[SOLVED] i9-9900k overclocking 5.0ghz

[Nknpon]

HI!
i just upgraded to an i9 and im desperately trying to run it @5ghz.
I keep getting bluescreen´s on Pirme95 (Small FFPs) and Im almost accepting the fact that i got a bad pick out of sillicon lottery
My Cooling isnt good enough to run it on the voltage it needs to be stable @5ghz
But im also a noob and all information i got is out of youtube videos.
Maybe you guys can help me?

My setup:
i9-9900k
Gigabyte z390 Gaming sli
750w bequiet Dark power Pro 11, 80+ Platinum
Corsair H100i, 240mm
rtx2060 super
4x 8GB G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3200 14c
I did update BIOs to the newst version befor i put in the 9900k.
What i changed in the BIOs:
Enabled XMP Profi1
Disabled Enhanced Multi-Core Performance
CPU Clock Ratio: 50
CPU Vcore: 1.300v
CPU Vcore Loadline Calibration: Turbo
TJMax Temperature 110°C
Enabled Intel(R) Turbo Boost Technology and set all cores to 50
Disable Intel(R) Speed Shift Technology
Enabled Hyper Threading Technology

I instantly get bluescreens on Prime95 with these settings so i tried going up with voltage.
With 1.350v, Prime runs for a minute befor cpu hits 110°C and i get a bluescreen.
Then i tryed it with AVX Offset 1, and lower voltage (1.310) and was able to run Prime for half an hour. (i stopped because i think its stable)
But that way its only runnig @4,9ghz right?


Any suggetions how i could run it constantly and stable @5ghz?
Do i need better cooling for that? Im running everthing on 100% while testing with Prime95.
In idle the h100i keeps the cpu @28-30°C on any oc settings
Let me know if you need anymore information.

Sorry for my bad english
https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/40612571

 

[Nknpon]

I get what you're saying and I don't have anything against overclocking... both my GPU and CPU are running a stable overclock. I just mentioned dialing back down to stock because today's CPUs are so much better than those back in the day... and there isn't much of a need IMHO to boost all cores when the CPU rarely uses all cores.

The GPU is a different animal altogether... but at the end of the day the overclock at 4K resolution is only worth a few fps... so again, is the long term wear on the hardware worth it? To each their own. It gave me amazing benchmark scores I'm just not seeing a need for it in every day use.

I agree. And i´ll probably run my CPU @stock as well. I dont think there is a game where my 2060 super wont bottleneck the i9.

Still, i want to know what its capable of. I thought about to modify it by my self with lquid metal even tho i have never done something like that.
Just doing some experiments instead of watching youtube videos about it. I changed the display of my sony ericsson w910i when i was like 10. I think im good at stuff like this.
Sure if i fck up i have to use my i5 again 😅

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

I thought about to modify it by my self with lquid metal even tho i have never done something like that.

Sure if i fck up i have to use my i5 again 😅

Be careful with liquid metal... screwing that up is an easy way to have to use your i5 again.

Back in 2017 I delid my 7700k and temps dropped a good 15C so it was worth it... and I used liquid metal. Never had a problem with it I just made sure I did it all right with the proper tool from Rockit Cool to make the process idiot proof.

 

[rickypicky5]

@rickypicky5 i just realised that our setup is almost the same 🙂

Did you try to OC your 9900k? What settings you had the most success with?

No I have not tried to overclock.

I ran Prime 95 on stock settings, version 30.3, build 3, Small FFT, with AVX completely disabled (all three AVX checkboxes checked) for 30 minutes and the highest temp I saw was 79C in HWiNFO64. To me, this indicated I could likely try at least a slight overclock, but decided not too because, frankly, I don't need too. My PC is running perfectly fine at stock and the cores all boost the way they are supposed to. The most taxing games I play (BF5 and Cyberpunk 77) run perfectly without any hiccups or stuttering. My idle temps are in the low 20s and my gaming temps in the upper 60s. My cooler also has a mini-VRM fan that does it's job very well.

 

[Nknpon]

No I have not tried to overclock.

