[SOLVED] Hi, have some quick questions about voltages 9900k

[Arbiter051]

I am sorry if this is the wrong place to post this. I already posted this thread in the CPU section, but I figured maybe overclocking was correct. Can any moderator who sees this please delete the thread in cpu section please.

I recently just built a system. Specs are these.

9900kf
gigabyte z390 aorus pro
corsair vengeance lpx (I think it's called lpx) @3000mhz
noctua nh-d15 cooler
corsair rmx 850w gold 80+ PSU
Bios F8

The only things I did in the bios was use xmp to put my ram to 3000mhz and I turned off multi core enhancements. I don't know much about overclocking and was hoping to just do things at stock for now. Everything else is at auto. My questions are these.

From the first boot up when installing windows updates etc. My chip was boosting to 5ghz on all cores, but while playing a little bit of Overwatch and some other games, my clocks were 4.7-4.8 and the voltages were fluctuating alot, I was using HWmonitor and Cpu-z to monitor stuff. The highest it peaked was 1.356 for a few seconds and then it would fluctuate between 0.720 at idle and would peak at 1.26something when I was gaming etc. I then decided to use HWinfo64 per recommendations from various forums I was reading.

Buildzoid says that VR VOUT is the reading I should be looking at and same can be said, again, from various forums. My VCORE reading in HWinfo64 says it peaked at 1.344 a few minutes ago, wasn't doing much but I guess something in the backround made it go that high for a few seconds. My VR VOUT peak is 1.264 and my VCORE on both HWmonitor and HWInfo show down clocking voltages to 0.720 and then they will fluctuate from 1.126, 1.179 and then to 1.212 or 1.244 etc... While my VR VOUT fluctuates between 1,150 at lowest to 1.264 at its highest but mostly 1.245 at highest. My temps are extremely fine, never going above 50 when gaming and while installing a bunch of things I hit 100% on a lot of cores for a few seconds, my chip peaked at 65 for maybe 3 seconds.

Are these voltages bad? Which one is the accurate one (meaning is buildzoid fully correct that I should only worry about the VR VOUT) Should I do something about them? A few friends I asked said that I should just not worry, go about my business and enjoy my new rig. But so many people on many different forums say that you should never leave stuff on auto, you should manually set things even for stock, voltages above 1.3 for stock are too high, talks of degradation etc... Everyone has a different opinion. I am very paranoid and want to make sure I treat this rig right so it can live a long and happy life.

Can someone please help me as to what I should do? Thank you.

 

[j3ster]

you dont have to worry about anything, for the voltages its normal dont bother with it the cpu and motherboard are smart enough to manage the voltages on auto its when you manually overclock (i.e. change the multiplier for example) that you have to manually set the voltages to avoid problems.

the 9900k will boost to 5ghz when ever it can, maybe MCE is also turned on which automatically overclocks your cpu when ever it can.

the 9900k can steadily hold 4.7ghz on all cores, 4.8ghz on 4 cores and 5ghz on 2 cores.

but if you want to manually overclock your cpu, theres tons of guides on youtube to get a general idea on what to do and what to expect.

 

[Arbiter051]

you dont have to worry about anything, for the voltages its normal dont bother with it the cpu and motherboard are smart enough to manage the voltages on auto its when you manually overclock (i.e. change the multiplier for example) that you have to manually set the voltages to avoid problems.

the 9900k will boost to 5ghz when ever it can, maybe MCE is also turned on which automatically overclocks your cpu when ever it can.

the 9900k can steadily hold 4.7ghz on all cores, 4.8ghz on 4 cores and 5ghz on 2 cores.

but if you want to manually overclock your cpu, theres tons of guides on youtube to get a general idea on what to do and what to expect.

I've read many people say that the high voltage spikes are bad though. I don't know what to believe

 

[j3ster]

if you leave it at stock you really dont have to worry about anything, since it is basically with in spec of what intel intended, they wouldnt let their own cpu spike into dangerous voltage levels. again i said stock but if you mess around by increasing the multiplier and you set the voltage in auto then you will bump into some really nasty problems.

