[SOLVED] I7-12700k running hot ?

[Daniel_Adams]

Hi guys first time post here so bare with me.
First illl start with Specs
CPU - i7-12700k
MBO - MAG Z690 Tomahawk Wifi DDR4
Cooler - Noctua NH-D15 (duel fan)
GPU - 4070ti
Case - Corsair 4000d Airflow
Fan Config is
3 intake at front
2 exhaust top
1 exhaust back

Now most of the specs are out of the way. I built this PC probably about 9 months ago with the addition of the 4070ti about a week ago, temps were never great with the CPU but they weren't getting this hot. I understand the GPU does take up alot of realestate in the case but im hitting 99c after 2-3mins in Cinebench r23 (HWMonitor Temps)
So Ambient is sitting at around 24c and my idle temp is sitting at about 30c while typing this. When I jump into Cinebench R23 temps jump upto 87c and climb to ~95c. I hit 99c the other day when ambient was a bit hotter. Bare in mind it is Summer in Australia. Ill attach some screenshots of HWMonitor while Cinebench is running maybe you guys will have a better understanding of what is going on. One more thing. When playing games like Warzone 2.0 or Horizon 5 my temps sit around that 80c mark which isnt as bad but still sitting on the hotter side.

Couple things I have tried are:
Sitting Fan infront of PC which didn't change temps.
Changed the default Cooler in bios to boxed cooler which changes wattage to 244 rather than 4090w water cooled?!
Tried Disabling Enhanced Turbo in bios.
these things didn't really change much, maybe a degree or 2

I would appreciate any advice you guys have to offer.
Cheers.

So just realized I don't know how to attach images from my desktop to this Forum. if someone has an idea, please let me know

 

[logainofhades]

You could try undervolting.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jjopjkJzxA

 

[Daniel_Adams]

I will probaly end up trying undervolting at a later stage, wanted to see if there is anything else I can do first as my voltages arnt that high I don't think. How do I attach images so you can see them?

 

[Daniel_Adams]

So top image is watts under load
Second is temps under load
Last image is idle

 

[Nighthawk117]

I will probaly end up trying undervolting at a later stage, wanted to see if there is anything else I can do first as my voltages arnt that high I don't think

A vcore of 1.344v is pretty high, I know it's the stock voltage but that used to be a voltage you would use when overclocking. The fact is modern Intel CPU's are pushed to such high clock speeds out of the box that they use a lot of power and produce a lot of heat.

Your package power is listed as 234W, that's a lot of heat to dissipate even for a Noctua NH-D15.

If the temperatures concern you, you have multiple options:

1. Set a power limit
2. Undervolt the CPU
3. Reduce the clocks slightly
4. Get a better cooler (360mm AIO minimum)

I use an MSI MAG Z490 Tomahawk and have had good results undervolting my 10850K.

 

[Daniel_Adams]

Okay thanks for the replies, maybe that will be my best option, I believe TDP under boost for the i7-12700k is 195w?? If this is true I can try set the power limit to that and see how I go. I don't want to reduce the clocks or get a better cooler. So it's between undervolt and the power limit. I just have read many fourms saying msi boards overclock them from factory and also that the sockets can bend. But if you think changing the watts limit ill give that a go.
Cheers, I am still open to new ideas

 

[Nighthawk117]

Okay thanks for the replies, maybe that will be my best option, I believe TDP under boost for the i7-12700k is 195w?? If this is true I can try set the power limit to that and see how I go. I don't want to reduce the clocks or get a better cooler. So it's between undervolt and the power limit. I just have read many fourms saying msi boards overclock them from factory and also that the sockets can bend. But if you think changing the watts limit ill give that a go.
Cheers, I am still open to new ideas

It's standard PL2 state is around 190W yes. It's not uncommon for motherboards to apply the single core boost speed to all cores. On Asus motherboards this is called Multicore Enhancement. What's your clock speeds when running Cinebench R23. They should be 4.7Ghz on all P cores. I can't tell from the screenshots because it looks like you've taken them once R23 has finished. The max clock speed just tells me at some point those cores hit 4.9Ghz which is the standard single core boost frequency.

Run it again and give it a couple of minutes and then check what it has for each core under the Value column. You want to see 4700Mhz, if it has 4900Mhz listed for each core then it's essentially overclocked the CPU.

If this is true I can try set the power limit to that and see how I go. I don't want to reduce the clocks

A lower power limit will result in lower clocks speeds under heavy all core loads to prevent the power limit being exceeded. So it will have a similar effect to underclocking in such circumstances.

I would confirm what your all core boost speed is first just in case it's set to 4.9Ghz.

 

[Daniel_Adams]

What do you think my best option would be,
Setting a power limit, or undervolting which would intern reduce my wattage.
Can I cause damage by under volting?