I ran Prime 95 on stock settings, version 30.3, build 3, Small FFT, with AVX completely disabled (all three AVX checkboxes checked) for 30 minutes and the highest temp I saw was 79C in HWiNFO64. To me, this indicated I could likely try at least a slight overclock, but decided not too because, frankly, I don't need too. My PC is running perfectly fine at stock and the cores all boost the way they are supposed to. The most taxing games I play (BF5 and Cyberpunk 77) run perfectly without any hiccups or stuttering. My idle temps are in the low 20s and my gaming temps in the upper 60s. My cooler also has a mini-VRM fan that does it's job very well.

ya sure there is no point for us both to oc it but i am just curious. Only thing that makes sense is to minimize that GPU bottleneck by putting a small oc on it.
There arent much people with that Motherboard and i wasnt able to finde someone who know about the best way to OC with this BIOS.

 

[Nknpon]

Be careful with liquid metal... screwing that up is an easy way to have to use your i5 again.

Back in 2017 I delid my 7700k and temps dropped a good 15C so it was worth it... and I used liquid metal. Never had a problem with it I just made sure I did it all right with the proper tool from Rockit Cool to make the process idiot proof.

yea doing this for the first time will probably be very scary. Like when i put my computer parts together or changing the prozessor for the first time
I dont know if im actaully going to do it. I want to figure out first if it worth it for that CPU and if its a good pick or not. And if it is i know someone who will help me.
Upgrading my watercooling would be an other thing to do. I think we dont have to talke about GPUs at the current prices 😅

 

[rickypicky5]

ya sure there is no point for us both to oc it but i am just curious. Only thing that makes sense is to minimize that GPU bottleneck by putting a small oc on it.
There arent much people with that Motherboard and i wasnt able to finde someone who know about the best way to OC with this BIOS.

Yeah I hear you. I'm also gaming at 1080p with a 60Hz monitor. That'll be my next upgrade - to 1440p with a Gsync compatible monitor.

 

[Nknpon]

Yeah I hear you. I'm also gaming at 1080p with a 60Hz monitor. That'll be my next upgrade - to 1440p with a Gsync compatible monitor.

Same here my BenQ GL2450 got old 😂 need a new one very badly too. There is so much to buy 😅

 

[MonsterMaxx]

Most of your daily apps are not hardware limited in today's modern computer world.

Then there's those of us who do CAD and FEA and Motion. These are hugely computational demanding tasks. They can take hours to complete. To me, if I can get a 30% overclock, that's worth it.

My 9900k won't do a 30% overclock. More like 5 or 10%.
I haven't hit the peaks yet, but I don't think I'll get much further.
My Quadro 6000M will do Forza at full on 3 displays at 60fps. Do I need more? No, not when there's a risk of blowing up an out of warranty $3k graphics card. IDK if overclocking is even possible on a Quadro M series.

The comp the 9900k replaced is a 6850k and the 9900k is 80% faster on a timed CAD script. 5yrs difference.

To the OP, did you ever disable Turbo and try it?

 

[Nknpon]

To the OP, did you ever disable Turbo and try it?

I'll do it on the weekend and will update you on it. Im already hyped for the stresstests 😂

 

[mdd1963]

Trying to run Prime95 with AVX at 5 GHz is likely futile, and, is certainly a 165-190 watt overload....

apply an offset of 200 MHz like everyone else, and move on...

And with only a 2060 Super, the 1 extra FPS gained in average FPS by that extra 300 MHz per core is largely wasted anyway....

 

[Nknpon]

Hey guys!
First of all, i wish you a very nice weekend and im thankfull for all the replies!
I did a few very short tests and i considered all of your proposals.
I think the most impack was that i disable Intel(R) Turbo Boost Technology. Thanks @MonsterMaxx
Im still not sure about all the settings and i think it might be worth to take some photos of my bios and ask for your advice.
But first i want to show you what the results of my first test and im curious about your opinions.
So what did first is to rest my BIOS to standard only enabled XMP and did run P95 Blend over night (5h)
Test was still running when i woke up and everthing was fine. Thanks again @MonsterMaxx for that waste of electricity 😆 JK
Now i got back to the BIO and all i changed including the XMP was:

-Disabled Enhanced Multi-Core Performance
-CPU Clock Ratio set to 50
-AVX Offset 2
-Disabled Intel Speed Shift Technology
-Disabled Intel Turbo Boost Technology
-CPU Vcore Loadline Claibration set to Turbo, which i figured out has a huge effect because on auto it didnt even boot on first couple trys.

