[SOLVED] I9 9900k temps too high?

n1te0wl141

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Greetings dear TH people!

I recently bought a beast gaming PC with an RTX 2080 and I9 9900k. I OC'd the CPU to 4.9 where I get between 60-70C on average while playing BFV, however the temps will occasionally spike up to as high as 95 on some cores. This only happens for a few seconds maybe once every 10-30 mins or so. I read this is normal and as long as the temps are not running at 90 all the time it's fine. Should I keep it like this or underclock until I get to the point where the temps never ever go above 80? My cooler is a Be Quiet DRP4 btw if anyone's interested and the Voltage is 1.3.

Thank you in advance for all the help!
 
Solution
It's simple really. It's called 'a point of diminishing return' and every program or game or app has it. It's affected by more than just the cpu. It's affected by the game code, by the gpu, by the monitor.

There's exactly no difference to your perception on a 144Hz monitor to a game running at 200fps or 500fps. The point of diminishing return is the minimum fps beyond refresh of the monitor. Most ppl have a extremely difficult time differentiating between 100Hz and 150Hz, but no issues with 30-60.

With most games, a cpu faster than 3.2GHz is all that's required to start reaching that point. Cpus slower than that start showing more obvious results, lack of fps, that ppl can see. But thats in most games, not all. If you take games like...

Endre

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That’s the clear recipe for a short-lived CPU!
My suggestion is: resetting the BIOS to default values!
If you want to overclock your CPU, first you should invest into a good liquid cooler!
Also, it’s a big risk if you’re doing both CPU overclock and RAM overclock. Do only one of the two!
 

n1te0wl141

Commendable
Jan 9, 2017
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That’s the clear recipe for a short-lived CPU!
My suggestion is: resetting the BIOS to default values!
If you want to overclock your CPU, first you should invest into a good liquid cooler!
Also, it’s a big risk if you’re doing both CPU overclock and RAM overclock. Do only one of the two!
You mean a custom loop? Because as I've seen, the DRP4 is on par with the H150i, a top of the line water cooler.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA4gXIeyrKs
 
Yeah, the DRP4 should be enough to keep the 9900K cool.

Actually, I now remember when the 9900K first released the professional reviewers were showing how it would spike in power ever so often under stress tests, going form the norm 95W up to 145W or so. Not sure how that actually played out in the long run or if it even happened after OC'ing and manual voltage.
 

rubix_1011

Contributing Writer
Moderator
Dark Rock Pro 4 is a good cooler, I like it. I reviewed it for Tom's.

Also reviewed the H150i Pro. It didn't do as well as I thought, but still does pretty well.

Please understand that overclocking can effectively be done on both air and liquid.

Having a liquid cooler doesn't automatically mean you have any kind of advantage until you get to high-end custom watercooling. Your normal, boxed AIO cooler is going to perform about as well as a really good air cooler.
 
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Endre

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Dark Rock Pro 4 is a good cooler, I like it. I reviewed it for Tom's.

Also reviewed the H150i Pro. It didn't do as well as I thought, but still does pretty well.

Please understand that overclocking can effectively be done on both air and liquid.

Having a liquid cooler doesn't automatically mean you have any kind of advantage until you get to high-end custom watercooling. Your normal, boxed AIO cooler is going to perform about as well as a really good air cooler.

I wouldn’t consider air cooling as a good option for this CPU!
Water coolers are more effective!
 

Endre

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Dark Rock Pro 4 is a good cooler, I like it. I reviewed it for Tom's.

Also reviewed the H150i Pro. It didn't do as well as I thought, but still does pretty well.

Please understand that overclocking can effectively be done on both air and liquid.

Having a liquid cooler doesn't automatically mean you have any kind of advantage until you get to high-end custom watercooling. Your normal, boxed AIO cooler is going to perform about as well as a really good air cooler.

Overclocking is not for everybody!
Overclocking shortens the life of the product!
Overclocking is for people who can afford over-stressing the CPU, using it for a SHORT period of time at its full potential, then after 1-2 years they buy a new one, and so on...
 

Murdo

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Overclocking is not for everybody!
Overclocking shortens the life of the product!
Overclocking is for people who can afford over-stressing the CPU, using it for a SHORT period of time at its full potential, then after 1-2 years they buy a new one, and so on...

