Question i7-13700k runs too hot - Can I get some help undervolting? [update fixed]

[liquidtruth]

[UPDATE] = i reseated absolutely everything. unplugged and replugged in everything. Changed the controller setting from quiet in bios of the pump, and everything seems to be workign properly. Thank you guys so so so much.


Title explains it all.

Case - Lian Li 011D Evo
Mobo - Aourus Elite Z690 Elite AX
Ram - 32gb ddr5 Corsair Vengeance
VC - Raden 6800 xt
CPU - I713700k / Kraken Z73 AIO
Lian Li Case fans x 9

My PC performs almost flawlessly for what I need it for. Renders perform insanely fast - I can record gameplay just fine. but my CPU reaches 100% anytime I render a video or record gameplay.
It clearly begins to thermal throttle, but none of the other components in my PC are heating up this way, and research leads me to believe this is semi 'normal'
I'm thinking...the CPU is pretty powerful...could I potentially undervolt it a bit to get marginally less performance for much less temperatures / thermal throttling?
I have no experience in this and dont exactly know where to begin, or how to start.
Has anyone done anything similar, rectified the same situation? I feel a bit...reluctant to let my pc render videos out for 12 hours just baking away at 100 degrees the whole time.
Additionally, when I run cinnebench it almost immediately climbs up to 100/ 98. My idle temps are around 40.

TLDR : 13700k thermal throttles like crazy and runs terrifyingly hot. Can some one help me rectify this? perhaps with an undervolt. I dont know how to begin / what exactly to do.

 

[Lafong]

Does your BIOS have a setting to totally disable the E cores, leaving you to operate on the P cores only?

 

[liquidtruth]

I can check. But i am curious the impact that would have on performance?
Would it not be more oprimal to simply try to reduce the voltage slightly? I am completely ignorant on this subject.

 

[Lafong]

I can check. But i am curious the impact that would have on performance?
Would it not be more oprimal to simply try to reduce the voltage slightly? I am completely ignorant on this subject.

I have no first hand knowledge, but................

A couple of weeks ago I watched a youtube vid of a guy who was heavily into fiddling with 13th gen BIOS on his PC...mostly because he was a memory overclocker and serious gamer always trying to get the last bit of performance.

His video showed the location in the BIOS of his motherboard where the E cores could be turned off with one click and a reboot.

He said that does reduce power and temp and Cinebench performance.

Whether it's performance effect would be too much or not enough would be something you'd have to experiment with.

But it's a quick test to find out rather than outright fiddling with voltages. The effect might be similar, but simpler.

That was just my first thought. I haven't yet upgraded to a PC with P and E cores yet.

 

[Math Geek]

from what i have read, the easiest way is to simply limit the power. should be multiple modes available such as eco mode and so on. a quick google search will turn up multiple tests done on various power limits.

undervolting does the same thing overall yet adds in potentials for instability and such. limiiting the power let's the cpu do it's thing with voltages and such but stops it from going crazy at the top end. reviews i saw show limiting to say 200w or even 150w does not hurt the performance that much.

 

[liquidtruth]

I have no first hand knowledge, but................

A couple of weeks ago I watched a youtube vid of a guy who was heavily into fiddling with 13th gen BIOS on his PC...mostly because he was a memory overclocker and serious gamer always trying to get the last bit of performance.

His video showed the location in the BIOS of his motherboard where the E cores could be turned off with one click and a reboot.

He said that does reduce power and temp and Cinebench performance.

Whether it's performance effect would be too much or not enough would be something you'd have to experiment with.

But it's a quick test to find out rather than outright fiddling with voltages. The effect might be similar, but simpler.

That was just my first thought. I haven't yet upgraded to a PC with P and E cores yet.

Ah . I understand. And yeah It would make sense to get a before/after reading with cinnebench or something similar to compare the impact.
Thank you a ton.
Other people have been mentioning the possibility that my AIO is not seated properly? Im trying to determine how best to assert that issue as well. Other than just feeling the pumps/tubes. My idle temps dont seem out of the norm? However cinnebench does immediately crank my pc up around 100 degrees.

 

[liquidtruth]

from what i have read, the easiest way is to simply limit the power. should be multiple modes available such as eco mode and so on. a quick google search will turn up multiple tests done on various power limits.

undervolting does the same thing overall yet adds in potentials for instability and such. limiiting the power let's the cpu do it's thing with voltages and such but stops it from going crazy at the top end. reviews i saw show limiting to say 200w or even 150w does not hurt the performance that much.

Copy that. I will try to find such articles. Are reviews the best place to find this type of information? I didnt imagine they would be discussing underpowering a CPU in a review, but as mentioned before - i am fully ignorant on this subject. I do really like the idea of a more 'stable' limitation though.

 

[Lafong]

Ah . I understand. And yeah It would make sense to get a before/after reading with cinnebench or something similar to compare the impact.
Thank you a ton.
Other people have been mentioning the possibility that my AIO is not seated properly? Im trying to determine how best to assert that issue as well.

I don't liquid cool and don't even game, but I would immediately be suspicious of a 13700k immediately throttling.

As far as I know, it would not likely throttle with decent air cooling.

AIOs have a whole set of possible issues not found on air coolers..which you no doubt are aware of. But I'm not qualified to trouble shoot it for you other than to say issues are fairly common and that some AIOs are better than others.

 

[liquidtruth]

I don't liquid cool and don't even game, but I would immediately be suspicious of a 13700k immediately throttling.

As far as I know, it would not likely throttle with decent air cooling.