With voltage i startet @1300v but wastn able to Boot. @1310v it did boot but froze the moment i started the primetest.
THEN @1315v i was able to run two P95 FFP tests for 1 minute. One with AVX on and one with AVX off.

The one with AVX off was pretty smooth. It startet @77°C and slowly climbed up to 88max.

With AVX on its a whole other story. It began with 87°C and after 35 seconds it already it 100°C and throttled. Since you all recommended not to go to high on heat for to much time i stopped the test after 1 minute. But how do i know if it runs stable after that minute? Do i even need to know? Or do i keep testing only with AVX off?

To be honest, i put my PC infront of the open window and the CPU was like 18°C in idle 😂. So i cheated a little bit with my cooling because its cold af outside.
What are your opinions to these results and where do i go from here?
I guess doing some alternative test woudnt be a bad idea? But what are the ones you suggest?

BTW, why does it run average @1.343v with AVX off when i set it to 1315 in the BIOS? Is that normal or just inaccurate?

 

[MonsterMaxx]

fyi: I'm feeding mine 1.2V under a full load - according to the Asus tool. I'm at 5ghz. Right around 80-85°C on a full P95 load.
I thought the max voltage on this chip was around 1.375V, I may be wrong. I see some OC stuff at 1.4V, but who knows if that'll live long.
You are getting yours hot. Just sayin. It may take it, it may not. You may want to let off the throttle a little bit and use it.

PS, saw in your original post that speedstep was disabled. Enable that.

 

[Karadjgne]

My advice, take it as you will.

Get rid of the OC. Put the cpu back to stock settings.

Then go read up on OC, OC of the 9900k. Read everything, forget about YouTube for now, go to places like Overclockers, Asus Rog forums etc. They have extensive knowledge of OC on that cpu. Read up on what ppl did, what they tried, bios settings, LLC, ring voltages, vid/vcore, everything.

And when you figure you've got a good handle on OC, and can quit referring to yourself as 'noob', realize you just started, and go back and read more. Everything you see will have a trick, a tweak, a definition or setting you didn't realize before, so research that too.

Then apply what you learned and OC your cpu to 5GHz locked with 1.275ish vcore, LLC 2, AVX offset -2 etc.

 

[Nknpon]

fyi: I'm feeding mine 1.2V under a full load - according to the Asus tool. I'm at 5ghz. Right around 80-85°C on a full P95 load.
I thought the max voltage on this chip was around 1.375V, I may be wrong. I see some OC stuff at 1.4V, but who knows if that'll live long.
You are getting yours hot. Just sayin. It may take it, it may not. You may want to let off the throttle a little bit and use it.

PS, saw in your original post that speedstep was disabled. Enable that.

I have read from a lot diffrent sources now, that going up to 1.4v on this chip is totaly safe.
Before i bought this i9, I had thought about buying a tested chip with liquidmetal from der8auer.
They recommend like 1.39v@5ghz for some of their 9900k´s but they also recommend an AVX offset 3.

And from what ive read speedstep and speed shift are two diffrent things and you want do enable speedstep and disable speed shift.
But in my BIOs i only got speed shift so i disabled that.

 

[Nknpon]

My advice, take it as you will.

Get rid of the OC. Put the cpu back to stock settings.

Then go read up on OC, OC of the 9900k. Read everything, forget about YouTube for now, go to places like Overclockers, Asus Rog forums etc. They have extensive knowledge of OC on that cpu. Read up on what ppl did, what they tried, bios settings, LLC, ring voltages, vid/vcore, everything.

And when you figure you've got a good handle on OC, and can quit referring to yourself as 'noob', realize you just started, and go back and read more. Everything you see will have a trick, a tweak, a definition or setting you didn't realize before, so research that too.

Then apply what you learned and OC your cpu to 5GHz locked with 1.275ish vcore, LLC 2, AVX offset -2 etc.

If you read my other posts, you would notice that im not running this in daily use.
I gain literally no performance in games because i only got an 2060super.
Someday, when the 3080 is affordable the chip might get a GPU that can keep up with it. For now i just want to know what its capable of.
And its not like that everything i know is based on two youtube videos and what you guys answerd here.
Im not that much of a noob but i dont deal with this stuff every day like some of you do and neither i studied computer science. So in some eyes i might be a noob.
I have read a lot outside this forum and googled like every single setting in my BIOS i didnt know.
Something official is hard to finde so google and other forums are most of the time the only options.
But there are so may diffrent opionions in every forum and a lot of people are actaully just bragging about how much they know without giving any usefull advice.
Only thing i can do is to take these opinions that i see the most and make the most sense to me and try to figure things out.
Since this is a very big and busy forum, im here to get as many opinions i can get.

