Can a 9900K be harmed by using MCE?
Can a 9900K be harmed by using MCE?
Hello everyone,
I'm using a 9900K with a Z390 Aorus Master board and also have a Noctua NH-D15 cooler. After reviewing the (well-known) MCE settings in the BIOS, I haven't reached a clear answer. Most people avoid using it because you can easily set a manual overclock to 5GHz with lower voltage, which improves cooling and reduces CPU stress... but I've grown tired of overclocking and stress testing in the past. My goal now is simply to achieve 5GHz and play games smoothly.
That's why I decided to try MCE. Yes, the temperatures are a bit higher than ideal, but they stay well below 90°C during gaming (the thermal limit for my board is around 100°C). The highest I've reached so far is 95°C in Cinebench R20, which is the most stressful test I've done on this machine. I'm not planning any stress tests like OCCT or Prime. Summer is coming and it's quite hot where I live.
What matters most to me is that the system runs stably and I don't see any WHEA errors in HWinfo. For my specific board (Z390 Aorus Master), MCE is pushing the 9900K up to 5GHz continuously, without any significant drop, unlike previous versions. The Vcore stays around 1.38, but it occasionally spikes up to 1.4 or even 1.45-1.47, though only occasionally. I understand that anything up to 1.4 is fine, but those spikes are a bit concerning.
My main question is: if I'm okay with the temperatures, can I continue using MCE without too much worry?
Bonus question:
Also, do you think I should try the 5GHz preset from Gigabyte in the BIOS? From what I understand, MCE just allows the board and CPU to reach their full limits without changing any other settings. The board seems to handle it well. Perhaps the 5GHz setting would be better since it's closer to an overclock. I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
When you exceed the limits, the CPU will suffer voltage spikes above 1.4 and increased temperatures. Be aware that voltage readings from software might be inaccurate by as much as 20%, meaning spikes could appear higher than the actual value. In my opinion, I wouldn't even try to overclock this CPU right now—it should handle any input without issues.
Well....
You can apply the MCE and simply lower the VCORE to around 1.30 to 1.32.
But I wouldn't suggest using it.
Turn off MCE and adjust it manually—it's straightforward and only requires a short time.
The best approach is to update the BIOS, which is currently F8.
Then navigate to optimized defaults, save, reboot, and return to the BIOS.
Enable XMP Profile 1
Turn off MCE
Adjust CPU speed to 50
Adjust VCORE to 1.30V or higher if necessary
Configure LLC to TURBO
Set TDP to 250
Execute your tests and increase VCORE as needed.
The 90C in-game temperatures are excessively high by 5 to 10 degrees Celsius, according to my view. You might consider reducing the core voltage in small steps of 0.01 volts; even a slight increase of 0.05 volts can significantly raise the temperatures.