Comparison of I9 series and microcode changes with BIOS settings
Comparison of I9 series and microcode changes with BIOS settings
I'm using the i5-14600K on a Pro MSI Z-790A WiFi MOBO. This was my gaming rig for my son about a year ago; at that time, it was clear that some manufacturers were making their boards vulnerable to overvolting the CPU by default. Fortunately, I paid attention to the conversations when choosing the 14600K, so during setup I kept things conservative. I updated the BIOS before installing the CPU as advised for 14th generation chips with the Z790 boards. Once that was done, I installed the processor and prepared it for its first boot. When I posted, the initial question asked about the type of cooler in use. Options were presented as stock, box, or water cooler. I selected stock, thinking those were among the first responses from MOBO makers to handle the overvolting issues. This configuration delivered strong performance. Given my prior knowledge about overheating and voltage concerns, I was somewhat surprised by the results and the low heat output. The initial temperatures were in the upper 80s Celsius. With 5.3Mhz on the p-cores and 4.5Mhz on the e-cores, I expected more issues. However, after applying undervolting via the BIOS settings, temperatures dropped to around 1.23V and the temps fell by about 10°C, staying below 75°C. Performance remained consistent. I regularly checked BIOS updates and applied them, testing with Cinebench23 and HWMonitor. Changes were minimal, though I had to tweak the CPU-Lite settings each time. In October or November 2024, a significant BIOS update boosted performance but pushed temperatures into the 90s Celsius range—even reaching up to 99°C. At that point, despite running at 4.9Mhz on the p-cores and lower on the e-cores, I decided to revert to the default optimized settings in the BIOS and reboot. This adjustment improved performance, but temperatures still reached 99°C, 100°C. I then reverted to a CPU-Lite setting of around 21 and retested. Temperatures stabilized below 85°C, and I adjusted the p-cores to 5.5Mhz and e-cores to 4.9Mhz. The next test confirmed temperatures never exceeded 85°C while maintaining high performance (Cinebench23 score around 25xxx). Since then, the system has run smoothly. A new BIOS update in December didn’t affect me, so I left it as is for now. I’ll likely revisit it soon, but I’m planning to redo the undervolting and overclocking steps carefully. For reference, here’s a link to a forum thread with videos and a Reddit user who followed a similar approach with their 13700K—useful if you decide to try it. https://forums.