AIOs have a whole set of possible issues not found on air coolers..which you no doubt are aware of. But I'm not qualified to trouble shoot it for you other than to say issues are fairly common and that some AIOs are better than others.

Appreciate the help nonetheless. Thanks a ton!

 

[Math Geek]

Copy that. I will try to find such articles. Are reviews the best place to find this type of information? I didn't imagine they would be discussing underpowering a CPU in a review, but as mentioned before - i am fully ignorant on this subject. I do really like the idea of a more 'stable' limitation though.

main day 1 reviews may not mess with the power limits, but within a day or 2 a few reviewers get the time to go through those options. all the ew chips have been put through their paces this way so i assume the 13700 has also been checked out.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

It's possible you can undervolt using XTU.

It is useful in that, rather than artificially limit performance which has been highlighted above, and is also a good solution, but you do loose some performance.

With undervolting, you achieve a couple of things. Firstly, lower voltage, which equals less heat. This translates to lower fan speed on coolers, higher boost speeds, and for longer periods.

Here's a vid as a rough guide to looking at it: Undervolt I7 13700k 10- 150mV, Noctua D15, Cinebench R20 R23 temps, How HOT will it get? Windows 11 - YouTube

What thermal paste are you using? There are some good ones and not so good ones out there.

 

[liquidtruth]

Some others have looked at my hw info and stated that it seems as though my CPU cooler liquid is essentially doing nothing. Leading me to believe that the cooler is not functioning properly?
I am praying to the cosmos that is not the case. I built this PC so I can have something to do on my thanksgiving break - but Its looking like I might have to RMA the cooler and be without a PC for about 3 weeks.

my h w info running benchmarks.

https://imgur.com/3Q9tzoy

View: https://imgur.com/3Q9tzoy

 

[logainofhades]

I would say an undervolt may help. For all intents and purposes, a 13700k is a more refined 12900k, which was already known to be a space heater.

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

 

[liquidtruth]

It's possible you can undervolt using XTU.

It is useful in that, rather than artificially limit performance which has been highlighted above, and is also a good solution, but you do loose some performance.

With undervolting, you achieve a couple of things. Firstly, lower voltage, which equals less heat. This translates to lower fan speed on coolers, higher boost speeds, and for longer periods.

Here's a vid as a rough guide to looking at it: Undervolt I7 13700k 10- 150mV, Noctua D15, Cinebench R20 R23 temps, How HOT will it get? Windows 11 - YouTube

What thermal paste are you using? There are some good ones and not so good ones out there.

I think I was just using some arctic silver, but other hwinfo readings are leading me to believe the problem is elsewhere

 

[liquidtruth]

I would say an undervolt may help. For all intents and purposes, a 13700k is a more refined 12900k, which was already known to be a space heater.

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

But I dont even 'ramp' up to 100 degrees. The minute I hit start in cinebench I hit 100. I cant imagine they are this unstable?

 

[Karadjgne]

Not unstable at all. Wrong word. Power hogs would be more apt.

You render etc, so blocking off the E-cores basically means dumping a bunch of that performance. Not exactly worth it.

There's a couple of things going against you.
First being it's 13thGen, and it's pretty well known that 13thGen have bending issues due to the hold down on the socket. So that's going to mess with temps.

Second, it's 13thGen, so PL1 and Tau effectively no longer exist, we are right back to 3 speeds in a cpu, idle, base and Turbo, of which only 2 realistically get used, that being idle and full bore turbo. That means a cpu that jumps from @ 10w to @ 230-250w (depends on the mobo) almost instantly when hit with tests like Cinebench or rendering that are utilizing a full core load.

Thirdly, it's a 230-250w 13thGen cpu. That means you pretty much require at least 350w worth of cooling capacity (360mm AIO) to have a chance at not thermally throttling under a 100% load. That's going to depend on multiple factors, like case temps, orientation of the rad, airflow, motherboard and auto voltage settings etc.

Your cooling would normally be sufficient, but coupled with everything else combined, the temps aren't all that surprising.

 

[Math Geek]

if you recall, these chips are designed to run at or near that 100 degrees mark. so really it is not abnormal. it'll keep pumping the juice in until it gets there. no cooler has been able to cool it with power limits removed. it's just not going to happen without some VERY extreme cooling.

that's why setting a power limit is an easy answer. just stop it at 200w or heck even 250w and it will cool. let it run with no limits and it will push until it hits those crazy temps and stays there.

 

[liquidtruth]

if you recall, these chips are designed to run at or near that 100 degrees mark. so really it is not abnormal. it'll keep pumping the juice in until it gets there. no cooler has been able to cool it with power limits removed. it's just not going to happen without some VERY extreme cooling.

that's why setting a power limit is an easy answer. just stop it at 200w or heck even 250w and it will cool. let it run with no limits and it will push until it hits those crazy temps and stays there.

It was certainly abnormal. The second I did anything CPU intensive it would AUTOMATICALLY sky rocket up and stay at 100 celcius. I unplugged absolutely everything related to the pump, re plugged it in, and re did all the standoffs, and now my pc does not exceed 80 ish while running cinnebench. I also changed the fan header voltage to pwn, and turned the pump off off 'quiet' mode in the bios. It appears to all be fixed. I am going to update the initial post. Thank you all so so so much. With my current temp situation... I dont even think I would need to undervolt. i have not had any issues throttling while trying to render since repairs. Now I just need to figure out how to get my premiere to render faster. again, thanks so so much everyone.