Consider adjusting your motherboard settings to match Intel's stock limits for your 13th gen i7 processor.
Consider adjusting your motherboard settings to match Intel's stock limits for your 13th gen i7 processor.
I've been learning about Intel 13/14 Gen mobo stock configurations lately. I bought a 13700k and noticed it's a powerful chip, wondering if adjusting its power settings on my Z790 Tomahawk matches Intel’s recommendations. Since I haven’t worked with BIOS overclocking before, this feels tricky. Is it worth the effort? For guidance on resetting everything to Intel’s suggested limits, there are some solid resources you can check.
So it's a bit more complicated than that. The issue is that a lot of higher end motherboards undervolt the CPUs by default, and because of that, a some i9s and a couple i7s are crashing at stock. Some of these CPUs are fixed with adjusting the power limits (not all, but most), and the rest are usually fixed by adjusting the AC loadline and/or enabling enabling CEP. If you don't have stability issues though, I see no reason to do that. The stock power limits (unlimited) tend to cause these chips to run hot, but shouldn't damage them or anything. Given it's a 13700K, that really shouldn't have issues, and since even at stock settings it shouldn't be riding the power limits that hard anyway.
No one seems to be aware of the 1x700 chips. However, when I set up my 14700k, people asked about the type of cooler and mentioned a stock option that limited it to 250W. The main point is that these chips didn’t cause instability right away—if anything, they stayed stable until degradation occurred, which would have already shortened their lifespan significantly. I haven’t noticed any talk about undervolting on motherboards; usually, they tend to raise voltages instead.
The recent BIOS versions offer reduced AC loadline values compared to previous configurations, and adjusting these settings results in decreased system voltage. This is the problem I've noticed.
This situation suggests the voltage was too high before any issues appeared. It's frustrating because updating the BIOS isn't possible on my Linux server, and the MSI tools only support flashing updates within Windows environments. The newer BIOS requires a newer ME, so I might need to adjust the AC loadline manually. My 14700K reaches 100°C during single-core loads, which is extremely problematic. For now, I'm lowering the clock speed to 4.3Ghz.
The voltage was noticeably lower earlier, while the current was extremely high. With the latest BIOS from Gigabyte, voltages can exceed 1.5V, and according to Intel’s specs it could reach up to 1.72V—something that seems unrealistic. The current became very restricted, causing a major drop in multi-core performance. Performance on Gigabyte was notably worse compared to MSI or ASUS, since Intel’s recommended values are quite flexible rather than fixed. This whole scenario is quite frustrating. Both Intel and the OEM manufacturers share some responsibility here.
Manual adjustment is possible via MSI boards, which refer to it as Lite Load control. To configure it fully, switch to advanced mode. I verified my setup with a 13900K (Z690 Unify-X) and an older BIOS (A8), both defaulting to 0.5 mOhms. However, when running Cinebench R23 under load, the A8 BIOS consistently shows about 10mV higher than the AG BIOS (~1.235V vs. 1.225V). This difference is significant enough on some boards to trigger crashes, especially with certain models.
It seems like you're questioning a measurement of 1.72v and suggesting it's questionable, especially in the context of 45nm technology. They might have lost their composure over this.