 

[Arbiter051]

if you leave it at stock you really dont have to worry about anything, since it is basically with in spec of what intel intended, they wouldnt let their own cpu spike into dangerous voltage levels. again i said stock but if you mess around by increasing the multiplier and you set the voltage in auto then you will bump into some really nasty problems.

I understand what you are saying. Please don’t be frustrated.

It’s just I read a lot of forums with people saying their cpu would spike to 1.4 and above even at stock and leaving things on auto. A lot of responders would say to not leave anything on auto or else it will degrade the cpu faster or worse. Which worries me to say the very least.

I also see plenty of mixed opinions on what safe voltages are. One of my friends who I respect their opinion said if I see spikes to 1.37 or higher at stock I should start to be concerned or just flat out return the chip, which I would prefer not to do as my chip is quite amazing for my needs. I also saw you said I could oc if I wanted to. At this time I don’t, just want to use stock stuff.

I also assume since all I did was use xmp to put my ram to 3000mhz and turn of multi core enhancement that I am at stock settings?

Again I’m sorry if I am frustrating you, I’m just trying to be as thorough as possible.

 

[j3ster]

im not frustrated im sry if i sound that way, but yea its completely fine dont need to worry about it.

it wont harm your chip and it should live a happy life as long as its properly cooled that is, tbh temps should be more of your concern rather than the small spikes you see.

 

[Arbiter051]

im not frustrated im sry if i sound that way, but yea its completely fine dont need to worry about it.

it wont harm your chip and it should live a happy life as long as its properly cooled that is, tbh temps should be more of your concern rather than the small spikes you see.

Alright I’ll try to calm down then heh. If I may ask though, what are unsafe voltages I should look out for? I’m a little new to this kind of equipment.

 

[j3ster]

1.4v or more is what most (and I) would consider not ideal for daily use.

 

[Arbiter051]

1.4v or more is what most (and I) would consider not ideal for daily use.

Is that only if I’m doing 1.4 at all times or if it spikes there for a few seconds, it would be bad then also?

 

[mdd1963]

If more than 2 cores are boosting to 5 GHz, then MCE (or whatever Gigabyte calls it? Does Gigabyte even have an MCE mode?) is still on/enabled (which is or used to be the 'auto/default' on many Asus boards.......), assuming no one has tinkered with any BIOS OC presets, etc., or perhaps Intel XTU options...

How were you determining that all cores were boosting that to 5 GHz? HWMonitor will tell the tale quite quickly under load..

 

[Arbiter051]

If more than 2 cores are boosting to 5 GHz, then MCE (or whatever Gigabyte calls it? Does Gigabyte even have an MCE mode?) is still on/enabled (which is or used to be the 'auto/default' on many Asus boards.......), assuming no one has tinkered with any BIOS OC presets, etc., or perhaps Intel XTU options...

How were you determining that all cores were bnoosting that to 5 GHz? HWMonitor will tell the tale quite quickly under load..

Both task manager and hardware monitor were reporting 5ghz. However hwmonitor showed 5 on all cores and I double checked. I disabled MCE in my bios, it was still doing this.

A little bit after startup, it will level out between 4.7-4.8 with some cores sometimes down locking to 800.

Am I miss informed as to what is going on?

Update: I decided to update my bios to the latest which is F10 and again all I did was enable xmp profile 1, put my ram to its 3000mhz and disable enchanted multi-core enchantments. All cores were boosting to 5ghz according to hwmonitor, when I started opening programs it started to settle at 4.7-4.8 this is the same behavior as usual

Did I do something wrong?

 

[j3ster]

if theres not much going on itll stay at 800mhz at idle or if theres not much cpu work that is needed (hence itll also show a very low voltage value in Hwmonitor).
but the only way to get 5ghz on all cores is if MCE is enabled (assuming you didnt change any values in your BIOS).

