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*** The Official Alder Lake owners thread ***

He probably has to overvolt slightly like I did with the 64GB RAM. The 32GB RGB Pro SL I had before this was fine at stock volts though but he has 4 banks full so will need to slightly up the voltage to say 1.36 or 37 to compensate.

DDR4 RAM can take some high voltages to improve stability so it's no problem at all.
 
January time iirc for announcement.

My idle and casual usage temps are pretty immense,impressed for sure. They have settled into these figures now that the cooler/paste etc seemed to have "bedded in" if that's even a thing with coolers and paste.

wyUhUVu.jpg
 
I encoded a nearly 8 minute 2400x1080 video recording to 1920x1080 letterboxed in Premiere Rush using the 1080P preset. Got to see how it utilises both CPU and GPU and was rather impressed. Took 22 seconds to encode and there was full GPU utilisation with wide threaded CPU use:

PremRush_CPU.jpg


PremRush_GPU.jpg


I am using the nVidia Studio driver btw not the Game Ready driver. I know Studio driver is geared toward content creators for media creation and overall stability so not sure if that makes a difference but either way, very nice.
 
What is it showing for CPU and GPU utilisation during those moments? One will be dropping during the frame drop which will highlight what it could be. If you have a BG app that uses GPU for example then that might explain it. I forget sometimes I have Lightroom open and as that uses GPU acceleration, see frame drops until I tab out and close it.

Vimes said:
@mrk did you see another release BIOS for your board..?

Z690 GAMING X DDR4 (rev. 1.0) Support | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

  1. Checksum : A809
  2. Improve DDR XMP 3200~3600MHz compatibility
  3. Add Legacy Game Compatibility Mode option
might help...?

BTW I have just ordered a Gigabyte motherboard to see if it can replace my MSI.
Click to expand...

Ah cheers, I did check yesterday when I read MSI released a BIOS update that improved performance so GB must have outed their one today. Will install later this eve as have stuff to do first!
 
BIOS installed, nothing of note so far but I simply restored the saved settings lol so not flicked to XMP and still using manually set RAM settings. If it still doesn't work I cba with opening the case up to clear CMOS.

I will just leave the RAM manually configured to XMP I think.
 
Vimes said:
I have never been able to restore settings on a Gigabyte board after a BIOS flash, much to my annoyance. It would always inform me that due to the settings being from a previous BIOS they can't be restored. I would prefer to enter them back in, but at times, especially with so many overclock settings, it was a pain. I used to save screenshots on my phone to guide me through the settings...!
I didn't know that it would hard lock for you in that way, if you tried to use the XMP settings. When my Z390 Master board would not use the correct setting for XMP Profile 1 it would just use a default 2133Mhz setting, with the wrong timings and voltage.
Hopefully Gigabyte will resolve the DDR4 issues in time, other manufacturers are also having issues in that respect.

At least it flashed for you ok.
Click to expand...

Did you try restoring from a saved settings file on a USB stick? That's what I just did and that worked perfect for both Fan profiles and BIOS settings! From now on I am saving any BIOS changes to USB and restoring from that.
 
Vimes said:
I have just built up my 12700k using a gigabyte motherboard. Flashed it to the latest BIOS and, thankfully, it picked up my Corsair Sticks fine with their XMP profile, including timings and voltage of 1.35v.


I have saved my BIOS settings and Fan profile to a stick

Do you use system fans in your PC and a AIO...? If so what is the noise like until Windows boots...?
Click to expand...

I do yes, on my build there are 2x exhaust fans, 120mm and a 140mm Arctic PST PWM pair. The intake fans are basically the AIO (Freezer II 280mm) with the default Arctic PST fans it comes with. but in pull configuration through the radiator. Both fans are decoupled from the radiator pump header and instead plugged into a CPU_FAN header via a PWM fan splitter so both fans go into the one header on the mobo and the rad's pump header is plugged into the AIO PUMP header (basically a glorified SYS_FAN header from all I can tell.

All fan profiles in the BIOS are manually set and look like this:


At startup before Windows logon starts the fans are at what sounds like the default normal profile from the BIOS, soon as Windows logon screen loads the speeds go to whatever profile settings you have for the fans. In my case it's just slightly audible during POST, then as next to totally silent during and after logon as the speeds are sub 700rpm with these fans.

Also, your board may well make the coil whine noise if your fans are silent so you can actually hear it. To remove the whine go into CPU advanced settings and set C-State control to enabled then in the sub section turn off C1E. Makes no difference to idle power state or frequency as Windows Balanced power profile handles that and will still throttle down to like 500MHz etc when needed so you don't actually compromise anything and lose the whine which is great.
 
