• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

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

Robert896r1 said:
SA at 1.648v is def going to degrade your CPU if that is real. Check hwinfo64 in OS and see how it actually reads. Hopefully it's just a bios bug.

VID is what your CPU is requesting, what's it's getting is what what matters. Unless asrock really f'd things up, you don't need to touch your vid.

For DDR5 since the mem controller is running at half speed, gear 2, you don't need much SA at all. Stock SA on z690 is 0.95v which is plenty for what you're running.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HJnQnRtgvkJ329tQemyiWawclISV-u9wON0jpNoQZJ4/edit it's a work in progress you can get ideas of DDR5 voltages, timings and tuning here.

Probably not what you want to hear but never buy asrock for any form of OC or tuning. Infact, don't buy asrock in general.
Click to expand...
I've checked both, they both read the same.... its bad. I think even at default bios settings it reads this value. I've checked Tech Powerups review of this board and again it shows the same value too.

16ZC7g0.jpg

IveS2kH.jpg


Thanks mate, in that case i'll leave my CPU SA VID alone then at default voltage and just tinker with the VDD and VDDQ voltages + Timing.

Abit annoyed with ASrock with this, how can they set a voltage that high and not realise? I'm tempted to send this board back and just pay the extra for the Asus itx board but its an extra £50 :(.
 
I would def send it back if you can. The best itx board for z690 is the Unify ITX. Asus should be fine as well though. Just get off the asrock lol

Just manually set your SA to like 1.0v in the meantime. Stop it from killing your cpu..
 
@Jay85 That is a strange one......

When I had a MSI 690 board it had the ability to manually set the VCCSA voltage AND then monitor that within HWiNFO64 as it had a IT87952E chip to allow such monitoring.
However my Gigabyte 690 board has full manual control over the VCCSA voltage, like the MSI, but no IT87952E chip to see its actual voltage within Windows. Instead I can see the voltage on the BIOS home page, as such.

Leaving it on Auto it will supply 0.938v voltage, not sure if that changes tho under any loads. It isn't as tho I can stress test and then read that voltage.

I'm thinking it strange in your case as it has that monitoring capability but no adjustments, not much point in going to the cost, small I know, of having a type of IT87952E chip to monitor it then.

At that default no change voltage it is high, from what I have understood. Not sure why it should be so high by default.
 
Vimes said:
@Jay85 That is a strange one......

When I had a MSI 690 board it had the ability to manually set the VCCSA voltage AND then monitor that within HWiNFO64 as it had a IT87952E chip to allow such monitoring.
However my Gigabyte 690 board has full manual control over the VCCSA voltage, like the MSI, but no IT87952E chip to see its actual voltage within Windows. Instead I can see the voltage on the BIOS home page, as such.

Leaving it on Auto it will supply 0.938v voltage, not sure if that changes tho under any loads. It isn't as tho I can stress test and then read that voltage.

I'm thinking it strange in your case as it has that monitoring capability but no adjustments, not much point in going to the cost, small I know, of having a type of IT87952E chip to monitor it then.

At that default no change voltage it is high, from what I have understood. Not sure why it should be so high by default.
Click to expand...
This is the problem, though the CPU SA VID is default 0.941v which is fine the VCCSA voltage is actually set to 1.648v as you can see in the bios and hwinfo but i have no control over it at all.

Not sure what the decision is to do this but if they've set such a high value and people who are not aware of what is going on, surely over time it could damage the cpu without users knowing? I've opened a support ticket with ASrock as its a bios level adjustment thats locked, they should honestly release a new bios with a updated VCCSA voltage thats more normal.

But like you said, for the sake of a few quick im just gonna get the ASUS board as i can't find stock for the MSI board right now. At least i have control over those voltages and if need be set them correctly.

Shame really as i had just got the hang of using this board and overclocking it. Managed some decent results too!
 
@Jay85 Unless you are missing the not so obvious here, on its adjustments, I think it is bizarre to have such monitoring capability with zero control AND then they set such a seemingly extreme VCCSA voltage...!

