i7-13700 (non-K). I've enabled the Asus multi-core enhancement feature in the BIOS, which removes the CPU power limits. The CPU consumes over 220W under load and the cores reach 100 degrees very fast. I added a second 140mm fan to the CPU cooler, but that didn't help. The thermal throttling causes the frequency of the P-cores to drop to around 4.8GHz. Effectively my new 8 core CPU works not much faster than my old 6 core.

I tried to undervolt the CPU via an offset - but that drastically decreased my Cinebench result. Did some googling and it seems it's caused by something called clock stretching.

Looks like people recommend to do the downvolting via AC/DC loadline settings, but all the tutorials I could find were for MSI motherboards. Can you please recommend a good way to downvolt this CPU on a basic Asus motherboard.

dazzlaa · 8 Jul 2023 at 08:12

Hey mate,

I have an ASUS board and have stable 5.2 all cores undervolted. These are my settings:

Performance core ratio: Sync all cores
All core limit. 52
Actual VRM core voltage: offset mode
Offset mode sign: -
Cpu core voltage offset: 0.04
ASUS multi core enhance: disable
Efficient core ratio: sync all cores
All core ratio limit: 39

SkyTerran · 8 Jul 2023 at 10:12

Great, thanks dazzlaa. I'll give it a try. What score do you get in Cinebench R23 or another benchmark - would be good to have something to compare my result to.

dazzlaa · 8 Jul 2023 at 12:35

Hey, I don’t actually benchmark too often so couldn’t say without reinstalling cine. I did when I was tweaking the settings and was happy with where I ended up. That said, I have a 13600k so wouldn’t be comparable but I still wanted to share my settings, which should help you out getting that wattage down.

Just fyi, at 5.2 full use, my cpu pulls 120w with these settings.

SkyTerran · 8 Jul 2023 at 13:45

Thanks for the help

mattyfez · 12 Jul 2023 at 20:27

dazzlaa said:
Offset mode sign: -
Cpu core voltage offset: 0.04

This is all i did on my 13600k - keep bumping up the offset untill it crashed in cinebench.

Mines running at -0.1
Still getting same scores as stock in cinebench, but its running about 10c cooler at 100% load, and about 15w less peak power consumtion.

snarloas1982 · 13 Jul 2023 at 08:54

https://www.overclock.net/threads/a...-13900k-a-tuning-guide-for-beginners.1801569/ Read here.
Adjusting the LLC/DC/AC will get you a better temp with lower voltages. It's been a long time from i looked at my 13900k settings but i think my AC_ll is around .17
My offset is around 0.05