Discuss optimizing performance by lowering clock speeds and voltage for the i9-14900K.
Discuss optimizing performance by lowering clock speeds and voltage for the i9-14900K.
Hello! TL;dr: My Intel i9-14900k is running high temps in Cinebench r23 and when trying to undervolt it even just a little bit, Cinebench r23 crashes. But lowering it a little bit sadly doesn't change the temperatures that much. That's why I'm thinking not only to undervolt it, but also to underclock it and I want to hear some opinions or experiences about undervolting + underclocking. Disclaimer: I'm not very knowledgable on this topic and therefore pretty scared of doing something wrong. At the end of November, my 7 year old PC sadly died (pretty sure it was the motherboard because the PC doesn't get any power anymore beyond the motherboard). Since I didn't want to go through the trouble to buy the same motherboard (or something cheaper with the same socket or swap parts around), I wanted to buy a new PC and since it's my first pc since I started working a little, I wanted to go "all out". My PC: Intel Core i9 14900K MSI MEG CoreLiquid S360 AiO Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master X (rev. 1.0) 2x 16 GB G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5-6000 DIMM RAM 16GB MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 1000 Watt MSI MPG A1000G 4x 120x120x25mm be quiet! Silent Wings 3x 140x140x25mm be quiet! Silent Wings Gamdias Neso P1 Big Tower Windows 11 (To the question, why I didn't get a better graphics card: I was considering the 4070, but I'm not doing anything higher than 1920x1080, so I just got the 16Gb 4060 Ti for 475€. Every other Nvidia card was priced very unreasonably). The PC was built by the Vendor; they have a service where they do that for you. My last PC, I was so incredibly scared when putting in the CPU alone that I didn't want to go through that again. Also the cable management was a mess. Of course I did hear, that the newer Intel CPU's run very hot, so I looked at a undervolting guide by JayzTwoCents as well as Panjno. They made it look really really easy, so I was very optimistic going into it. Also their whole comment section said, how they wen to like -0,120V or something and their temperatures went down by a lot. So I wanted to try just that. I got HWMonitor, Cinebench r23 and Intel XTU. I ran a one time test in Cinebench (or 1 cycle? No idea what it's called) as recommended by Panjno, had a score of around 40432, but a temperature of 96°C. I lowered the Voltage to -0,050V, started the one cycle and Cinebench INSTANTLY crashes. I don't even know what went wrong, because people were going a lot lower with their Voltage. But I did what was recommended: Going back with the Voltage by 0,010V, so I did that. Cinebench didn't crash when I reached -0,025V (did the test again later and it didn't crash at -0,015V), but the temperatures were still at 92°C. I watched JayzTwoCents video again and in the beginning, he changes 2 - 3 options in the bios for it to work. Since I'm scared of the big unknown bios (to me it is at least) I made pictures of almost everything except Fan Configuration Settings and tried searching for the options he mentioned. Since the board is in german, it was a little harder, also his board was by Asus, which made it even more hard. The weirdest thing though was, that there was no "Default" mode for the CPU. The Gigabyte PerfDrive has 5 modes or something like that and the board was in the "Optimization" mode, which makes every core run at full power (I think; I also thin it's the second highest mode?). There is only one mode, were it has unlimited power, but it says you need custom water cooling for it. Since the bios settings didn't change much, I tried to change the Gigabyte PerfDrive from Optimization to "Spec Enhance", which apparently can lower the temps as well. Upon running Cinebench I couldn't even really go down to -0,010V without the programm crashing. What I did then, since you can apparently save profiles on the Aorus Master X and the vendor did say that they did a little bit of tuning (but no idea what exactly), was to reset to its default options. My PC then sounded like a jet engine when opening a programm; it was so loud for no reason suddenly, but I could go down to -0,050V, but for some reason the temperatures were even higher at 97°C (score was 40758). And there, I'm pretty sure the vendor just did some minor fan tuning, but I found nothing in the CPU Fan section of the motherboard, so no idea where they did it. I do understand that Cinebench is the extreme case and that this is not your daily thing. So I just started playing some games. I played some League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Honkai Star Rail, Genshin Impact and Need for Speed Unbound as of right now (don't have everything else yet) and the CPU temps never went above 85°C in Unbound and ~75°C in other games. Which is good, so currently I don't have to fear running into higher temps while I try to figure things out. I want to use my PC primarily for gaming; I do enjoy playing games on emulators though. Furthermore I'm interested in A.I. image generation or stable diffusion. My old PC's CPU was really strained when generating an image with a model (~85°C) and when I imagine this CPU doing something like that, the 100°C will be reached easily. I also want to dabble into making some videos, but that's a little further down. When the rendering process goes from let's say 30 minutes to 35 or even 40, that wouldn't be that big of a deal to me. If it went to over 45, that would be troublesome for me. But I'm not really interesting in squeezing even the tiniest bit out of my PC. My goals are stability, longevity/CPU lasting a very long time and low/adequat temperatures. I know a lot of tech people hate the concept of future proofing or having something for a long time, but this is what I'm after. If it'd be possible, I'd really like it if my PC would last me another 7 years (my pc before that also lasted a long time). I was also always a big fan of intel CPU's; my friend is an AMD fan, but I saw his CPU's die very quickly, after 2 years roundabout. But I never had any problem with Intel's. Until now. So that is why I want to underclock and undervolt it. Since I have never done it and there isn't really much info about underclocking in conjunction with undervolting, I wanted to ask about a it a little in here first. I don't want to dabble with it in the bios, I want to do it in Intel XTU. Like I said, I really fear the bios. Currently, the performance core ratio is at 57x and the efficient core ratio is at 44x. With what should I go down first? I want to underclock and undervolt it, but I don't want to bottleneck my own system. Like I said, I'm not really interested in squeezing everything out of my PC, but I also don't want to make it completely bad. But then again, my first priority are good temps and undervolting so I don't get scared once I do something more processor intensive or have to swap out my CPU in 3 years. Any advice would be appreciated!