 

[Daniel_Adams]

When I get home from work this afternoon I'll attach clock speeds when running cinebench for a couple minutes, cheers

 

[Nighthawk117]

What do you think my best option would be,
Setting a power limit, or undervolting which would intern reduce my wattage.
Can I cause damage by under volting?

Setting a power limit is the easiest, it probably won't have much impact if any on gaming performance but will slightly reduce the performance of all core productivity workloads.

CPU's are damaged by voltage and heat, reducing the voltage and heat by undervolting will not damage the CPU. However setting a voltage that is too low will cause instability.

In terms of what I would do I would probably do both, so set a PL2 limit of 190W and also undervolt. I would check the clocks first though, when you get past a certain point power consumption increases disproportionately to the increase in clock speed. So if it were the case that some sort of turbo enhancement was enabled pushing all the P cores to 4.9Ghz, then that would probably add a significant amount of heat over 4.7Ghz. You may find in such a situation simply disabling that makes things manageable.

If no such turbo enhancement is enabled then I don't think you will get the desired result without undervolting unless you can live with a lower Cinebench score.

 

[Daniel_Adams]

Okay thankyou for the reply, when I get home I'll check what the all core clock is set to in bios, which I believe would be on auto. And once I have done that I'll check through the bios to see if there are any other enhanced turbo features. Once that is done I'll redo my benchmark and check the temperatures. If results arnt great I'll drop the voltage.

 

[gmikkonen]

Hi guys first time post here so bare with me.
First illl start with Specs
CPU - i7-12700k
MBO - MAG Z690 Tomahawk Wifi DDR4
Cooler - Noctua NH-D15 (duel fan)
GPU - 4070ti
Case - Corsair 4000d Airflow
Fan Config is
3 intake at front
2 exhaust top
1 exhaust back

Now most of the specs are out of the way. I built this PC probably about 9 months ago with the addition of the 4070ti about a week ago, temps were never great with the CPU but they weren't getting this hot. I understand the GPU does take up alot of realestate in the case but im hitting 99c after 2-3mins in Cinebench r23 (HWMonitor Temps)
So Ambient is sitting at around 24c and my idle temp is sitting at about 30c while typing this. When I jump into Cinebench R23 temps jump upto 87c and climb to ~95c. I hit 99c the other day when ambient was a bit hotter. Bare in mind it is Summer in Australia. Ill attach some screenshots of HWMonitor while Cinebench is running maybe you guys will have a better understanding of what is going on. One more thing. When playing games like Warzone 2.0 or Horizon 5 my temps sit around that 80c mark which isnt as bad but still sitting on the hotter side.

Couple things I have tried are:
Sitting Fan infront of PC which didn't change temps.
Changed the default Cooler in bios to boxed cooler which changes wattage to 244 rather than 4090w water cooled?!
Tried Disabling Enhanced Turbo in bios.
these things didn't really change much, maybe a degree or 2

I would appreciate any advice you guys have to offer.
Cheers.

So just realized I don't know how to attach images from my desktop to this Forum. if someone has an idea, please let me know

You need to host the image on a hosting website...then post it. Also - have you really cleaned it in 9 months? How dirty is your stuff?

 

[Daniel_Adams]

Yep PC is clean as a whistle, cleaned it all when I installed the 4070ti

 

[Daniel_Adams]

As Requested here is a new screenshot of the HWMonitor, I cleared the Min/Max after the first Pass and the screenshot was taken on Pass 5. I'm going to try some different Fan configs then I will check to see if my Bios is auto overclocking if nothing works I will Undervolt.
Open for any other ideas too.

 

[Daniel_Adams]

So Fan Config Didn't Change Anything. I took a look at my bios, which I don't 100% understand everything So I will Attach some photos, If you see any settings which may be auto overclocking or look wrong Please let me know.

So These are normal Bios settings in Overclocking all default
Does anything look out of place?

 

[Daniel_Adams]

This Page is in Advanced CPU off that bat I can see that the Wattage Limits for Long Duration Power Limit & Short Duration Power Limit is set to AUTO 241w which is alot higher then what intels 190w TDP for the 12700k is.

let me know what you guys think. Cheers and sorry for the hassle / Stuff around. Im great at building PC but when it comes to bios I'm not great. I changed Enhanced Turbo from Auto - Disabled as I heard that could cause issues but it didn't change anything.

 

[Nighthawk117]

I believe it's the enhanced turbo feature that would apply the single core boost speed to every core under load. I haven't found MSI boards apply this out of the box personally, but I don't have an Alder Lake chip.

From the look of your HWMonitor screenshot though, that looks like it's running at the stock 4.7Ghz all core boost.

In terms of undervolting there are multiple ways you can do it. There's the Intel Tuning Utility (never used it). You can fix the CPU vcore in the bios or you can apply a negative vcore offset. In my case I've done the latter. I have everything set to auto but overclocking mode I think set to Offset Mode, and I've applied a negative vcore offset of -0.095v. This was enough to make my CPU significantly quieter.

