Question Hellp me understand if I have a problem. 13900KF, Arctice 420mm, MSI pro Z790-a

[Jon_6447]

I have bought a whole new rig with all new parts around 10 months ago. I have seen many similar examples of people using the same Arctice LF II 420mm with the 13900K ( mine is KF but still...) and get amazing results in terms of stability and cooling, and some of them even increase their clocks. First when I bought these parts, I assumed I would be able to have 2 cores running at 6ghz. But not only did that not work, but my CPU hits a 100c in Cinebench under any condition

I ended up just limiting my core voltage to 1.250 since the first week because even this seems to make my processor hit 100c in Cinebench while my power draw hits at around 271w. I'm not increasing any clock speeds mind you and I don't think I ever can since even at stock I'm hitting 100c. I've heard about the "Lit Load" option in these MSI boards and tried setting it to mode 3, but nothing seems different, I've disabled multi core enhancement too. There is an option in the bios that's set to "water cooling" but I'm not sure if I'll lose any performance with changing that since I can see what voltage and wattage I'm pulling.

I could try limiting my CPU to 250w max but I'm not sure if I'll be leaving any performance on the table with doing that. I understand that even the 270w is a lot for any cooler, but I have seen people have so much better luck than I do with the same cooler. So I'm just wondering what's up.

Obviously, I don't know much about these stuff. I've seen other people online have much better temps with the 13900KF and some of them with the same 420mm Arctic cooler. I'm really wondering if either of my parts are faulty at this point. If the Arctic cooler is trash, if my motherboard is too cheap or faulty, if my rams have anything to do with it

13900KF
Arctic LFII 420mm
MSI PRO Z790-a Wifi (latest BIOS)
32gb 6000MTs XPG (XMP profile on)
HX1200 Corsair (2x8pin CPU cables both connected to the motherboard, let me know if I should leave one out or if that matters)
WD black sn850x
LianLi Lancool III with 3d14cm fans front intakes, 3x14cm from the AIO on top, 1x12cm rear

 

[hotaru.hino]

The cooler and CPU combination itself does not mean you have the same configuration as the other people. For all we know, they could be using a liquid metal TIM, they could've lapped or did some other IHS modification, etc. From what I can gather, the i9-13900K/KF is a beast to cool and the thing is designed to hit 100C first before backing off on clocks.

However, what clock speeds are you getting in the end? If you're hovering around 5.4-5.7GHz in an all core workload, then I wouldn't really worry about trying to push the CPU harder. If you're dropping well below 5.0GHz, then that sounds more like a cooling setup problem than anything.

 

[Jon_6447]

The cooler and CPU combination itself does not mean you have the same configuration as the other people. For all we know, they could be using a liquid metal TIM, they could've lapped or did some other IHS modification, etc. From what I can gather, the i9-13900K/KF is a beast to cool and the thing is designed to hit 100C first before backing off on clocks.

However, what clock speeds are you getting in the end? If you're hovering around 5.4-5.7GHz in an all core workload, then I wouldn't really worry about trying to push the CPU harder. If you're dropping well below 5.0GHz, then that sounds more like a cooling setup problem than anything.

Well the thing is I've seen them say that they're just using the same cooler. Or any other thing I've seen have better results than I do. It's all fine when playing games but I have productivity tasks for my work that often utlize the CPU to its max limit and it does hit 100c. I'm not hoping to overclock, I just want it to remain at stock settings and not hit 100c. I know that it has to be possible because I have seen many Cinebench runs of the 13900K online where it hit a much more reasonable temp target than mine. So I know it has to be possible unless I have something faulty in my PC.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Well the thing is I've seen them say that they're just using the same cooler. Or any other thing I've seen have better results than I do. It's all fine when playing games but I have productivity tasks for my work that often utlize the CPU to its max limit and it does hit 100c. I'm not hoping to overclock, I just want it to remain at stock settings and not hit 100c. I know that it has to be possible because I have seen many Cinebench runs of the 13900K online where it hit a much more reasonable temp target than mine. So I know it has to be possible unless I have something faulty in my PC.

What are you using to read the temperatures? If it's a single value, then you need another temperature monitoring app like HWiNFO. If it's multiple values and most of them aren't 100C, then its only a small portion of the CPU hitting that. But in any case, Intel's CPUs since 12th gen are designed to hit the thermal limits first, then start dialing back things. If you look at most CPU benchmarks that report temperature, almost all of them will say the i9-13900K hit 100C. Considering Intel's in no rush to "fix" something, and that AMD also joined that boat, this isn't anything to worry about.