5ghz is when 2 cores are used which is normal, usually when you boot or open some programs or do some very light workload the cpu will boost to 5ghz or play some old games that mainly rely on 2 cores. but the 4.7/8ghz stable frequency is the BASE all core boost the 9900k can do.

you didnt do anything wrong and again dont need to worry everything you said so far are normal.

Is that only if I’m doing 1.4 at all times or if it spikes there for a few seconds, it would be bad then also?

yes staying at 1.4v is not ideal for daily use, the main killer there really is the temps not the actual 1.4volts, itll make your cpu run very hot but thanks to modern technology your cpu is smart enough to not go there. high operating temperatures are the main component killer. but if you have some really really good cooling for your cpu you can probably do 1.4v @5/5.1Ghz for daily. but generally you can get an OC of 5ghz with just 1.35v~and below. amazing if you can hit 5Ghz with just 1.3v. but again you need to have very good cooling if you want to attempt a 5ghz oc since the 9900k is a very hard cpu to cool.

 

[Arbiter051]

if theres not much going on itll stay at 800mhz at idle or if theres not much cpu work that is needed (hence itll also show a very low voltage value in Hwmonitor).
but the only way to get 5ghz on all cores is if MCE is enabled (assuming you didnt change any values in your BIOS).

5ghz is when 2 cores are used which is normal, usually when you boot or open some programs or do some very light workload the cpu will boost to 5ghz or play some old games that mainly rely on 2 cores. but the 4.7/8ghz stable frequency is the BASE all core boost the 9900k can do.

you didnt do anything wrong and again dont need to worry everything you said so far are normal.







yes staying at 1.4v is not ideal for daily use, the main killer there really is the temps not the actual 1.4volts, itll make your cpu run very hot but thanks to modern technology your cpu is smart enough to not go there. high operating temperatures are the main component killer. but if you have some really really good cooling for your cpu you can probably do 1.4v @5/5.1Ghz for daily. but generally you can get an OC of 5ghz with just 1.35v~and below. amazing if you can hit 5Ghz with just 1.3v. but again you need to have very good cooling if you want to attempt a 5ghz oc since the 9900k is a very hard cpu to cool.

I might try to oc in the future, but for now I think I will stick to stock. It’s weird though even with mce off I still boost to 5 on all cores according to hwmonitor on startup, after a few minutes it will go down but still hit 4.9 sometimes on all cores for a minute.

Should I be looking at Vcore in hwmonitor/hwinfo or vr vout? I hope vr vout is the one that matters and the Vcore is wrong because according to vr vout my voltage never goes above 1.31 at the highest and only for a split second. According to vr vout my lowest is usually 1.15 and I hover around 1.21-1.256 when doing stuff. That would help me calm down.

As far as temps. It’s normal for me to see random spikes in temps for a few seconds right? My package temp during overwatch last night hit 59 at max but during actual games and what not I never saw my cores or package go above 52 for more than a second or 2. It’s all very confusing to me.

 

[CompuTronix]

Arbiter051,

Hardware Monitor is less accurate and reliable than Hardware Info, which is trusted by informed and experienced system builders, overclockers and users. It's also more detailed and receives frequent updates.

The most critical values are Vcore, power consumption (watts) and core temperatures. You'll find that if you observe these parameter on a chart or graph, everything will start to make sense. If you double-click on any sensor value in Hardware Info, it'll put up a graph. Keep in mind that core temperatures are driven by power consumption (affected by Vcore) and workload.

Package temperature is the hottest core. Package temperature may intermittently deviate +/- several degrees from the hottest core due to a slight difference in sample timing.

Here's the nominal operating range for core temperature:

Core temperatures above 85°C are not recommended.

Core temperatures below 80°C are ideal.



Core temperatures increase and decrease with Ambient temperature.

