Question Any Idea as to Why My CPU Temps/Voltages Plateau Higher at Random in Game?

[The Guy From The Thing]

to be more specific, when I play Elden Ring, in some combat scenarios, my CPU (Ryzen 7 5800x) temps and voltage will spike up and then plateau for a bit before dropping back down. I have Eco Mode 65w active, not that that really matters in this case. this does not happen in every combat situation, and really specifically happens when I fight the Trolls pulling the carriages (if you are familiar with the game), but it's not limited to them, they're just the most consistent enemies I can replicate it with. even then, it doesn't always occur

when the temps and voltages plateau like this, I notice that one of my cores will also have reached max boost, while the others come nowhere close. for example, normally Elden Ring runs at about 50-60c, at 1.25-1.3v; the clocks are typically around 3,800mhz-4,300mhz

when these plateaus happen, the temps will spike up and remain between 65-70c, sometimes going a little over 70, while the voltage typically ranges from 1.38-1.45v. in this time, I believe one of my cores will be boosting to 4,800mhz before everything drops back to their normal ranges. the Core VID can also reach 1.3v but I'm not sure if that matters, since I've been told VID is a mostly useless reading


I'm aware these aren't dangerous temps or voltages, but I'm curious as to what is causing it and why only in some, inconsistent combat scenarios. is it something to do with Elden Ring just emphasizing single core boost, which creates these plateaus? I mean, sometimes it happens AFTER I exit combat too, rather than triggering WHILE I'm fighting. up to date chipsets as well in case that information is needed; it also did this before I enabled Eco Mode, just at higher temps. when it plateau'd at stock settings, it would be in the 75-80c range instead

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hey there,

So, yes, as you've seen, the temps can have a pretty big jump, when even the most miniscule of apps require your CPU to boost. With the way with how AMD Ryzen chips work, is for the most part (at idle) they are in a sleep state as such. Then, when even a small process requires some host processing, the entire chip boosts to it's max boost to achieve the task more quickly. This 'bursty' effect also depends on the cooling provided (CPU, the VRM's on the mobo) Temp and voltage and is set by the algorithm to boost as high as possible. This explains why you see voltages on the 1.4 range. It's only for a short time, and then drops back to normal.

It happens on both my Ryzen systems.

Nothing to be concerned about.

If you leave voltages on auto this is what happens. You can change that by making a vcore adjustment (or offset). But, if you are running ECO mode, then it slightly different.
IMO you should have ECO mode off, and troubleshoot what ever issues you really have.

 

[The Guy From The Thing]

Hey there,

So, yes, as you've seen, the temps can have a pretty big jump, when even the most miniscule of apps require your CPU to boost. With the way with how AMD Ryzen chips work, is for the most part (at idle) they are in a sleep state as such. Then, when even a small process requires some host processing, the entire chip boosts to it's max boost to achieve the task more quickly. This 'bursty' effect also depends on the cooling provided (CPU, the VRM's on the mobo) Temp and voltage and is set by the algorithm to boost as high as possible. This explains why you see voltages on the 1.4 range. It's only for a short time, and then drops back to normal.

It happens on both my Ryzen systems.

Nothing to be concerned about.

If you leave voltages on auto this is what happens. You can change that either by making a vcore adjustment (or offset). But, if you are running ECO mode, then it slightly different.
IMO you should have ECO mode off, and troubleshoot what ever issues you really have.

I guess my confusion mainly comes from the fact that this only really happens with Elden Ring. other games will obviously spike my temps and voltages when boosting, but only for like…a second

my only theory is that Elden Ring really likes single core boosting and kicks one of the cores into high gear (it’s always either Core 0, 1, 2, or 3) for some combat scenarios.

sometimes in other games, my voltages will spike but my temps won’t and my clocks won’t be drastically different which always confuses me. for example, my voltages in Monster Hunter spiked up to 1.45v and the VID was at 1.47. but yeah, ig Elden Ring has some single core boosting interaction with the cpu, more than other games

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

I guess my confusion mainly comes from the fact that this only really happens with Elden Ring. other games will obviously spike my temps and voltages when boosting, but only for like…a second

It may seem that way, but if you watch closely it happens more regularly than you would think, and not necessarily gaming.

my only theory is that Elden Ring really likes single core boosting and kicks one of the cores into high gear (it’s always either Core 0, 1, 2, or 3) for some combat scenarios.

Yes, some games will prefer one or two cores, and so single thread performance for games is still really important. With that said, as our PC's have more resources (CPU/RAM/GPU) more games and apps will use more than 1-2 cores. There are many apps that can use all available core/threads. It is going more and more that way.

 

[The Guy From The Thing]

It may seem that way, but if you watch closely it happens more regularly than you would think, and not necessarily gaming.

