Question 10900KF at stock clocks. Removing power limits. Yay or nay?

mahanddeem

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Apr 30, 2007
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Hello,
10900KF, Asus Z590-A, DDR4 3600, 1080Ti, Corsair RM850x.
Running latest BIOS (3/26/2021).
All stock and intel limits (for now). Vcore max I see is around 1.32v at full load (stress Cinebench R23 and R20). Temp tops at 70c at load.

For a small boost in application and game performance (why not) is it: ok/good/fine/does not harm/no potential degradation/etc... to remove PL1 and PL2 and tau more than 125/250/56? Both 8 and 4 pin CPU cables connected. So I assume power is no issue.

Small bonus:I notice slight lower benchmark in my current setup (anywhere from %1 to %10 than reviews). Example Time Spy CPU score is 12215 (many reviews are 13k plus)

Thanks
 

Phaaze88

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What small boost? The i9 already has Thermal Velocity Boost(active below 70C), which will push for higher single and multi core clocks than stock. All you gotta do is keep it cool enough.

If you want to see how hot it gets though, go right ahead and raise/remove those power limits.
Those Intel defined power limits are what keep Comet/Rocket Lake from turning into infernos.
Asus has been following that pretty closely with their mobos out of the box. Some of the other vendors, not so much...
 

mahanddeem

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Apr 30, 2007
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Update:
PL1 to 4096 (max value)
PL2 to 4096 (max value)
tau from 56 sec to 488 (max value)

ZERO change in temperature at load (and less than %1(within margin of error?) performance bump tested with common benchmarks)

Reverted back to stock values

Bonus: Board (or CPU?) pumps almost 1.39v for VCCIO and VCCSA on Auto !!!!
Currently experimenting both to 1.15v, seems stable!
 
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Did you try to manually input the stock settings? Could be that the mobo's definition of stock is whatever they decided and not intel stock.

Also if it never exceeds 70 degrees there might be a temp limit enforced by your mobo which causes the CPU to top out at that point no matter what everything else is set to.