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Ah does that mean you have MCE turned on but with a manual vcore set? Be interesting to play around with that as technically not OCing but UVing right but letting the cores hit and stay at max boost without the temp issues of the overvolting the board would do by default.
 
Very cool, I will have a play around with that in time, as you have the same board will await your thoughts and then copy your settings for that side of things if you don't mind :D

I'm all for a small performance bump without resorting to actual OCing!
 
Vimes said:
@mrk I watched a video about a roundup of motherboards for the Z690 and, I suppose, it was accurate. But if you are aware of some boards simply overvolting by default then it is easy enough to change and this graph......



does make some look worse than others, when that isn't necessarily the case.. I understand other factors can be involved. But by default my Gigabyte board was putting through around 1.4v or so when Cinebench was first ran, albeit LLC on medium and overclocked settings.

If you do not wish to overclock that's fine but by default, IIRC, the CPU / board will boost to a safe limit but, imo, the board itself tends to overvolt for that, well at least mine does.

EDIT: I *think* that you have the Gaming X - well I went for the Aorus Elite DDR4 board....

Z690 AORUS ELITE DDR4 (rev. 1.0) Key Features | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

very similar settings, if not the same.
Click to expand...


Ah yes I do have the Gaming X, I guess if the BIOS version is the same then the settings and parameters used are going to be the same as well.
 
Ah awesome I will get updating!

To save the bios it's either the F key mentioned or simply on the last page where you save and exit, choose save BIOS to profile/USB. Remember to do the same from within the smartfan page too so your fan profiles are saved.

Edit*
I did not restore the main BIOS settings from USB this time round because the change log stated various optimisations in the LLC etc for CPU so just incase I restored a setting that had been revised in the latest BIOS, it took a couple mins to put manual settings back anyway so no bother. Fan profile restored off USB which is the main thing for me.

So far all seems good.
 
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Vimes said:
@mrk. OK. For my board there has been another BIOS update available. Maybe for yours also.?
If you did try the XMP settings and it does not work does that force a CMOS reset via the button.?
Click to expand...

I see there is now, version F6d but the changelog is only showing this:

  1. Fix Non-K CPU performance issue
Click to expand...

So no point me installing that really as I have a K CPU!
 
I haven't yet nope, My case actually has a reset switch button that I could just switch the jumper to the HW_RES header as the switch connects directly to that. I never use the reset button on the case anyway so repurposing that to be the CMOS reset instead would be handy I guess.

Another task for another time :p
 
After 3 updates stating XMP fixes you'd hope so that they fixed it by now!

I don't mind either way as manual settings have been working fine and I won't be changing RAM again for a long time so basically I am all set for the long haul until DDR5 becomes actually good in a few years time I think.
 
It's highly probable they have fixed the 3200-3600 XMP profile now but it's not bothersome enough for me to reflash having only flashed the other day! I will do a dust clean soon so the case will be open, that will be the time to give whatever new version is out by then a flash and try XMP I guess. I missed the chance today due to being distracted by the GFX :D

I won't be trying any beta BIOS though however as this machine is my main gaming and production PC so need absolute stability hence why I use the nVidia Studio drivers too instead of Game Ready ones.
 
Whilst it might be faster, that has not translated into real world performance difference that make the extra cost a convincing one especially as right now you have to make do with the lesser specced DDR5 since the higher rated stuff is not in stock anywhere.

I have yet to see any review that shows a viable performance gain in real world use outside of benchmarks with current DDR5 vs fast DDR4. You gain much more upgrading CPU and GPU than RAM.

Edit* @Vimes Don't think I will have the chance to bother with XMP as looks like I have to keep my RAM voltage manually set. I've been keeping an eye on random CTD in Cyberpunk 2077. I know the game itself is still buggy but this is odd as never had it on the 32GB RAM kit so figured it was gaming stability on 64GB as already had upped the RAM volts to 1.37v but it seems on long sessions this isn't enough either so am now on 1.38v and after a couple of hours mucking around in 2077 have yet to see the CTD so looks like for 64GB (2 modules, dual ranked, Samsung chips) I need to push 1.8v. Fine by me, the modules don't feel hot at all so must just be a stability thing.
 
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But we've all seen those reviews and even you've pointed out that the difference is minor. The ADL CPU itself will maintain a much improved minimum fps anyway as evidenced by all of our findings who did the upgrade and why these are so good in games and seem to rank in the top when games are compared too. My own benchmarks in games and productivity match up with what the average DDR5 system is showing and where it does not, it isn't that far behind, and I only have 64GB of 3600MHz in Gear 1.

I will go DDR5, but only when it's at DDR4 prices probably in 12-24 months time. Before then there's zero point in the extra outlay. Wasting money because you will only be selling the slow DDR5 on and a loss only to buy the cheaper and lower latency stuff a while later.
 
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