Here's the maximum recommended core voltage per microarchitecture from 14 to 65 nanometers since 2006:


It'll help to clear up your confusion if you give this a read:

Intel Temperature Guide - https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/intel-temperature-guide.1488337/

CT

 

[Arbiter051]

Arbiter051,

Hardware Monitor is less accurate and reliable than Hardware Info, which is trusted by informed and experienced system builders and users, and it's more detailed and receives frequent updates.

The most critical values are Vcore, power consumption (watts) and core temperatures. You'll find that if you observe these parameter on a chart or graph, everything will start to make sense. If you double-click on any sensor value in Hardware Info, it'll put up a graph. Keep in mind that core temperatures are driven by power consumption (affected by Vcore) and workload.

Package temperature is the hottest core. Package temperature may intermittently deviate +/- several degrees from the hottest core due to a slight difference in sample timing.

Here's the nominal operating range for core temperature:

Core temperatures above 85°C are not recommended.

Core temperatures below 80°C are ideal.



Core temperatures increase and decrease with Ambient temperature.

Here's the maximum recommended core voltage per microarchitecture from 14 to 65 nanometers since 2006:


It'll help to clear up your confusion if you give this a read:

Intel Temperature Guide - https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/intel-temperature-guide.1488337/

CT

Which is more accurate? Vcore or vr vout?

 

[CompuTronix]

As I said above, the most critical values are Vcore, power consumption (watts) and core temperatures. VR Out (voltage regulator out) feeds the processor's power plane, but can't account for voltage drops that occur within the processor.

CT

 

[Arbiter051]

As I said above, the most critical values are Vcore, power consumption (watts) and core temperatures. VR Out (voltage regulator out) feeds the processor's power plane, but can't account for voltage drops that occur within the processor.

CT

I only ask because seeing a peak voltage of 1.356 from the Vcore makes me stressed a little paranoid.

Seeing 1.268 peak from vr vout makes me way less stressed. I’m just not sure which one to go by

 

[CompuTronix]

Vcore is THE voltage you need to watch. Did you look at the Vcore chart I posted above?

Your 9900K is a 14 nanometer processor, for which the maximum recommended Vcore is 1.4 volts. Intel's specification in their datasheets is 1.52.

See page 117 - Table 7-2, 1st row, 6th column - 8th and 9th Generation Intel® Core™ Processor Families Datasheet, Volume 1 - https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...core/8th-gen-core-family-datasheet-vol-1.html

Silicon Lottery, which is a company that professionally delids, tests, bins and sells "K" CPUs will push 14 nanometer processors as high as 1.437. They don't look at VR Out, nor do any of us who are experienced overclockers; we look specifically at Vcore while under a steady-state 100% workload as indicated in CPU-Z and Hardware Info.

The electromigration (degradation) curve above 1.437 volts for 14 nanometer processors becomes too steep for ultimate longevity, not to mention that it becomes nearly impossible to cool the processor under heavy workloads at such high core voltages and power consumption.

For older 3rd and 4th generation 22 nanometer processors such as the i7-4790K, the electromigration curve becomes too steep above 1.325, therefore the maximum recommended Vcore for those processors is 1.300.

You're Vcore is well within the maximum recommended limit for the your 14 nanometer 9900K with respect to ultimate longevity.

CT

 

[Arbiter051]

Vcore is THE voltage you need to watch. Did you look at the Vcore chart I posted above?

Your 9900K is a 14 nanometer processor, for which the maximum recommended Vcore is 1.4 volts. Intel's specification in their datasheets is 1.52.

See page 117 - Table 7-2, 1st row, 6th column - 8th and 9th Generation Intel® Core™ Processor Families Datasheet, Volume 1 - https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...core/8th-gen-core-family-datasheet-vol-1.html

Silicon Lottery, which is a company that professionally delids, tests, bins and sells "K" CPUs will push 14 nanometer processors as high as 1.437. They don't look at VR Out, nor do any of us who are experienced overclockers; we look specifically at Vcore while under a steady-state 100% workload as indicated in CPU-Z and Hardware Info.

The electromigration (degradation) curve above 1.437 volts for 14 nanometer processors becomes too steep for ultimate longevity, not to mention that it becomes nearly impossible to cool the processor under heavy workloads at such high core voltages and power consumption.