Yes, some games will prefer one or two cores, and so single thread performance for games is still really important. With that said, as our PC's have more resources (CPU/RAM/GPU) more games and apps will use more than 1-2 cores. There are many apps that can use all available core/threads. It is going more and more that way.

I monitor my temps and voltages with the graphs in HWInfo with every game I play, I definitely do notice when there’s increases and spikesbin the temps/voltages

but I guess Elden Ring is the only one that really interacts with the CPU in this specific way out of the games I play (Destiy 2, Nioh 2, Monster Hunter World). none of those games have these plateaus, even when 1 of the cores is boosted to 4,800mhz

I’ll try bringing up the graph for my top cores when I play Elden Ring again to see it more clearly. in the other games, it’s probably just a quick boost, but in ER it’s probably plateauing after the boost, creating the plateau in temps/voltages, like it’s hogging the core longer than it needs to. which sounds like a minor issue with the game optimization more than anything

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Sorry, should have asked this in my first post, which is standard.

Please list your PC specs, including case, fan orientation, PSU, Mobo, CPU, ram, GPU and monitor (screen size and refresh rate).

 

[scout_03]

could you try the higher eco mode for test and what cooler you use on cpu also case model and name and how many fans in for air flow .

 

[The Guy From The Thing]

Sorry, should have asked this in my first post, which is standard.

Please list your PC specs, including case, fan orientation, PSU, Mobo, CPU, ram, GPU and monitor (screen size and refresh rate).

motherboard- asus rog strix b550-f gaming wifi II

PSU- Phanteks Revolt Pro 1000w

Ram- Corsair Vengeance 4x8 ddr4-3600mhz

CPU- Ryzen 7 5800x

GPU- Gigabyte RTX 3070 Eagle

Case is a Phanteks Eclipse P360a, I’ve also got a Deepcool AK500 cooler on the CPU; 2 Phanteks 120mm fans on the front, 2 on the top, and 1 on the back

Monitor is an MSI Optix G32 series; I usually play at 60hz with Vsync (no there is no difference between the refresh rates when it comes to this specific event). sometimes I use 120hz

 

[The Guy From The Thing]

could you try the higher eco mode for test and what cooler you use on cpu also case model and name and how many fans in for air flow .

there is no higher Eco Mode for me, just 65w or nothing at all. Deepcool AK500 is my cooler with a Phanteks Eclipse p360a case and 5 fans for airflow in total (full specs are in my other reply)

this happens both with and without Eco Mode, I can confirm that. it’s not so much an issue since the temps aren’t super high (max package power after the session was somewhere between 85-88w), just looking for some insight

 

[scout_03]

good system if temp dont go higher your ok you could use hwinfo and see the temp on parts with fans speed and voltages on sensor page and it could made a log so you be able to check after gaming .

 

[The Guy From The Thing]

good system if temp dont go higher your ok you could use hwinfo and see the temp on parts with fans speed and voltages on sensor page and it could made a log so you be able to check after gaming .

I do use HWInfo; fan speed is pretty much the same as ever. due to the fan curves I've set, it's typically at 1,400rpm-1,600rpm (max speed for my cooler is 1800rpm; ik it can seem fairly aggressive but eh)

 

[The Guy From The Thing]

good system if temp dont go higher your ok you could use hwinfo and see the temp on parts with fans speed and voltages on sensor page and it could made a log so you be able to check after gaming .

further update; it can plateau even when there’s no core boosting up to 4,800mhz. but the temp/voltage plateaus still happen in the same spots, although they’re inconsistent

 

[drea.drechsler]

further update; it can plateau even when there’s no core boosting up to 4,800mhz. but the temp/voltage plateaus still happen in the same spots, although they’re inconsistent

It may be only a single thread workload that's doing so it would be only one core that's rising up in temp. Since you use HWInfo you can see which core(s) the temp is rising if that's the case.

One thing I can think of is something, most likely in the game itself, may be kicking off a thread or two to run a process. Within the game that could be something like preparing game assets pro-actively, to be ready for possible impending action or character movements. If it doesn't happen they get discarded but it usually requires pulling them off the disk and decompressing them to be ready to quickly send to GPU memory if it does happen. Decompressing in particular can be highly processor intensive, enough so the boost algorithm may not see sufficient power or thermal budget to allow boosting to max clocks on the core(s) assigned those thread(s) during that period. That also seems logical when running in eco-mode that artificially limits power budget.

BTW, that's the very thing DirectStorage is intended to help with. It sends the assets directly from storage across the PCIe bus to the GPU and uses it's vastly more capable processing power to decompress them and take the load of the CPU. But only one game I know of supports it at the moment.

And also even though Windows does a good job of keeping out of the way when a game is running it might have some urgent background housekeeping it has to do which might also consume a couple threads of activity for a moment. I think that's less likely, though.