If that is your only option with that board it doesn't seem such an extreme choice to think of swapping it over, a pain that it is.
I would be more concerned at having that voltage being applied, and not a reporting issue, than taking the time and spending a few quid sorting it out.
I would want a reply from ASrock tho, to check if you are not missing the not so obvious and also if it could be implemented, sooner than later.

just make sure for a fact that the Asus board has this, and also meets your other needs. What a pain for you, but at least you are aware of it.
 
Vimes said:
@Jay85 Unless you are missing the not so obvious here, on its adjustments, I think it is bizarre to have such monitoring capability with zero control AND then they set such a seemingly extreme VCCSA voltage...!

If that is your only option with that board it doesn't seem such an extreme choice to think of swapping it over, a pain that it is.
I would be more concerned at having that voltage being applied, and not a reporting issue, than taking the time and spending a few quid sorting it out.
I would want a reply from ASrock tho, to check if you are not missing the not so obvious and also if it could be implemented, sooner than later.

just make sure for a fact that the Asus board has this, and also meets your other needs. What a pain for you, but at least you are aware of it.
Click to expand...
This review of the board has noted as such as well, as you can see there is no control over the VCCSA voltage. Mind blowing.

H3NYjfv.jpg

I've decided to get the ASUS board, like you say for a few extra quid its worth having that peace of mind over something that could potentially kill the cpu without me knowing.

I'm not sure how good ASrock support is but i sent the ticket yesterday so will see how long it takes for them to respond. I've posted this question on Discord and Reddit as well on the ASrock channels but no reply yet.

I'm reading up reviews of the ASUS board and from what i can see it does have VCCSA control and its not a silly amount by default.

I wish i knew this before hand but being abit of a newb still with Z690 i didn't really pay much attention to the voltages in the reviews. I'd assumed any issue would have been picked up by reviewers anyway.
 
mrk said:
To be fair I have yet to use Gear 2! Maybe I should try it lol.
Click to expand...

When I had the 4000Mhz DDR sticks I accepted Gear 2 over 1 as it made tiddly squat difference in the day to day use, that had to be the std to apply. But it did seem to make a real difference over the odd stability issues and trying to compensate for that with both DDR memory voltage increases and VCCSA increases. Dropping to Gear 2 and it was much better, well AUTO.

Leaving on AUTO for my now 3200mhz DDR (32GB in total rather than 16GB of the 4000Mhz chips) it sets to Gear 1 by default, that is due to Intel, afaik, setting the 3200mhz memory as the appropriate to use without it being considered to be overclocked. Anything above that seemed to default to Gear 2 mode.
 
Jay85 said:
This review of the board has noted as such as well, as you can see there is no control over the VCCSA voltage. Mind blowing.

H3NYjfv.jpg

I've decided to get the ASUS board, like you say for a few extra quid its worth having that peace of mind over something that could potentially kill the cpu without me knowing.

I'm not sure how good ASrock support is but i sent the ticket yesterday so will see how long it takes for them to respond. I've posted this question on Discord and Reddit as well on the ASrock channels but no reply yet.

I'm reading up reviews of the ASUS board and from what i can see it does have VCCSA control and its not a silly amount by default.

I wish i knew this before hand but being abit of a newb still with Z690 i didn't really pay much attention to the voltages in the reviews. I'd assumed any issue would have been picked up by reviewers anyway.
Click to expand...


Not sure where you go with that one, meaning they even tell you its a "no No" in terms of adjustments. With that information I would just get on with swapping it out.

I would not have appreciated the need to think about VCCSA voltages and adjustments prior to the AL and 690 chipset. It never really factored for me with my previous build. The point is you are now aware and whilst it might be a pain at least you can sort it out. Hopefully you'll get a refund etc easily and then rebuild with some better assurances.
 
Yep 1:1 is 3200MHz which by default will be Gear 1. I don't know what the Gigabyte board does with auto for gear mode but I guess I will set it manually and retest a bunch of apps. I am not bothered about gaming performance as the 3080 Ti flies through everything and I have Gsync ultimate so framerates are a non issue. It's mostly my workload stuff that I would like to maximise the RAM bandwidth for as exporting/processing etc takes up large chunks of this 64GB kit and this kit is CAS 18 so not exactly "gaming grade" but still adequate I think without being ludicrously priced like lower timed kits seem to be now.