If you really want to see temps below 100C because it'll help you sleep better at night, the only option I can think of is to disable turbo boosting by going to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options\Edit Plan Settings -> Change Advanced Power Plans -> Processor Power Management -> Maximum Power State and set it to 99% or to whatever makes it stop running so hot.

 

[Jon_6447]

What are you using to read the temperatures? If it's a single value, then you need another temperature monitoring app like HWiNFO. If it's multiple values and most of them aren't 100C, then its only a small portion of the CPU hitting that. But in any case, Intel's CPUs since 12th gen are designed to hit the thermal limits first, then start dialing back things. If you look at most CPU benchmarks that report temperature, almost all of them will say the i9-13900K hit 100C. Considering Intel's in no rush to "fix" something, and that AMD also joined that boat, this isn't anything to worry about.

If you really want to see temps below 100C because it'll help you sleep better at night, the only option I can think of is to disable turbo boosting by going to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options\Edit Plan Settings -> Change Advanced Power Plans -> Processor Power Management -> Maximum Power State and set it to 99% or to whatever makes it stop running so hot.

I use HWinfo. I've already looked into how Intel and AMD both say that this is fine( this being the 100c). But, I can see that HWinfo also says I'm thermal throttling on those cores that run over limit.

I try to not panic, but when my productivity software is doing some calculations and keeps the CPU cores at 90-102c I can't help but feel anxious thinking it's going to pop out of place( in time if not right now)

But that being said, again when I look at every other example, people on youtube and other places seem to have much better results than me. I feel like with just 1.25v I shouldn't get 100c with this cooler but idk...

 

[Jon_6447]

@hotaru.hino Look at the final 3 minutes of this video, He just does a normal installation and then uses Furmark's CPU burner test and hovers from 80-85c. Seems to be runing stock clockspeeds too. When I was doing research on this AIO, this seemed to be the correct place the temps should've been too.

When I do this exact test I end up with instant 100c. This is why I'm feeling troubled.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9579Wal1V8&ab_channel=itcare%26computers

 

[hotaru.hino]

Okay, let me put this here then

• Tom's Hardware graphed the temperature during a CPU test, and it was basically capping out at 100C
• PCMag reports a max temperature of 100C in Cinebench
• Trusted Reviews reports a max temperature of 100C
• Techspot reported hitting 100C while running Cinebench
• TechPowerup reported hitting 100C while running Blender
• TechRadar reported "but peak temperatures that very nearly hit the CPU’s safety limit of 100C"
• XDA Developers reported "...the Core i9-13900K will run at its max turbo consistently and will rocket to 100 degrees Celsius before it starts to hit thermal throttling"
• Digital Trends noted "In a stress test like Cinebench, the Core i9-13900K ramped up to its thermal limit of 100 degrees Celsius and stayed there for much of the run, reducing power as needed to keep temperatures in check"

The only one that I found in the amount of time I was willing to sift through sites was Guru3D's review and Ars Technica's review. However, Guru3D mentioned:

"HOWEVER, read this. We can see small spikes kitting 90-100 Degrees at times. This will highly depend on your motherboard configuration as mobo manufacturers can allow the highest PL2 state available. The CPU will clock down and adapt once it overheats though. "

Also Ars Technica may have power limited the CPU, as it only drew 251W and it was running Handbrake, which may not tax the CPU as much as Cinebench or other stress tests performed.

In any case, again the CPU hitting 100C is by design. If you want it to stop doing this because you really don't want to see that number, you're going to have to significantly power limit the CPU in some way.

 

[TerryLaze]

There is an option in the bios that's set to "water cooling" but I'm not sure if I'll lose any performance with changing that since I can see what voltage and wattage I'm pulling.

This is overclocking your CPU, even if you don't think that mobo stock is overclocking.
Depending on how bad the settings are you might even gain performance by going to a lower setting because now you are hitting the thermal limit, since the system thinks that you have water cooling it pushes it too hard causing thermal throttle before it can reach max performance.

 

[Misgar]

If you're serious about reducing temps, check out this (rather long) thread on delidding a 13900. Before delidding, temps were 90 to 100C. After delidding, 77C.
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/13900ks-delid.303763/.

There are many videos on how to delid a CPU. It's up to you if you want to try direct die cooling or simply remove the Indium solder, replace it with Conductonaut liquid metal and then refit the IHS.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRgpVDwQ9hw

https://www.thermal-grizzly.com/en/products/652-conductonaut-extreme-en

The usual warnings apply. You may end up with a dead CPU if you try to delid it.

Alternatively, accept the fact your CPU is designed to run hot and stop worrying.