For older 3rd and 4th generation 22 nanometer processors such as the i7-4790K, the electromigration curve becomes too steep above 1.325, therefore the maximum recommended Vcore for those processors is 1.300.

You're Vcore is well within the maximum recommended limit for the your 14 nanometer 9900K with respect to ultimate longevity.

CT

I’m sorry if I am frustrating you . It’s just that as I said before, I read a lot of places that say something is wrong if a stock 9900k is reaching 1.35.

It’s just trying to make sure that things are working as they should and I don’t have to worry about replacing or returning parts etc. I’m just trying to be as thorough as possible.

A lot of people on various forums also say that that this voltage is bad and this one is bad and that people are dumb for leaving things on auto in the bios etc.

I just don’t want to randomly see my chip one day get a Vcore of 1.4+ and then poof. I’m just trying to make sure I do everything right. Again I am really sorry if I am frustrating anyone. Just you read posts from all around the internet, suddenly you get 100000000 different answers and don’t know which ones to go by.

 

[CompuTronix]

I understand your confusion; you're not doing anything "wrong".

Some of what you mention is correct, while other information you've uncovered on various other forums has no doubt been written by those who are poorly informed and have a very limited understanding of overclocking.

I completely agree that it's always advisable to run at the lowest stable Vcore, which in turn gives you the lowest core temperatures. However, your CPU won't suddenly go "poof" if it momentarily spikes above 1.4. Intel's processors are quite robust and have many safeguards, such as "Throttling". Further, there's nothing wrong with any 14 nanometer processors that require 1.35 volts to run at a given clock speed.

Overclocking is always limited by two factors; voltage and temperature. No two processors are identical; each is unique in voltage tolerance, thermal behavior and overclocking potential, which is often referred to as the "silicon lottery". Some simply require more voltage than others to reach stability at the same clock speed.

As long as your Vcore doesn't exceed 1.4 and your core temperatures don't run at sustained levels above 85°C, your good. Those are your limits:

1.400 Vcore
85°C

CT

 

[Arbiter051]

I understand your confusion; you're not doing anything "wrong".

Some of what you mention is correct, while other information you've uncovered on various other forums has no doubt been written by those who are poorly informed and have a very limited understanding of overclocking.

I completely agree that it's always advisable to run at the lowest stable Vcore, which in turn gives you the lowest core temperatures. However, your CPU won't go suddenly go "poof" if it momentarily spikes above 1.4. Intel's processors are quite robust and have many safeguards,such as "Throttling". Further, there's nothing wrong with any 14 nanometer processors that require 1.35 volts to run at a given clock speed.

Overclocking is always limited by two factors; voltage and temperature. No two processors are identical; each is unique in voltage tolerance, thermal behavior and overclocking potential, which is often referred to as the "silicon lottery". Some simply require more voltage than others to reach stability at the same clock speed.

As long as your Vcore doesn't exceed 1.4 and your core temperatures don't run at sustained core temperatures above 85°C, your good. These are your limits:

1.400 Vcore
85°C

CT

Thank you very much for helping. I really do appreciate everyone helping.

Is it normal on auto to see a spike up to 1.35 or more for a few seconds? Also I can safely assume that so long as I am not at a static 1.42 for long for example and my temps are way below 70c. Everything is fine and running accordingly?

I mostly hover around 1.31 with my voltage so far at the most load (when playing ow for example at 200fps) and my temps usually hover around 50 at max with maybe a 2 second spike to 59 or 60. This is all normal if i understand you correctly and perfectly fine to life a happy and long life?

Just wanting to make sure I fully understand.

 

[CompuTronix]

If you want to "fully understand" and save me a considerable amount of typing, then hold your questions and please read the link I provided above to the Intel Temperature Guide. Spiking is covered in Sections 4 & 13. After you read it, you'll be better equipped to ask whatever questions you like from a more informed perspective.