Question i9-13900K clock speed ?

[jnxzi94]

If I disable power saving features like Intel SpeedStep, C-States etc.
If I enable all turbo boosting like MultiCore Enhancement, Intel Adaptive Boost, Turbo Mode, Max Turbo Performance etc.

How come this CPU which is Intel i9-13900K runs a game at around 4.6 GHz - 5.0 GHz but sometimes just doing things on Windows it goes around 5.2 GHz - 5.3 GHz, shouldn't it be the other way around?

I'm tweaking my UEFI settings because I've had some "issues" with the PC so I'm thinking about should I have a fixed CPU speed. The issues are like, lower fps than should be, random stuttering etc.

CPU temperature never goes above 80 C.

Full specs:
Intel i9-13900K
ASUS PRIME Z790-P WIFI
Kingston FURY Renegade 2 TB M.2 SSD
Kingston FURY Beast DDR5 RGB 6000 MHz CL36 (2 x 16 GB)
RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB VRAM
Windows 10

 

[cdrkf]

If I disable power saving features like Intel SpeedStep, C-States etc.
If I enable all turbo boosting like MultiCore Enhancement, Intel Adaptive Boost, Turbo Mode, Max Turbo Performance etc.

How come this CPU which is Intel i9-13900K runs a game at around 4.6 GHz - 5.0 GHz but sometimes just doing things on Windows it goes around 5.2 GHz - 5.3 GHz, shouldn't it be the other way around?

I'm tweaking my UEFI settings because I've had some "issues" with the PC so I'm thinking about should I have a fixed CPU speed. The issues are like, lower fps than should be, random stuttering etc.

CPU temperature never goes above 80 C.

Full specs:
Intel i9-13900K
ASUS PRIME Z790-P WIFI
Kingston FURY Renegade 2 TB M.2 SSD
Kingston FURY Beast DDR5 RGB 6000 MHz CL36 (2 x 16 GB)
RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB VRAM
Windows 10

I think you must be running into some kind of limit - what kind of cooling does your machine have?

It's not just CPU temps you need to pay attention to, motherboard VRM temps are also important, if they start to overheat then that can also cause thermal throttling - this is a more of a problem if you run with a closed loop liquid cooler for the CPU as there is no airflow from the cooler onto the motherboard. Do you have plenty of case fans?

I wouldn't recommend turning off of the power saving features as you are forcing the machine to run flat out even when its idle - this is going to make temperature and power related issues worse rather than better.

In terms of game performance specifically, I note you are running a 13900K on Windows 10 - this is suboptimal as the Windows 10 scheduler doesn't have the enhancements needed to correctly assign loads between the performance cores and efficiency cores. As a test you could try disabling the e-cores in the bios as these are not much use in games and see if that improves consistency? Otherwise I'd suggest upgrading to Windows 11.

Edit: Another thing I forgot to ask, have you updated your motherboard bios to the latest version? Final question, what power supply are you running as that setup is very demanding power wise?

 

[jnxzi94]

I think you must be running into some kind of limit - what kind of cooling does your machine have?

It's not just CPU temps you need to pay attention to, motherboard VRM temps are also important, if they start to overheat then that can also cause thermal throttling - this is a more of a problem if you run with a closed loop liquid cooler for the CPU as there is no airflow from the cooler onto the motherboard. Do you have plenty of case fans?

I wouldn't recommend turning off of the power saving features as you are forcing the machine to run flat out even when its idle - this is going to make temperature and power related issues worse rather than better.

In terms of game performance specifically, I note you are running a 13900K on Windows 10 - this is suboptimal as the Windows 10 scheduler doesn't have the enhancements needed to correctly assign loads between the performance cores and efficiency cores. As a test you could try disabling the e-cores in the bios as these are not much use in games and see if that improves consistency? Otherwise I'd suggest upgrading to Windows 11.

Edit: Another thing I forgot to ask, have you updated your motherboard bios to the latest version? Final question, what power supply are you running as that setup is very demanding power wise?

I tried out Windows 11 once but that did not end well because when playing CS2, the stuttering was a lot crazier.. I don't know, I just upgraded it from Windows 10 and tested out.