  1. Correct.
  2. Incorrect.
  3. Incorrect.

2) Overclocking does NOT shorten the life of the product where there is adequate cooling and no additional voltage added

3) Overclocking is not only for these people, that's like saying a Ferrari is only for people that like driving fast. No, it's for people that like it, want it, whatever the reason. Personally, I overclock new hardware to put it's through its paces and learn the limits of what it can achieve. This is a curiosity and "good to know" task for me, I do not run the PC at these speeds for "1-2 years" or a "SHORT period of time", I simply test, find a limit, record it, dial it back and remain dialled back unless there is something requiring it.
 
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Murdo

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Dark Rock Pro 4 is a good cooler, I like it. I reviewed it for Tom's.

Also reviewed the H150i Pro. It didn't do as well as I thought, but still does pretty well.

Please understand that overclocking can effectively be done on both air and liquid.

Having a liquid cooler doesn't automatically mean you have any kind of advantage until you get to high-end custom watercooling. Your normal, boxed AIO cooler is going to perform about as well as a really good air cooler.

110% agree, you couldn't of put it any better. I have invested in many, many stock AIO and many air coolers and there was literally maybe a 1c variance in each direction (sometimes the AIO 1c cooler, sometimes the Air 1c cooler).

I've settled with the DR TF on my 9900k as it performs as well (at quieter volume) for me as the H150i.

I have absolutely NO doubt that custom loop cooling etc would be considerably better/cooler, but the TF is serving me well until such a time that I feel like building a custom loop.
 

Endre

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  1. Correct.
  2. Incorrect.
  3. Incorrect.
2) Overclocking does NOT shorten the life of the product where there is adequate cooling and no additional voltage added

3) Overclocking is not only for these people, that's like saying a Ferrari is only for people that like driving fast. No, it's for people that like it, want it, whatever the reason. Personally, I overclock new hardware to put it's through its paces and learn the limits of what it can achieve. This is a curiosity and "good to know" task for me, I do not run the PC at these speeds for "1-2 years" or a "SHORT period of time", I simply test, find a limit, record it, dial it back and remain dialled back unless there is something requiring it.

OK. So by this statement you admit running your PC at stock speed most of the time. That’s good. That’s what I also do. But people who run their PC at the highest speeds, with increased voltages, all the time, are in for “short usage”.
 
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Murdo

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OK. So by this statement you admit running your PC at stock speed most of the time. That’s good. That’s what I also do. But people who run their PC at the highest speeds, with increased voltages, all the time, are in for “short usage”.

Completely agree. Constant higher voltage, with higher clocks, prepare for a shorter lifespan!

What I find interesting is that people overclock, then run at that overclocked rate 24x7... I mean, if you are getting a DRASTIC performance increase for something you do ALL THE TIME, i.e yo u are taking your game from say, 35, 40fps to a solid 60fps, sure, I get that. But for the top end hardware, when you are gaining next to nothing in the games (because either the game is more GPU heavy or it not maxing the CPU in the first place).. why burn the hardware?

I dial it back to stock because my games I play, the performance @ 3.6ghz boost to 4.7ghz, is absolutely no better than locked at 5.2ghz. The only gain I achieve with the overclock is in benchmarking software like 3DMark (I literally gain well over 2000 points with the overclock) but then, why have it running at this speed when NOT in 3DMark?

Just baffles me... each to their own though!
 
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Karadjgne

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It's simple really. It's called 'a point of diminishing return' and every program or game or app has it. It's affected by more than just the cpu. It's affected by the game code, by the gpu, by the monitor.

There's exactly no difference to your perception on a 144Hz monitor to a game running at 200fps or 500fps. The point of diminishing return is the minimum fps beyond refresh of the monitor. Most ppl have a extremely difficult time differentiating between 100Hz and 150Hz, but no issues with 30-60.

With most games, a cpu faster than 3.2GHz is all that's required to start reaching that point. Cpus slower than that start showing more obvious results, lack of fps, that ppl can see. But thats in most games, not all. If you take games like Ashes of The Singularity, that's extremely hard on the cpu in general, so a higher speed, newer gen cpu is warranted. Matching core to core, a i9 9700 shows massive differences to an FX8 series.