 

[Daniel_Adams]

Okay thankyou for the reply. Don't you think think that the long duration power limit and the short duration power limit are both set too high? I think its in direct correlation with the cpu cooler setting in the bios too.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Okay thankyou for the reply. Don't you think think that the long duration power limit and the short duration power limit are both set too high? I think its in direct correlation with the cpu cooler setting in the bios too.

Not really, they've probably set it like that in order for a 12900K to run at it's all core boost speed permanently. Some boards will set the power limit to 4000W out of the box.

You could lower it to 190W but if your package power is accurate that might result in slightly lower clock speeds.

 

[Daniel_Adams]

So im going to undervolt my CPU and I have a few questions.

So from what I have read I need to focus on these 4 bios settings

CPU CORE VOLTAGE MODE - I have changed this from Auto to adaptive + offset

CPU CORE VOLTAGE - this one im a bit confused as online I get mixed results. Some people say set it to 1.25v and some say 1.28v. What should I set this too? Or should I leave it on auto?

CPU CORE VOLTAGE OFFSET MODE - I have changed this to Negative offset

CPU CORE VOLTAGE OFFSET - I believe this is where I change in increments

Hopefully someone can figure this out. Are there any other settings I should change?

 

[Nighthawk117]

CPU CORE VOLTAGE MODE - I have changed this from Auto to adaptive + offset

That sounds correct to me.

CPU CORE VOLTAGE - this one im a bit confused as online I get mixed results. Some people say set it to 1.25v and some say 1.28v. What should I set this too? Or should I leave it on auto?

If your setting an offset then no need to touch this, leave it on auto.

As for whether the load voltage should be 1.25v or 1.28v, at this point you don't know what voltage your CPU will be stable at. Every CPU is different and varies in silicon quality. By undervolting your attempting to force the CPU to use less power than it thinks it needs, there's no guarantee it will be stable. I tried undervolting my i7 6700K years ago without success, but my 10850K on the other hand responds very well to undervolting. It seems a lot of people have had success with Alder Lake as well but I've never tested it myself.

CPU CORE VOLTAGE OFFSET MODE - I have changed this to Negative offset

That's correct.

CPU CORE VOLTAGE OFFSET - I believe this is where I change in increments

Yes you do, so I would start off with something not too large such as -0.03v for example. If that works then try increasing it by 0.01v increments. So -.0.03v , -0.04v, -0.05v ect.. I would not go too far though. I think in your HWMonitor screenshot you were at 1.34v in Cinebench R23. From what you stated above some people have been able to achieve 1.28v, that would take an offset of -0.06v.

Once you've set an offset I would run Cinebench R23 and confirm the voltage is lower than it was before. Ideally you should run a series of tests to see if it is stable, I think I ran Cinebench R23, Asus Realbench, an Intel stability test and Aida64.

For reference this is what I did with my CPU:

https://imgur.com/FFHJfqa

View: https://imgur.com/FFHJfqa


I have an MSI Mag Z490 Tomahawk so a bit older but the bios is probably similar. Highlighted are the settings I changed, I'm not suggesting you punch in the same offset though, that just happens to be what I was able to get to.

 

[Daniel_Adams]

So I thought I would give a quick update. I followed as NightHawk117 said and left the Core Voltage on AUTO and changed the offset. I spent a couple hours tinkering with different offsets, the most I was able to go down was -0.150v which had my CPU sitting at about 59-65c after a 10minute Cinebench run and my score only dropped about 100 points. which was great however I checked my wattage which was sitting at 130w now I know I probably could have stuck with that but I decided to back off the Undervoltage to -0.08v which I am happy with. Highest temp in Cinebench was 81c and in Warzone 2.0 I'm sitting at about 65c my Wattage sits about 198w Peak which is around intel's TDP. Overall I highly recommend Under Volting the 12700k.

One thing I did notice however is I still get cores hitting 1.4v which is high. But generally they sit around 1.2ish volts. and my temp isn't freaking out anyway.

 

[Nighthawk117]

-0.150v is very good, amazed you got away with that. You could perhaps do more than your 0.08v then.

One thing I did notice however is I still get cores hitting 1.4v which is high. But generally they sit around 1.2ish volts. and my temp isn't freaking out anyway.

1.4v is very high I would be a little concerned with that. Just to be clear, are we talking about VID or vcore?

 

[Daniel_Adams]

I'm talking 1.4v VID the vcores max out at about 1.2. And yeah I probaly could go lower but might push my luck with a bit of a clock boost. I did notice my clock speeds are hitting 4.9ghz now for whatever reason, must be an auto overclock setting in my mobo still

 

[Daniel_Adams]

So I just read online that VID or 1.4v is what that core is requesting but realistically the vcore at 1.2v is what it is being supplied? So I don't really need to worry about the VID voltage??