Ive read that VID is the voltage your CPU is asking for to run the chip at the current clockspeed.
And LLC sould reduce vdroop underload?
So when i set vcore in BIOS to 1.310 it sould run @1310VID and 5ghz in idle right?
When its underload it droops to like 1.220 and crashed. LLC is to prevent that and is the tweaker to close the cap between VID and actaully set vCore in BIO?

If this is right, i assume that LLC on turbo is too high, because the VID is higher than the vCore i set in BIOs.
But again, i actaully have know idea if i got this right or if i totaly missunderstood.
English obviously isnt my native language so i have to translate a lot of what ive read to english, which probably make things worse in order to explain how i understand it.

 

[Karadjgne]

Speedstep is Intels version of lowering clocks to minimums at idle. It's hand-in-hand with c-states, which are the power states for the cpu. C0 is on. C1/1e is idle, and it goes up (down) from there until you hit ultra deep sleep at C6.

But the drops in core and other voltages are not linear, the % changes are different. If you set 5.0GHz at 1.4, and the clocks drop 80%, the power might drop only 40% in c1, but then the clicks remain at 800MHz and power keeps dropping, things like memory cache turn off at C4E/C5 and at C6 you can hit cpu voltages of 0v. Buh-bye stability, hello bsod.

Which is why a manual OC with permanent set clocks requires speedstep/c-states be disabled.

But that few hours worth of reading taught you that. Personally, I'd expect reading/research to take Days to Weeks, not a measly few hours. OC is far more involved that just fiddling with vcore. Most OC doesn't require higher LLC settings, 2 or 3 out of 5 is plenty. Too much LLC is just as bad for stability as not enough. And you've yet to discover the importance in the relationship of vcore, vid, ring voltages, system agent, PLL, power limits, phase control etc.

 

[Karadjgne]

LLC is an added voltage. The DC voltage coming through the VRM's is never perfect, it has dips and slopes. The cpu is constantly changing its demands, dependent on the load/expected load at any given time. So when the cpu demands 1.425v and the VRM's supply is in a dip and 1.395v, LLC is the added voltage to make up the difference. But because it's an added voktage, it affects the highs as well as the lows, so too high an LLC would mean the cpu is also seeing 1.525 volts at the high. For instance. Which isn't good, because what you see according to bios, is a 1.525v vcore, so ppl freak out, drop vcore lower, which makes the LLC useless again. High voltages, yet they crash still. The actual vcore being 1.425, but the added LLC voltage is also registered for a total vcore of 1.525v.

VID (simply) is what the cpu demands from the VRM's. Vcore is what the cpu actually uses. Ideally VID will be 0.05v higher total than vcore. And this is where the offset voltage is applied. It's applied to VID. However, the cpu doesn't always have to use vcore amounts, it will if it's allowed to. So a load might realistically need 1.275v and be stable, but if your vcore/LLC is set for 1.425v, that's what it'll use, and VID should be 1.430v. You could apply a 0.1v negative offset, which would drop VID to 1.330v, vcore will drop to 1.325v and you'd still be good, being over the 1.275v need. This is where prime95 is useful as it supplies a 100% steady load, so you can see the affects of the offset. Drop it too much and you crash. With a high enough OC, actual need is higher than VID, so you'd apply a positive offset, allowing the cpu to demand more vcore/LLC.

It's a pain in the... balancing act, getting multiple voltages and settings dialed in for what the actual need is vs demand vs supply, and most of it is done at working state values, with little to no load, as those are the highest voltage states. Vcore actually drops under a load.

Which is why just bumping vcore and leaving the rest on auto settings when learning to OC never works out as intended and you are always at much higher vcore than is honestly required for stability and reasonable temps. Random guesses don't work either.