Physical life expectancy of a cpu is well over 20 years. I've got a PentiumII 350MHz that's seen a 400MHz OC since day 1 and still runs perfectly fine. That said, both of you are incorrect. There's no answer as to whether OC will reduce lifespan because the lifespan is an unknown. For all we know, it could be 50 years before catastrophic failure rates render it useless, so even cutting that in quarter is still far beyond any useful usage. A 12yr old cpu is useless for age appropriate software. Don't assume voltage and cooling are the only factors, amperage is the other half of power and when voltages are minimal, amperage is maximum to maintain the power levels. Lower voltages prevent bleeding between the nodes, maintaining stability, but amperage affects how hard those nodes get slammed when transferring the voltage.

Overclocking is for anyone, everyone, everybody uses it. Turbo is a factory set OC. Nobody runs their pc at base speed, turbo off. Manual OC or even the stupid software included OC is nothing more than a user's extension of turbo settings. It's used in cpus, gpus (boost clocks), ram (xmp profiles). Nobody buys 3200MHz ram and runs it at ddr4 default rates of 2133MHz. Even vendors recognise that fact, every listing above cpu set memory controller speeds (2133, 2400, 2666) is xxx (OC) in the ram listing.

So yes, OC is for everyone, How Much OC is a personal decision.

Oh, which Corsair H150i? There's 2. The original release was great. The ML fans were strong, quiet and got great temps out of that rad. Then that release was discontinued shortly after, replaced in favor of the RGB version for a popularity contest with other RGB AIO's. The latest version sucks in comparison to the original. The RGB fans now used are half the ability of the originals, something had to give in order to make room in the motor housing for the RGB pcb and wiring needs. Bad move for performance, but Corsair relies more on brand recognition than actual performance standings for sales. Why buy a plain 360mm aio and buy $90 worth of rgb fans when you can buy the whole thing far cheaper.
 
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Solution

Murdo

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Yep, as do most ppl. Which can include turbo since default option for turbo is enabled.

Nor the MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon. Not only that but my Corsair Vengeance 3000mhz memory defaults to 2133 on this mobo. So outta the box, I enabled XMP, manual 3000mhz for the memory and enabled Speedstep/Turbo.
 

Karadjgne

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All ddr4 defaults are set to 2133, no matter how high the rated speeds. Some ram will have multiple xmp profiles set, but most just has the 1. This is done for compatability with any ram and speeds, a one-size-fits all approach, and left upto the user to enable xmp.

Historically, turbo was always enabled, enhanced turbo was not, so if it's not enabled by default on those boards it's either a new development, cpu related change (for an i5 might be enabled, but i9 disabled) or bios/board specific. But thanks for the update, I hadn't heard anything about it being disabled under factory optimized settings.
 

Endre

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All ddr4 defaults are set to 2133, no matter how high the rated speeds. Some ram will have multiple xmp profiles set, but most just has the 1. This is done for compatability with any ram and speeds, a one-size-fits all approach, and left upto the user to enable xmp.

Historically, turbo was always enabled, enhanced turbo was not, so if it's not enabled by default on those boards it's either a new development, cpu related change (for an i5 might be enabled, but i9 disabled) or bios/board specific. But thanks for the update, I hadn't heard anything about it being disabled under factory optimized settings.

Not all DDR4 defaults are set to 2133MT/s!
Some run at 2400, others run at 2666MT/s!
More recent memory modules run even at JEDEC default specs of 3200MT/s (for example: Kingston HX432C18FB/16).
 
Not all DDR4 defaults are set to 2133MT/s!
Some run at 2400, others run at 2666MT/s!
More recent memory modules run even at JEDEC default specs of 3200MT/s (for example: Kingston HX432C18FB/16).
You must not have much experience with DDR4. Every DDR4 memory module you install on a new motherboard with default to 2133 until you either enable XMP or change the settings yourself. Some exceptions are when you already had memory installed, and you install different memory it might try to run at the previous settings.
 

Endre

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You must not have much experience with DDR4. Every DDR4 memory module you install on a new motherboard with default to 2133 until you either enable XMP or change the settings yourself. Some exceptions are when you already had memory installed, and you install different memory it might try to run at the previous settings.

In this case, you’re the one lacking experience with DDR4!
Please educate yourself!
Kingston HyperX Fury memory line runs at the advertised speeds without using the XMP profiles!
 

Endre

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In this case, you’re the one lacking experience with DDR4!
Please educate yourself!
Kingston HyperX Fury memory line runs at the advertised speeds without using the XMP profiles!

Also... Kingston HyperX Predator lineup runs at JEDEC, default settings: 2400MT/s.
The XMP Profiles will increase the frequency up to 2666MT/s(minimum)_4000+MT/s
(maximum).