Question i7-8700 Temperature Issues & Power Limit Throttling

[Thisisnotharry]

Hello everyone,

I recently bought a second-hand i7-8700 processor and it's worked fine for a few weeks until recently, where I noticed the PC dumping out lots more hot air than usual, causing my room to be seriously hot and uncomfortable to be in.

Upon further investigation, the CPU temperature was reaching 80-90 degrees while gaming, resulting in it downclocking automatically to about 3.6ghz on all cores, not ideal.
(power limit throttle issue) Initially, I wanted to achieve the 4.3ghz turbo boost consistently on this CPU, so I installed Intel XTU to find that the CPU was "Power Limit Throttling", as a result I changed the Turbo Boost Power Max to Unlimited as well as the Turbo Boost Short Power Max to Unlimited, this fixed the power throttling. I'm unable to change power settings within the BIOS (or I just can't find them) because my motherboard doesn't support overclocking, so this setting will have to do unless you know any better alternatives.

(temp issues) Now, temperatures are regularly hitting this 80-90 degree mark even when doing basic computing tasks, which is not ideal. resulting in the fans speeding up loudly. The CPU consistently runs at the 4.2-4.3ghz mark now, which is great and as I expected but not with these unsettling temperatures. When I open Opera GX for example, the temperature will spike up rapidly to around 80 degrees, which certainly isn't normal for a web browser. This is also the case with other basic computing tasks. When idling, the CPU seems to jolt around 40-50 degrees too.

Any help to reduce these CPU temps would be greatly appreciated.

Specs of my PC:

| Corsair Carbide Series® SPEC-04 Tempered Glass Mid-Tower

| ASUS ROG STRIX B360-F GAMING

| Intel(R) Core i7-8700 @ 3.20GHz

| upHere Black CPU Air Cooler w/ 4 Heat Pipes + Dual 92mm PWM Fans

| x6 Corsair ML120 Magnetic Red LED Case Fans

| x2 Patriot PSD416G26662 16GB DDR4 2666MHz (32GB Total)

| Intel(R) Optane M10 16GB

| Corsair Force MP510 NVMe 500GB

| x2 Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM

| EVGA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 XC GAMING 8GB GDDR6

| Seasonic B12 BC Series 650W 80+ Bronze Non-Modular
🪟 | Microsoft Windows 11 Professional 22H2 x64

I've attached a picture of Intel XTU below.

 

[geofelt]

Do you have a budget to improve cooling?

A no cost idea:
Try removing the two top 120mm exhaust fans.
Top fans tend to redirect the front incoming airflow up and out of the case before reaching the cpu and gpu coolers.

The effectiveness of an air cooler is primarily determined by the volume of the cooling fins.
A single stack and a 92mm fan will not be very effective, and a 92mm fan needs to spin faster to push sufficient air.
A low cost alter native would be the thermalright peerless asassin with twin stacks and 120mm fans.
About $40.

https://www.amazon.com/Thermalright-Assassin120-PA120-Aluminium-Technology/dp/B09RWVV3XZ/ref=asc_df_B09RWVV3XZ/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=647248209079&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12890388686784261990&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9011570&hvtargid=pla-1653946960553&psc=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxt2ZuNma_wIVOd7jBx2UXQmbEAQYASABEgISffD_BwE

The very best would be a noctua NH-D15 with 140mm fans, about $110:

https://www.newegg.com/noctua-nh-d15/p/N82E16835608045

 

[Thisisnotharry]

For now I've managed to slightly undervolt the CPU as others have suggested on reddit and such, using ThrottleStop, with a very minimal performance loss. This has reduced temperatures to around 70-77 degrees maximum in 3DMark Time Spy as opposed to the 80-90s I was experiencing prior. I'll comment on gaming temperatures/performance when I have the data.

I'll definitely look into the Thermalright Assassin you have suggested for my next upgrade so that I can stop undervolting.

Thank you very much.

 

[uWebb429]

minimal performance loss

When you undervolt, there should be less heat with zero loss in performance. Use Cinebench when testing. It tends to provide consistent results. Some benchmark programs can show a lot of variation even when there have been no changs to any settings.

Post some ThrottleStop screenshots if you need help with this program. Post both the FIVR and TPL windows.

 

[Thisisnotharry]

Post some ThrottleStop screenshots if you need help with this program. Post both the FIVR and TPL windows.

Main Screen:

FIVR: (the undervolt settings are the same for both CPU Core and CPU Cache)

TPL:

Also, I have Intel XTU installed to stop the "Power Limit Throttle" it advises me of. As I have now setup ThrottleStop and added it to my startup tasks, would it be sensible to uninstall Intel XTU?

Thanks for your help.

 

[uWebb429]

@Thisisnotharry
Avoid running Intel XTU and ThrottleStop together at the same time. Use one program or the other. You do not want two different programs writing different values to the same power limit register.

If you want to set your turbo power limits to Unlimited when using ThrottleStop, set MSR PL1 and PL2 to the max, 4095. Your screenshot shows that PL1 is set to 65W which is the default value. This can cause power limit throttling during some games or stress tests.

Checking the Ring Down Bin box tells the CPU to always run the cache 300 MHz slower than the core. Enabling Ring Down Bin can significantly improve stability, especially when undervolting.

In the FIVR window I would set IccMax for both the core and the cache to the max, 255.75.

I would set Speed Shift Max in the TPL window to the recommended value, 46. If you want to slow your CPU down, adjust the turbo ratios in the FIVR window. Press the All Core 43 button if you do not want your CPU using the higher multipliers when lightly loaded.

If you prefer to use the 46 multiplier when lightly loaded, you need to enable the core C states in the BIOS. The non K series CPUs require at least core C3 to be enabled.

Your undervolt appears to be working OK. If the TS Bench 960M test reports even 1 Error, you should increase the CPU voltage.

 

[Thisisnotharry]

@Thisisnotharry
Avoid running Intel XTU and ThrottleStop together at the same time. Use one program or the other. You do not want two different programs writing different values to the same power limit register.

If the TS Bench 960M test reports even 1 Error, you should increase the CPU voltage.

I've just uninstalled Intel XTU and have applied all of your recommended settings onto ThrottleStop, this seems to be working great (with my own settings, 100% usage would tend to throttle the CPU down to about 3.9ghz, now it runs at 4.28ghz all day long which is exactly as expected). Temperatures did not exceed 71 degrees which is ace.

I've attached a screenshot of the TS Bench 960M test, but not sure what the number "104.648" means and if it was successful or not.

Thanks so much for your ongoing support.

 

[uWebb429]

not sure what the number "104.648" means

That is just the amount of time that test took to complete. The time is not important. If any errors occur during the TS Bench test, ThrottleStop will not show the time value. It will show 5 Errors or however many errors it found. Everything looks good.

 

[Thisisnotharry]

Everything looks good.

Amazing.

Thanks so much for your help, I've tested a couple games and I've noticed that I'm getting alot more FPS as well as substancially lower temperatures. You're a lifesaver.