Avoid reducing the uncore/cache/ring ratio and try lowering the voltage at normal speeds. The ring clock links all cores together with the cache and memory controller. On many 13th generation CPUs I've tested, temperature was the main constraint for undervolting at standard speeds. Changing it from stock 45 to 44 should provide more headroom without significantly affecting performance if you keep the high-performance and efficiency cores at their default settings. You might be exaggerating the temperature concern. Of course, lower temperatures are beneficial, but 100°C is fine for long-term use and these CPUs have been running hot for some time (around the 8th generation, with few dead 8700K models). Upgrading the CPU or motherboard before you need to is unlikely. In benchmark results, Cinebench sits in the middle. There are lighter tests, but you can push it further with programs like Prime95 Small FFTs, and because Cinebench isn't a true stress test like OCCT, Prime95, Linpack, or Y-Cruncher, it doesn't strain the system as much.
@josefah I do have it installed! What exactly does "under load" mean? When gaming or while running Cinebench? While running Cinebench, it does reach up to 98°C. When gaming (League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Honkai Star Rail, Genshin Impact and Need for Speed Unbound) it goes to ~75°C maximum and 85°C maximum in Unbound. The heat is not constantly there though, but it does reach there sometimes. @RONOTHAN## In "Advanced Tuning", there is a tab called "Cache" with the following options: Processor Cache Ratio (50x) Processor Cache Voltage Offset (0,000V) Efficient Cores Cache Voltage Offset (0,000V) Processor Cache Voltage Mode (Adaptive) Efficient Cores Cache Voltage Mode (Adaptive) Processor Cache Voltage (Default) Efficient Cores Cache Voltage (Default) Note: Processor and Efficient Cores Cache Voltage Mode is locked on Adaptive. I think I should lower the Processor Cache Ratio? Asking for confirmation here because I have no clue. What exactly does lowering that do? And why does it give it more headroom? EDIT: Also, after lowering the Cache, I can swap back to the compact view, right? EDIT2: Played around with the Cache at -0,050V, went from 44x to 50x, Cinebench crashed everytime and on 50 (which is the default) gave me a BSOD. Stuck in bios currently because a boot failure was detected and the bios doesn't recognize any inputs from either my mouse or keyboard. Unplugged everything else, still doesn't work. Currently trying to figure out, what to do, because I can't get back to windows. EDIT2.1: Pressed random keys on the keyboard and upon hitting F2 it froze, I restarted and then it worked again. That was a little scary. Well, PC's are intimidating. If you guys say that it's fine, it must be fine, I'm still a little fearful though that it won't last me that long as my old CPU. (Figured out why the fans were so loud. They were set to CPU on standard. The vendor adjusted them to System cooling)
Running a stress test involves applying load to see performance limits. I often use tools like CPU-Z or Handbrake with the CPU to simulate this. There are many options available, such as Cinebench, which works well. A score of 98 is near the point where throttling begins, but that usually happens during maximum CPU usage—not typical testing conditions. First, check your case for proper airflow and ensure your AIO is correctly installed. Reset your CPU to its default configuration and monitor temperatures while idle. Those temps during gaming are normal and safe, though they don’t indicate a problem. If they consistently reach 100 or higher, it could signal thermal throttling; however, regular hits around 95-100 are usually fine unless you notice instability. Under-volting isn’t the first concern here.
When idle, temperatures stay between 25°C and 35°C. Gaming temperatures reached 75–85°C, though most hovered around 50–65°C based on the games I played. The only significant spike was in Cinebench (starting at 80, peaking at 96 for a few seconds before dropping). I might test rendering a video to assess performance further. For cooling, I have an AI-O and seven fans installed, so it shouldn’t be a major problem—they can reach up to 2700 RPM according to the monitor readings.