But I didn't buy this CPU just to remove cores as I have 24 cores and 32 threads.

Although I could try by disabling E-cores and basically, you're saying that on Windows 11 the experience would be better E-core wise.

CPU cooling is provided by NZXT Kraken X63 AIO and the case NZXT H510 Elite has 2 additional case fans.

PSU is Asus ROG Strix 750W.

I also feel like something is droppin' the performance for some odd reason... which I'm trying to spot.

Yes, I currently have the very latest BIOS update.

 

[TerryLaze]

How come this CPU which is Intel i9-13900K runs a game at around 4.6 GHz - 5.0 GHz but sometimes just doing things on Windows it goes around 5.2 GHz - 5.3 GHz, shouldn't it be the other way around?

No, the lighter the load the easier it is to get high clocks within given limits, so light tasks in windows will boost higher.
The 13900k should hit 5.4Ghz on all cores though on light workloads including many games, on light windows tasks it should hit up to 5.8Ghz.
You should upload pics of all your bios settings that have to do with cpu tuning so that people can see what is happening.

You could also use throttlestop to see what it tells you the limiting factor is.

 

[jnxzi94]

This is probably my very first problem:
"Windows 11 is needed to use the Intel Thread Director on Alder Lake and Raptor Lake CPUs"

I also read that Resizable Bar may cause inconsistent fps on Warzone if not disabled, I will try it too.

But the very first thing I will try is disabling E-cores and trying out it on Windows 10 and then move forward if there's not an improvement.

 

[jnxzi94]

Does anybody see anything odd?

 

[jnxzi94]

I didn't have a lot of time to test but I did test the gameplay on MW3 Zombies and it felt better. I didn't have "drops", just small and normal changes in fps. It was around 200-250 in most cases around the map.

Here's my troubleshoot:
1. Install Windows 11 through upgrade (apply latest updates too)
- It seems to favour P-cores more now, as it seems also on the screenshots that there is a spread on E-cores & P-cores but that screenshot was before this troubleshoot
2. Reset my UEFI settings completely
3. Disabling Resizable BAR (this was enabled on default)
- I saw a guide online that this can cause issues even if the game doesn't support the feature
- I think this was the biggest factor for those insane drops (-100 fps)
4. I still disabled the useless power saving features on UEFI because I'm using a power plan "Ultimate Performance Mode" which basically don't let those settings do anything so it's +/-0 case
4. 2. I enabled ASUS MCE on UEFI and disabled Ring Down Bin
5. I set RAM to "XMP Tweaked" without custom modification so they perform at the correct speed and so on with a little pre-made performance tweaks
6. I cleaned out junk files with "Windows Disk Cleanup" and forced the game to install shaders again
7. I optimized SSD (trimming) with Windows' tool
8. The speed I was talking about seems to be an average value of all speeds and these programs show that P-cores are running around 5.5 GHz and E-cores are running around 4.3 GHz which seems a lot more normal for me

That's pretty much all the steps. I will do more testing but in overall, everything felt a lot better. My conclusion is that Resizable BAR didn't quite do any good and Windows 10 probably didn't handle the processor usage properly.

After all it says that you need "Intel Thread Director" which requires Windows 11.

How do I know I fixed something?
Well, before this troubleshoot process I've played MW3 Zombies a few times and in certain places looking towards the city and storm, fps counter showed a drop like from 200 to 120 which is insanely bad and not acceptable but also ridiculous for this kind of system. It also felt really unsmooth.

I will do more testing today with other modes and games but it really feels a lot better.

If anyone sees something odd in the screenshots though, please let me know.
After the troubleshoot I ran the programs and I didn't see anything alarming even with the game running...

Note that my resolution is 1440p so I think in such a large map 200-250 fps is pretty decent in a demanding game, right?

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

I didn't have a lot of time to test but I did test the gameplay on MW3 Zombies and it felt better. I didn't have "drops", just small and normal changes in fps. It was around 200-250 in most cases around the map.

