First time CPU OC setup for i9-9900K at 5GHz
First time CPU OC setup for i9-9900K at 5GHz
Never tested the CPU before anything else except auto settings on BIOS were interesting to check how it performs with all 5GHz cores and manual voltages set to 1.275, using 360 aio push-pull at 1.275. I’m unsure about stability testing beyond Cinebench for 10 minutes, which gave a score of 13113. The Z390-F motherboard was used.
Prime95 stress test using smallFFT configuration. Expect significantly higher CPU temperatures than usual since it maximizes synthetic workload. Instabilities typically surface within 30 minutes—either your PC may crash or Prime95 logs a thread halt due to instability in the window. Cinebench provides a basic check for stability, but it doesn’t reveal issues like P95 does, so you might appear stable while encountering random BSODs during gaming. ASUS Realbench is another solid stress test, though it hasn’t been updated recently.
I rely on AIDA64 for about ten hours, using both the standard configuration and then turning off all CPU tweaks except for FPU. P95 feels a bit excessive. It seems overly ambitious and might require more power than any real-world scenario would need. My setup was a 9900k, and I can confirm whether chips from that era were available after the 9900s emerged. The overclock potential would be limited. If you have an earlier model, your chances are decent at 5 GHz. I managed 5 GHz across all cores, but it required around 1.37v, and even with custom water it stayed high. Under AIDA64 I’d likely hit ~95, which wasn’t ideal, though in games it usually stayed in the low 60s with occasional spikes up to the low 70s depending on the title. I’d also say a 300 MHz setup probably isn’t worth the extra power or heat. BUT, what’s the point of it all?
I'll check AIDA or Prime95 tomorrow! It's pretty late here in the end. Thanks for your feedback—it really helps a lot! I got my 9900k before the software was even released. I'm also wondering if 300MHz is useful when using auto core and auto voltages; in Cinebench I see around 4.8MHz and over 10°C cooler. I just want to try it out and see what others think—should I use manual voltage or auto core, or would that make a difference?
I plan to try this tomorrow! I wasn't sure what to do or experiment with after installing Cinebench, so I thought it would be better than nothing. Also, I'd appreciate your thoughts—should I stick with auto voltages and expect around 10°C cooler temps and 4.8GHz, or should I set a manual voltage since the core runs on auto? Thanks a lot!
It seems auto is adjusting to 4.8 GHz across all cores, which might not be the fastest option. At default settings, 9900k runs two threads at 5 GHz and all threads at 4.7 GHz. Running a few threads at 5 GHz when needed could improve performance over keeping everything at 4.8 GHz. If a full 5 GHz all-core setup wasn't possible, I would have kept mine at the standard speed.
You're wondering if something is off. Let me clarify what happened.
I always review these choices so everything stays in one view. Combine Main & Comm & Workers with Merge All Workers. For the reason it halted, Workers 2, 6, and 8 showed hardware issues, which caused the error. Likely a minor boost to the core would balance things out—major problems would have fried the whole system. A 300Mhz or higher is usually sufficient, though 200Mhz (4.8 to 5.0) works only if you really need every frame. Personally, I’d pick 5.0 just for the smooth even performance, but your gaming experience shouldn’t noticeably change.
Thanks a lot for the settings—they make it much clearer to read. I’ll try them again tomorrow, maybe around 1.28–1.3, and see how it performs. It seems there’s a big difference of about 200MHz sometimes, with cores boosting up to 5GHz, but on average it’s CPU-intensive at around 4.8 with all cores active.