Under-volting my i5 13600K

[Obsessive Power]

I've had my PC for just over a year, didn't build this one myself, it was built by a UK company called SCAN. Didn't have the time or room to put one together myself this time.

Very happy with it but the CPU gets hot in certain games, and it's unusual, because if I use throttlestop to turn off the turbo and play the same games, at the same settings, the CPU temp drops 20 or 30c to the mid 50's. Interestingly, in most games, with the exception of Cyberpunk, I get the same performance without the Turbo, and a much cooler PC.

Why is my CPU doing this 'extra work' when it doesn't need to?

I asked about this recently on the Linus Tech Tips forums and had an excellent response. I'm just posting here for another opinion. I've not done this before.

My motherboard is ASUS b660 plus wifi d4

I understand I can access a set of features called 'Tweaker's Paradise' and should have an option available so you can run the early microcode version, 0x104 and I need to do this to disable Intel Undervolt Protection. I can then ThrottleStop 9.6 to lower the CPU core and P Cache voltages.

As I said earlier, never done this before. Any risks or hurdles to get over?

Be gentle. Thanks in advance.

[x]

Its an efficiency thing, its not usually linear in terms of wattage to fps. You will probably find you can half your power consumption on your cpu and gpu and youll get more than half the fps you would at 100% power consumption. As far as I can tell with my own system its non-linear and it tends to be exponential near the top end of power consumption. You will find lots of guides on how to underclock your cpu so you still get relatively close to full performance but at a much lower power conmsumption.

Some people do this for ITX builds where they have a small case and limited cool capacity - its better off undervolting a high end cpu chip then it would be just getting a lower end cpu running at the same wattage.

[_I_]

undervolting is the same as overclocking
write down settings and test and repeat
there is a wall where min voltage is required and speeds will go down lower than expected
stop when you are happy with results

was going to say the b boards may limit it too, but that one has 13 phases total to the cpu socket
more than enough for the cpu
specs say 10+1 and 8+4, not sure how it can total 13, maybe 8(cores)+4(igpu)+1(imc)
they are always divided 3 ways like that, in multiple of 2, 1,2,4,8,16
doesnt really matter if you are trying to undervolt/underclock

anyhoo

cpu is always working preparing frames, its good to be making more than the gpu can produce
so its ahead of task so when the gpu starts drawing its using the latest data available
and if you get a better gpu or display that can show more refreshes/sec it can get a higher fps without being cpu bound

[Obsessive Power]

Thing is, with my testing so far, Turbo off and on, I've been locking the FPS to 60. for the most part. I did some tests at 120 as well.

I ran Wolfenstein II the new Colossus with the turbo on locked to 60fps and get 77c. Turbo off and 60fps now 53c. Even putting the FPS up to 120 and the CPU temp only went up about 3-4c. It boggles my mind a little.

[Raoul]

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/230493/intel-core-i513600k-processor-24m-cache-up-to-5-10-ghz/specifications.html

Without any vtec the 13600k will basically run Performance-core Base Frequency 3.50GHz with Processor Base Power 125W

If simply disabling turbo gives you the 60fps target and performance in your games that you want then I'd say that's already good enough and no need to deal with the throttlestop and tweakers paradise method unless you wanted to explore trying to get more performance at a better temp and noise level. It's one of the main reasons why people tend to match a z board with a k cpu to have better controls over these settings in the bios.

[Obsessive Power]

Origineel geplaatst door Raoul:

If simply disabling turbo gives you the 60fps target and performance in your games that you want then I'd say that's already good enough and no need to deal with the throttlestop and tweakers paradise method.

Yeah, thanks I've considered that. Thus far, the only game that seems to benefit from the Turbo is Cyberpunk, mainly when using RT. Then again, I've been using the Frame Gen mod so even that isn't much a problem either now.

Hmmm...

[Karumati]

Even 70 or around what you had is okay temperature wise.
If you want lower temps - get a better cooler instead.

[Magma Dragoon]

CPU will poll for input and update game state as fast as it can, it doesn't know anything about how fast the GPU can turn that data into frames. Any game that stresses the CPU will perform better with turbo on. Can you even adjust voltage on a B board?

[Obsessive Power]

Origineel geplaatst door Magma Dragoon:

Can you even adjust voltage on a B board?

According to this I can:
https://linustechtips.com/topic/1556599-i5-13600k-coolingundervolting/#comment-16311450

Just not got around to it yet. Probably Friday/weekend.

[Raoul]

It's similar to the B series Skylake boards with early revisions that allowed it but later revisions locked it out, always though of it like putting a Porsche engine on a Beetle, it's cool but wouldn't trust going 100mph+ in that :P

[Carlsberg]

Forgive my lack of knowledge in this area but it seems to make no sense. Why undervolt? if you wanted a cpu that underperforms why didn't you just buy a weaker one? Surely that would be more sensible than a better one with a poor cooling solution and cheaper.

[r.linder]

Origineel geplaatst door Carlsberg:

Forgive my lack of knowledge in this area but it seems to make no sense. Why undervolt? if you wanted a cpu that underperforms why didn't you just buy a weaker one? Surely that would be more sensible than a better one with a poor cooling solution and cheaper.

You're thinking of underclocking, not undervolting, which just involves trying reduce voltage without actually reducing performance, it's the same as overclocking

[Carlsberg]

Origineel geplaatst door r.linder:

You're thinking of underclocking, not undervolting, which just involves trying reduce voltage without actually reducing performance, it's the same as overclocking

Thanks, just had a quick read up. Seems to offer benefit without physical damage if done right.

[r.linder]

Origineel geplaatst door Carlsberg:

Origineel geplaatst door r.linder:

You're thinking of underclocking, not undervolting, which just involves trying reduce voltage without actually reducing performance, it's the same as overclocking

Thanks, just had a quick read up. Seems to offer benefit without physical damage if done right.

It's more popular than regular overclocking these days because of cooling, and when it comes to GPUs it makes clocks more consistent

[Obsessive Power]

Well I've done it. Had to jump through a few hoops on my B Board.

I did a offset of 100.6mV. Early days, but so far so good. I got a 15-20c drop in the same games for pretty much the same performance in the tests I've done so far.

A cooler and quieter PC too.

[r.linder]

Make sure you stress test with prime95 to make sure it’s actually stable