Here's my troubleshoot:
1. Install Windows 11 through upgrade (apply latest updates too)
- It seems to favour P-cores more now, as it seems also on the screenshots that there is a spread on E-cores & P-cores but that screenshot was before this troubleshoot
2. Reset my UEFI settings completely
3. Disabling Resizable BAR (this was enabled on default)
- I saw a guide online that this can cause issues even if the game doesn't support the feature
- I think this was the biggest factor for those insane drops (-100 fps)
4. I still disabled the useless power saving features on UEFI because I'm using a power plan "Ultimate Performance Mode" which basically don't let those settings do anything so it's +/-0 case
4. 2. I enabled ASUS MCE on UEFI and disabled Ring Down Bin
5. I set RAM to "XMP Tweaked" without custom modification so they perform at the correct speed and so on with a little pre-made performance tweaks
6. I cleaned out junk files with "Windows Disk Cleanup" and forced the game to install shaders again
7. I optimized SSD (trimming) with Windows' tool
8. The speed I was talking about seems to be an average value of all speeds and these programs show that P-cores are running around 5.5 GHz and E-cores are running around 4.3 GHz which seems a lot more normal for me

That's pretty much all the steps. I will do more testing but in overall, everything felt a lot better. My conclusion is that Resizable BAR didn't quite do any good and Windows 10 probably didn't handle the processor usage properly.

After all it says that you need "Intel Thread Director" which requires Windows 11.

How do I know I fixed something?
Well, before this troubleshoot process I've played MW3 Zombies a few times and in certain places looking towards the city and storm, fps counter showed a drop like from 200 to 120 which is insanely bad and not acceptable but also ridiculous for this kind of system. It also felt really unsmooth.

I will do more testing today with other modes and games but it really feels a lot better.

If anyone sees something odd in the screenshots though, please let me know.
After the troubleshoot I ran the programs and I didn't see anything alarming even with the game running...

Note that my resolution is 1440p so I think in such a large map 200-250 fps is pretty decent in a demanding game, right?

Can you tell me what power-saving features you turned off exactly? Also, what Intel feature is enabled in your UEFI?

 

[jnxzi94]

Can you tell me what power-saving features you turned off exactly? Also, what Intel feature is enabled in your UEFI?

Windows power plan 'Ultimate Performance Mode' which I use kind of disables these features anyways.

Speed Shift > DISABLED
SpeedStep > DISABLED
Adaptive Boost Technology > ENABLED
Turbo Boost > ENABLED
Turbo Mode > Turbo Performance
C-States > DISABLED

Everything else is on 'AUTO'.
I also disabled Resizable BAR as I mentioned.

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

1. Install Windows 11 through upgrade (apply latest updates too)
- It seems to favour P-cores more now, as it seems also on the screenshots that there is a spread on E-cores & P-cores but that screenshot was before this troubleshoot
2. Reset my UEFI settings completely
3. Disabling Resizable BAR (this was enabled on default)
- I saw a guide online that this can cause issues even if the game doesn't support the feature
- I think this was the biggest factor for those insane drops (-100 fps)
4. I still disabled the useless power saving features on UEFI because I'm using a power plan "Ultimate Performance Mode" which basically don't let those settings do anything so it's +/-0 case
4. 2. I enabled ASUS MCE on UEFI and disabled Ring Down Bin
5. I set RAM to "XMP Tweaked" without custom modification so they perform at the correct speed and so on with a little pre-made performance tweaks
6. I cleaned out junk files with "Windows Disk Cleanup" and forced the game to install shaders again
7. I optimized SSD (trimming) with Windows' tool
8. The speed I was talking about seems to be an average value of all speeds and these programs show that P-cores are running around 5.5 GHz and E-cores are running around 4.3 GHz which seems a lot more normal for me

Windows power plan 'Ultimate Performance Mode' which I use kind of disables these features anyways.

Speed Shift > DISABLED
SpeedStep > DISABLED
Adaptive Boost Technology > ENABLED
Turbo Boost > ENABLED
Turbo Mode > Turbo Performance
C-States > DISABLED
Everything else is on 'AUTO'.
I also disabled Resizable BAR as I mentioned.




I tried to follow what you've done, but nothing helped. My CPU keeps throttling. The only thing I didn't change was XMP, and I kept it disabled. I tried to enable MCE but I felt like it made things worse so I disabled it and set it enforce limits. Everything else I followed but still having problems.