I will try Gear 2 now at 3600MHz and leave everything else as is and test an export in Lightroom with say 20 RAWs and see how long it takes in both. Lightroom now supports GPU accelerated exporting, so I fully expect the GPU VRAM and system RAM to play a key role in how they handle each other's respective bandwidth differences.
 
@mrk hopefully it will be fine for you, with then benefits (?) of stability that Gear 2 might offer.

Eventually I refunded my 3080Ti but when I had it I was disappointed with its transient spikes it was pulling from the PSU and the odd, but persistent, BSOD / computer restarts. GPU's, as a generalisation, have been more problematic that way, as they seem to become more demanding of the power they draw. Somewhat opposite, to a degree, of energy saving capabilities of many other electrical devices etc. In a sense I suppose that is why we are moving towards ATX 3.x, to allow for better regulation of power, or, better still, to compensate for the relatively poor regulation from the GPU. Both AMD and Nvidia seem to have this issue.
 
Gear 2 is your mem controller running at half speed. Each his own but I'd never run DDR4 at anything but 1:1 Stability requires effort esp if you tune.

It exists for DDR5 since the frequencies are so high, mem controller would crap out trying to keep up.
 
Vimes said:
Not sure where you go with that one, meaning they even tell you its a "no No" in terms of adjustments. With that information I would just get on with swapping it out.

I would not have appreciated the need to think about VCCSA voltages and adjustments prior to the AL and 690 chipset. It never really factored for me with my previous build. The point is you are now aware and whilst it might be a pain at least you can sort it out. Hopefully you'll get a refund etc easily and then rebuild with some better assurances.
Click to expand...
Ordered the new board, returning the ASrock board under the 14 day cool off period. Just need to make sure i return everything.

Also...
ASrock has replied to my Ticket, doesn't bring me much confidence really. I'd be surprised if they don't release an emergency bios to change it unless there's a really good reason for it.

PvUXGMh.jpg
 
Hmm so good news and bad news! In Gear 2 with the RAM set at 3600MHz, I get no boot and the system boots after a hard reset with a message saying boot failure detected and that some settings may not be compatible. Can enter BIOS, load optimised defaults etc. So it would seem that with 64GB (2x16GB modules), on this board, the system isn't stable when the RAM is at 3600MHz. I did get it to boot once but I got a BSOD within moments of the desktop and apps re-appearing where I left off.

I have dropped to 3200MHz so it's all 1:1 and did some testing in Lightroom.

Exporting 50x RAW files full res to JPEG to the desktop (NVMe gen 3):

Gear 1 @ 3500MHz: 28s
Gear 2 @ 3600MHz: BSOD!
Gear 1 @ 3200MHz: 27s

So basically no different between 3200MHz Gear 1 and 3500MHz Gear 1 l lol if my simple test is anything to go by. If this translates to other apps as well (Lightroom exporting is system heavy tbf) then I think the stability of 3200MHz and the 1:1 of Gear 1 will be the sweet spot.
 
Robert896r1 said:
I'd be worried about the health of the CPU if it's been getting 1.65sa pumped into it this whole time....
Click to expand...
I mean its been running like this for under a week so hopefully not too bad. The actual CPU SA VID voltage has been 0.941v for the duration after checking through my older pictures of hwinfo when i first set it up. I mean aslong as the cpu wasn't actually running at the voltage it should be fine in theory right? Since the VCCSA is on the motherboard side and not what the cpu is actually getting?

Even during benchmarks and gaming the cpu SA voltage has been 0.941v and never gone higher.
 
Last edited:
@mrk IIRC going from Gear 1 to 2, or Auto wasn't as simple as making a change and then restarting the PC. I needed to do a full reset of the BIOS, get that to boot ok and then go back in to restore my fan profile and make other adjustments. By default it seemed to pick up the appropriate Gear move as required, per SPD rating of the RAM.

Overall a decent result for you. Hopefully it will work out well with your usage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom