After having troubles with the default settings when receiving my computer i managed to get it stable(it previously would crash when trying to run games). While running intels extreme tuning utility i noticed i was getting current/edp limit throttling. What i had originally done is remove the unlimited pl levels and put them both at 253 and set my ICC MAX levels to 307. i saw a video of someone who was showing off the intel extreme settings. these said pl levels could both be set to 320 and icc max at 400. i went halfway and set pl levels to 280 and icc max to 356. I being someone who has no idea what they are doing would like to know if what i am doing is okay? i am still receiving the current/edp limit throttling warning but not as frequent. when i ran the stress test it passed but said that that was present. my intel benchmark increased by nearly 500 points up to 13400. my cpu hit max temps of 91 c during stress and benchmark test, no power or thermal throttling. Again this is my first pc i got it a month ago so any hellp would be greatly appreciated. I wouldnt have even dared to mess with these settings if my computer actually worked when i first booted it up. I have the z790 ud ac board.
Question Intel 14900kf pl1&2 icc max
- Thread starter Icarry2
- Start date
The CPU is getting very close to overheating, while this can degrade its lifespan it is important to note that at higher temperatures, resistance increases and the same overclock can take more VCore to get stable.
Those power settings you adjust is the maximum power draw the CPU is allowed to draw. It is useful to prevent EDP limit throttling for heavy AVX workloads as a way to protect the CPU.
Those power settings you adjust is the maximum power draw the CPU is allowed to draw. It is useful to prevent EDP limit throttling for heavy AVX workloads as a way to protect the CPU.
im confused. im getting the warnings while my cpu temp is at 50-70 degrees amd its always on while gaming which is where i average those temps. are you suggesting i lower those values back down? im not ntoicing any difference in fps with the new settings which is all i really care about. that and i was attempting to get rid of that current edp error
CmdrShepard
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You should use Prime95 with AVX for stress testing (small FFT tests) if you really want to know whether your settings are stable. Be warned that it produces extreme amount of heat so your cooler should better be good.
If you ask me, your goal should be to set the CPU current limit so it doesn't current throttle, and then set PL1 and PL2 so it again doesn't power or thermal throttle while running Prime95 small FFTs test. If you can run that without throttling for at least 10 minutes then you can be sure you won't have any problems going forward.
To reduce power draw and thermal dissipation you can try reducing Vcore a bit provided that your CPU can remain stable at lower voltage.
Don't try lowering it too much or it will crash and if you disable undervolt protection it may refuse to boot which will require CMOS/NVRAM clear to recover unless your mainboard has one of those fancy watchdogs which restore last working settings on hang. Lowering Vcore by somewhere between 50 mV and 125 mV should give some you some nice power/thermal headroom which will help avoid power and thermal throttling.
Alternatively, if you haven't already done so and if you are too lazy to fiddle with it, just download and flash the latest BIOS which optimizes CEP and power settings for CPU and load optimized defaults after flashing:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z790-UD-AC-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios
If you ask me, your goal should be to set the CPU current limit so it doesn't current throttle, and then set PL1 and PL2 so it again doesn't power or thermal throttle while running Prime95 small FFTs test. If you can run that without throttling for at least 10 minutes then you can be sure you won't have any problems going forward.
To reduce power draw and thermal dissipation you can try reducing Vcore a bit provided that your CPU can remain stable at lower voltage.
Don't try lowering it too much or it will crash and if you disable undervolt protection it may refuse to boot which will require CMOS/NVRAM clear to recover unless your mainboard has one of those fancy watchdogs which restore last working settings on hang. Lowering Vcore by somewhere between 50 mV and 125 mV should give some you some nice power/thermal headroom which will help avoid power and thermal throttling.
Alternatively, if you haven't already done so and if you are too lazy to fiddle with it, just download and flash the latest BIOS which optimizes CEP and power settings for CPU and load optimized defaults after flashing:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z790-UD-AC-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios
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okay, so being that i am having this current throttling do i want to increase my current limit or lower it? to operate within intel specs and not mess with my warranty i can go up to 400, pl levels i can go up to ~320 i believe. im not trying to do any crazy OC i just have a chip that has been not working with my MB since i bought it. I have no specs to list off for pre me messing around with it because as the computer came trying to run a benchmark would just crash it. the 253 307 settings got me stable (with curent edp throttling)
responding to your edit i dont have access to the latest bios, when trying to flash it i got a mismatch error because my computer is a prebuilt by ABS they have their own bios that i need and they have yet to send it to me. I have tried the method you linked. ive been battling with this issue for a month now and this is my first pc so not really an ideal situation.
CmdrShepard
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If your computer is prebuilt and requires customized BIOS then you should not try to flash it yourself, you should take it to them and have them flash it for you.
After that you can try loading optimized defaults and if that doesn't solve your problem then you should try what I suggested.
As for power and current settings, they are different per CPU.
400 A and 320 W limits are extreme profile settings for KS CPUs only, not yours which you said is KF (basically same as K minus integrated GPU).
For your CPU you can either use 307 A / 125 W / 253 W (performance profile) or try using 400 A / 253 W / 253 W (extreme profile).
If you don't have a good CPU cooler (you never told us which CPU cooler the system has), I wouldn't advise you to use the extreme profile.
If your system still crashes with performance profile (307/125/253) then something is not right.
After that you can try loading optimized defaults and if that doesn't solve your problem then you should try what I suggested.
As for power and current settings, they are different per CPU.
400 A and 320 W limits are extreme profile settings for KS CPUs only, not yours which you said is KF (basically same as K minus integrated GPU).
For your CPU you can either use 307 A / 125 W / 253 W (performance profile) or try using 400 A / 253 W / 253 W (extreme profile).
If you don't have a good CPU cooler (you never told us which CPU cooler the system has), I wouldn't advise you to use the extreme profile.
If your system still crashes with performance profile (307/125/253) then something is not right.
TerryLaze
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Volts watts and amps all go hand in hand, 400 and 320 are the limits to get 1.25V , at full load, which will be safe for your CPU. Volts= power/amp, at lower load the voltage can be higher if it is set to be auto since the other two, or at least the power draw, will be lower this will also be safe for the CPU.
You want to have the current high because tougher loads need more current to not crash your CPU (what others already said about avx) . To not hit the current limit it would be wise to lower the max power draw to have a stable system without going above the recommended current limit set by intel.
But also hitting the current limit (or the power limit) isn't anything bad, it's just the limit it hits because it is set so by the bios.
You don't want your CPU to never hit any limit because that's how you get a CPU that will crash at certain workloads.
Which is what the recent articles have been all about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volt-ampere
Okay my apologies I have the eurus aqua gaming pc from ABS. It does have the intel 14900 KS in it NOT kf. CPU Cooler: EKWB RGB 360MM AlO Liquid Cooler, that’s my cooler. I bought on new egg and ABS is in Ca and I live on east coast so I can’t take to them. My only option is for them to email it to me.
The computer shipped to me with pl settings set to 4095. From research that meant unlimited and that was crashing my system. I’d try opening a game and it would load for two seconds then crash with a watchdog timeout or I’d get an error that my virtual video memory was full. Because of that people were telling me it was a GPU issue but it wasn’t it was the pl levels. I tried running intel benchmark with those settings and the utilization and temps would immediately go to 100 then crash.
I implemented my first fix per a yt video which was 253 253 307. This worked no issues computer now ran all the games and was stable. Then I started noticing that current/exp warning I was getting but I was always getting that.
In an attempt to fix that I just tried raising the levels because according to intel notes on that error it said it wasn’t getting enough power and the icc max may be set too low.
I *thought if i raised both levels it would stop but it the warning is on like 90% of the time I’m gaming or pretty much doing anything, while idle it seems to be off.
The computer I bought used to have reviews bunched in with all the others from them and now it’s by itself and has 7 ratings with an average of 3 stars and it’s all people complaining of the same issue. It seems that board is having issues with the chip and the unlimited pl levels.
Others have swapped the computer out only to have the same issue when they got a different one.
Intel has released specs and seems to be aware of the problem and I’m assuming the bios update that I don’t have access to is only going to do the things we’re attempting to figure out here.
All I know is that the performance profile they have recommended does make it stable but it has that warning.
I mostly game, some photoshop here or there, and excel. I’m not editing video or anything like that so I guess end of the day really optimizing the cpu isn’t a big deal. I turned on XMP and made these changes hoping I could squeeze out more fps and get rid of that warning, that wasn’t the case and again I’m new to this so probably was never going to make a difference anyway.
So if I have my curr
What I’m taking from your comment is to divide the current by 1.25 and that gives me the pl levels I should use?
my increase from 307 to 356 and 253 to 280 had the cpu reaching higher temps using the benchmark test. it was going up to 91 when it used to only be hitting 81 c. idk if thats becauase it wasnt the 1.25 you were talking about or because the icc was higher. i guess my point being that maybe my cooler cant handle setting the icc max any higher.
So as i said in this case i should raise my pl levels from 280 to 285?
OR again if raising these levels isn’t going to increase my fps should I go back down to 307 for the ifc max and make it 245 and not 253. It’s weird because those numbers come straight from intels tables on the recommended settings.
Unless there is some other settings I’m missing somewhere that I also need to change to make that work.
Okay I found one setting I never set. There’s an icc max and icc max.app
In my bios I only found a setting for core current limit which I took as being the icc max. No idea where the other one is. At performance levels that’s supposed to be 307 for icc max and 245 for icc max.app
At extreme settings it’s supposed to be 400 for icc max and 320 for iccmax.app
So if I have my current set at 356 I want my pl levels at 285. That gives me 1.25. I’m still confused as to whether I should be going higher with the current and pl or lower within intels range. Because again the 307 253 was giving me the error. If I apply your math pl levels should be 245 not 253 at 307.
What I’m taking from your comment is to divide the current by 1.25 and that gives me the pl levels I should use?
my increase from 307 to 356 and 253 to 280 had the cpu reaching higher temps using the benchmark test. it was going up to 91 when it used to only be hitting 81 c. idk if thats becauase it wasnt the 1.25 you were talking about or because the icc was higher. i guess my point being that maybe my cooler cant handle setting the icc max any higher.
So as i said in this case i should raise my pl levels from 280 to 285?
OR again if raising these levels isn’t going to increase my fps should I go back down to 307 for the ifc max and make it 245 and not 253. It’s weird because those numbers come straight from intels tables on the recommended settings.
Unless there is some other settings I’m missing somewhere that I also need to change to make that work.
Okay I found one setting I never set. There’s an icc max and icc max.app
In my bios I only found a setting for core current limit which I took as being the icc max. No idea where the other one is. At performance levels that’s supposed to be 307 for icc max and 245 for icc max.app
At extreme settings it’s supposed to be 400 for icc max and 320 for iccmax.app
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TerryLaze
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The numbers intel gave are maximums for the profiles, you don't have to have all of them at the maximum if you don't want to.
That math isn't about 'should use' it's just a way to find out what the other settings will be if you change one of them. If you do the math for the performance limit and not the insane limit it comes out to 1.21V
Just leave it at pl=253 and 307Amp, the differences in performance going above that are minimal and hardly worth it anyway.
im not arguing with you there i haven't seen any difference in performance other than the benchmark score get higher which i couldn't care less about if it was an increase to fps it would be a different story, but then were back to square one where i was receiving the current/edp limit warning. even at those settings i was receiving that error. 253 307
let me dump this on you as well/ im monitoring temps. my p core 4 had a max temp of 79 while just being on the computer no gaming not sure what caused the spike. core 2 5 6 7 hit 71. 0 1 3 hit 60. the rest(e cores) didnt get hotter than 50. Does this tell you anything? These are max values not average or current.
CmdrShepard
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Dude, you have two choices -- performance and extreme (if your CPU is really KS as you now say).
Just use one or the other set of values (307 A / 253 W / 253 W or 400 A / 320 W / 320 W).
Neither of those will matter if the rest of the values in BIOS Intel was complaining about aren't set right. In order for that to happen you either have to update the BIOS to the one which has a single setting that loads default Intel profile, or to find all the other settings they mention and tweak them manually.
Just use one or the other set of values (307 A / 253 W / 253 W or 400 A / 320 W / 320 W).
Neither of those will matter if the rest of the values in BIOS Intel was complaining about aren't set right. In order for that to happen you either have to update the BIOS to the one which has a single setting that loads default Intel profile, or to find all the other settings they mention and tweak them manually.
I just reverted it back to 253 and 307. Still getting the error but temps are lower. Going to stick what that I guess until ABS decides to give me a bios. As long as that warning is fine and there’s nothing terrible going on I guess I’m okay. Is what it is.
CmdrShepard
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Keep your eye on the CPU voltages while waiting, I just read some discussions where people claimed that those CPUs can degrade over time (i.e. need more voltage for the same frequency after 1-2 months) because of their aggressive turbo boosting if left with unlimited power / current.
I have hwinfo64 up and running but idk what I’m looking at half the time. What voltage should I be looking for what range?
TerryLaze
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It's not a bad error, it just tells you that it did hit that limit, if you don't want to overclock beyond that limit then you don't need to care.
It's like doing a manual overclock to 5Ghz and then saying that you have an error because it doesn't go above 5Ghz.
So the chip is saying I want more current. But I’ve gimped it with my settings. I feel like there HAS to be a setting that gives the chip exactly what it needs within intel specs. I’m still getting single core temp spikes up to 90c with these settings. It was as high as 92 with the higher settings. Hwinfo gave me a thermal throttling warning with the higher settings granted this was probably for less than a second and intel extreme tuning didn’t even pick up on it. That’s the main reason I decided to revert back. I get the spikes whenever I launch a game or load a save. I mentioned the cooler I have earlier in the thread maybe it isn’t sufficient for This chip idk it was a prebuilt by ABS they seem pretty reputable.
I average 60-70c while gaming with spikes up to 90(during stress?) Overclocking was never my goal just getting rid of the error and originally just getting the computer to work.
ill take your advice and leave as is until i either get the new bios or someone can give me concrete numbers to try.
TerryLaze
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All modern CPUs from both companies will auto overclock until they hit a limit, if they never hit any limit they will hit the limitations of the silicon itself and start crashing....
That's why intel gave out the upper limits in the first place, you can go beyond them if you want (wich would be overclocking) but hitting a limit is the standard, it can be the temps or amps or watts or anything.
Gotcha so no matter what I do I’m going to get that warning. And if I don’t get that warning I’ll get the other worse warning which is thermal throttling. So essentially that warning is a good thing telling me that it’s being kept in a safe range. If I take that limit off and it’s not being in that range then it will go until it thermal throttles which I don’t want. Is the logic correct¿
TerryLaze
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Yup, it has to hit some limit otherwise it would overclock to infinity.
CmdrShepard
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There is, but it takes a bit of experimenting to find it. Pre-requisite is to get the latest BIOS with Intel profile option so you can be sure that settings other than ICC, PL1, and PL2 are set to their proper limits.
Those temperature spikes are caused by CPU boosting preferred cores to their max clock. Each CPU has preferred cores which can go higher than the rest of them -- you can see that in hwinfo.
When I said watch the voltages what I meant is to keep an eye on the Vcore voltage especially when those spikes happen and note the highest value. You shouldn't be comfortable with more than 1.25 V and you should probably limit the all-core multiplier to keep those preferred cores under 1.25 V when boosting at least until you get the new BIOS flashed and your settings changed there.
Smart move.
It is hard to transfer heat from a tiny spot in the core. Cooler most likely isn't the problem, problem can only be this excessive boosting along with BIOS driving higher voltage than absolutely necessary to increase stability at higher clock.
You still haven't tried Prime95 small FFT like I told you? That's the best way to see how good your cooling is and whether your limits are good or not.
With your cooler even 400 A and 320 W should be fine, but not without making sure that other settings aren't driven too hard. I don't have a list of them at hand but there are numerous articles and videos about it so you can try tweaking those other values or simply wait for updated BIOS and then use the "master" setting (i.e. Intel default profile) which should set them all to sane Intel defaults.
Thanks for the thorough reply. I’m giving up on all of it now until the new bios comes out. Once I get that I’ll go in and try the 400 320 and see what that does, so like you said I’ll know I have all the other settings right. And I’ll take a look at that prime thing you mentioned I haven’t yet. Thanks again for the help. I may reply back in here once I get that from ABS
CmdrShepard
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