Reduce voltage on the 13900 chipset.
Reduce voltage on the 13900 chipset.
Hello, I'm facing a puzzling problem. My current setup includes an i9-13900 (non-K), Arctic MX-6 paste cooled by Dark Rock Pro 4, MSI Z790-P Wi-Fi with 2x16GB DDR5 6400MHZ. Running everything at stock settings gives me decent performance in Cinebench and CPU-Z benchmarks, but the heat is a major issue—like a 100°C thermal throttle. Hwinfo shows unrealistically high core voltages. I tried adjusting PL1 and PL2 to balance power, but even then, scores drop significantly. For example, CPU-Z shows around 6300 points instead of the expected 15k. If I wait 56 seconds in PL2 while the CPU uses about 125W, the scores start improving until they hit a limit at that power. Voltage and frequency readings also vary wildly between PL1 and PL2. I've checked undervolt videos and threads, but nothing seems to fix it. I'm really concerned this might be related to my motherboard, even though I haven't been able to replicate the issue in gaming tests. Can someone help me understand what's going on?
HWInfo at the beginning shows VID, which differs greatly from the actual voltage reaching the CPU. VID represents the voltage the CPU asks for, while VCore indicates the voltage delivered to the silicon. VID is unaffected by the LLC or Lite settings, but VCore is. You usually avoid manually adjusting the voltage for non-K SKUs (except the 12th gen if you have overclocking boards) since clock stretching often occurs, leading to lower scores despite high speeds. Regarding performance drops from power limits, it's likely a BIOS issue—consider updating to a different BIOS version to test.
Intel introduced a new issue named Undervolt Protection. It can reduce benchmark results by half. Check HWiNFO to verify if UVP is active—it looks enabled. You can also execute ThrottleStop. Capture screenshots of the TPL and FIVR interfaces; the FIVR window will indicate UVP status. The BIOS may not correctly configure turbo power limits. The ThrottleStop TPL window displays these limits and lets you tweak them instantly.
Below the TPL and FIVR windows, I wasn’t able to locate the disable UVP setting in the BIOS. I have the most recent version. Should I downgrade the BIOS one by one to check if it was present in earlier releases? These are the default settings, and everything functions properly, though it delivers excessively high voltage.
I just recalled this. Intel took out the software CPU voltage control from the 13th Gen non-K CPUs. That’s why ThrottleStop appears as Not Available in the middle of the FIVR window. The standard voltage is very high, causing a lot of unnecessary heat. You can’t use ThrottleStop or Intel XTU to manage this anymore. If you attempt to lower the voltage in BIOS, it probably activates the CPU’s Undervolt Protection, which can halve your Cinebench results. It’s unclear why Intel introduced this feature. The non-K CPUs were originally a good option for those avoiding overclocking. I can’t suggest them anymore. The K series gives you complete control over voltage and temperature. The non-K line doesn’t. These are usually lower-tier CPUs that weren’t powerful enough to qualify as K models. They often need more voltage to run reliably. The default voltage settings might be set higher than a comparable K CPU. Another reason to steer clear of non-K CPUs.
I don’t see any way to improve things further. I picked the 13900 non-K since it depends on air cooling, and I negotiated a better price by mentioning UV treatment. Performance impact is unclear—while Cinebench and Synthetics show some issues, gaming hasn’t really suffered much. It’s disappointing how Intel didn’t address this properly.