Use cpu-z. Jack up vcore, vid, ring voltages and the LLC, current maximums etc. Disable anything eco, sleep related, power control related like c-states etc. Then only lock cores. Should still be stable. Start raising the frequency in small steps until you reach your desired level. All done with reboots in between. Then start lowering the vcore and the rest in very small stages until it doesn't boot right and stay stable. Bump them back up 2 steps. Run the p95. Should still be stable. If not, look at the settings and see if something needs tweaking. More LLC or less LLC and higher vcore. Vcore changes should only be 0.005-0.008v at this point.

This can take days to accomplish and get/keep stability. I usually applied it to a 2nd profile saved in bios, the first being stock settings with any xmp/docp etc etc. That way the pc worked when I needed, and the profile was there for adjusting when I wanted.

 

[Nknpon]

Thanks for the reply!
Okay i sort of understand parts of it but others are just beyond me. But what ive understand is, that it makes sence that i havent had success yet.
So far i tried to get the best result with as few changes as possible.
In order to get a stable overclock @5ghz, i have to get way more detailed into the voltage settings than i thought.
But the goal is to get VID and the actual vCore as close as possible and idealy 0.05v more VID?
I wish there where like different profiles for BIOS that you can import an test out for your specific chip 😆

I don't even know if I can be successful at all my current motherboard and cooling.
So far i didnt even test P95 small FFTs on stock setting with only XMP enabled. I only did P95 Blend test for RAM stability.
For that reason i only enabled XMP and did some default test.

On P95 v26.6 its running very smooth without AVX.

BUT with the latest version of Prime95 with AVX it gets crazy hot again and i didnt want to test for more than 1 min. That much heat on stock??
Based on these results, sould i think about first what i can do to lower temps? Should i even underclock it instead of overclocking it in order to not damage the chip?

This time i didnt cheat with my cooling and its was like 22C° in my room and CPU running @25-27C° in Idle.

 

[Karadjgne]

I wish there where like different profiles for BIOS that you can import an test out for your specific chip 😆

There are. But they aren't factory set, you set them as a user. You can make the bios anything you want, save it to a profile, and then choose any profile for continue. Bios will load whatever you set from then on, unless you change it to something different. It's the best way to tinker and know there's a safe copy of a working bios. It really sucks having put several hours of tweaking in, then getting a failure and forgetting exactly what you changed. So I start out with a base profile that's got all the regular wanted changes, have a safe copy of a decent profile that's got a bunch of tweaks and then a working profile that gets saved every few boots as I get happier with the results. My Asus bios can have 8 profiles, so it's possible to have different levels of OC or eco or stock type settings at a click.

AVX is an advanced vector analysis instruction. It has much to do with all those rock chunks that go flying after an explosion, the way smoke and fire behaves etc. It's also very cpu oriented. It's also @ 130% workload. When you start any version after 26.6 you have the option to disable AVX, AVX2 or in the case of a few rare cpus that actually have the specific instruction set, AVX-512. The problem lies with usage. Used to be no games ever used AVX, anything 3rd gen and prior didn't even have the instruction set for it. With Haswell, that changed.

Games with AVX don't use it constantly. It's only used when particals are used, explosions, smoke etc. So if your general gaming workload is running the cpu at 70%, there's room for that short-term spike in usage as the instructions get used. Prime95 adds a constant use, so that part is only really of any use to see exactly what the temp can climb to. Which gave some seriously messed up temps in the first few versions of Prime until they added an AVX offset into bios.

That offset works in two ways. First it is sometimes ignored, left at 0, because the gamer is ok with the short term spike and has enough cooling capacity to absorb it. The second is for those who are borderline on cooling capacity or freaked by the temp increase. Every notch lowers voltages and frequency by 100MHz. So someone with a 5.0GHz locked core would see a temporary lowering of -2 as being a 4.8GHz OC, but only when the cpu detects AVX usage.

For many overclocks, that's not an issue, they aren't dialed in to perfection, but for some, that drop in voltages changes their vcore to a level under what's sustainable, and they crash from lack of vcore.

So what you do is disable AVX, all 3 of them, and test your OC until you are comfortable with the results and it's a permanent decision, all done. Then run a p95 with AVX only and see where your temps are. (short duration stress). If they are too high for comfort, add a -1 or -2 offset and retest. Yes you lose performance, but it's a temporary thing. Or, just live with the decided results and expect AVX games to raise the temps uncomfortably temporarily. Your choice.