Adaptive Voltage Not Working

[Rime]

I'm using a Asus Maximus VII Hero and a 4790k. I have a very stable overclock at 4.7Ghz with 1.280v.

I'm beyond confused as to why adaptive voltage mode isn't always working when I activate it (switching from manual to adaptive). For whatever reason, my CPU typically still runs at 1.280v and 4.7Ghz regardless of whether or not anything is happening; for example, the CPU usage could be at 10-20% and it's still at this clock speed and voltage. At times, I've noticed that adaptive seems to work and both the clock speed and core voltage are dialed back in idle, I'm just not sure why it doesn't always do this when I'm on my desktop doing basically nothing.

Power saving settings for my processor seem to be in order:
https://gyazo.com/ce39c685a12111482cecba592a4aa013

In the bios, Speedstep is set to 'enabled' and C-States are set to 'enabled' (C-States could also be set to auto, though I'm not sure what is appropriate).

 

[Spencer_10]

Are you sure you haven't disable speed step in the bios?

 

[Rime]

Absolutely sure that it's on.

 

[Spencer_10]

The guys in the overclocking forum may be a better help.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/forum-29.html

I keep my 4790k @ 4.2 Ghz
Speed step works still, I have mine under volted to 1.0370 V , this way it only uses 50-60w under loads and temps are great.
It takes a lot more power to overclock to 4.7 not sure if its worth it.

 

[thenewnumber2]

The behavior that you are seeing is actually what I'd expect to happen, because you've set the CPU voltage manually: this is probably overriding the adaptive voltage setting. In fact, I'm not sure why your rig ever throttles the voltage down, based on your configuration. FYI, I haven't built a new rig in ~5 years, so this information is possibly no longer true. But you could try autovolting the CPU and see if the power saving features start working properly.

 

[Rime]

The behavior that you are seeing is actually what I'd expect to happen, because you've set the CPU voltage manually: this is probably overriding the adaptive voltage setting. In fact, I'm not sure why your rig ever throttles the voltage down, based on your configuration. FYI, I haven't built a new rig in ~5 years, so this information is possibly no longer true. But you could try autovolting the CPU and see if the power saving features start working properly.

Well, I have my CPU voltage mode set to adaptive and, from what I understand, this is essentially the mode that allows your voltage and clock speeds to decrease when nothing intensive is occurring (idling). Whenever something intensive does occur, what should happen is that the clock speeds and voltage rise up to the limit I set in the adaptive core voltage slot in the bios (1.280v) and the multiplier I set (47 for 4.7Ghz). The problem I'm having is that they are always set to these values -- even though I have all power saving settings turned on as well as adaptive core voltage mode -- when I know very well that they don't need to be (when I'm on the desktop for example).

In the end, it's not that big of a deal because my temperatures never get above 55C under even gaming circumstances, but it's just annoying that something isn't working or that I'm maybe misunderstanding a setting.