[SOLVED] Recommended BIOS settings for 10850K + MSI Z590 Gaming Carbon to run it cool?

Tito77

Commendable
Aug 19, 2019
34
1
1,535
Hi folks,

So my friend got a new system with Intel 12th Gen CPU with new motherboard & he is sharing me his previous CPU & mobo (an i9-10850K with MSI MPG Z590 Gaming Carbon motherboard). My current system specs are as follows:

System Specs
  • Intel i7-8700K at stock speeds
  • MSI Z370-A Pro motherboard
  • 32GB G-Skill (16x2)TridentZ 3200Mhz memory
  • MSI RTX 3070 Ti Gaming X Trio
  • WD Black 500GB SSD
  • Cooler Master MB500 case
  • Cooler Master MA612 Stealth ARGB CPU cooler.
So, I will be removing my current motherboard + CPU and put in the 10850K + the MSI Z590 Carbon mobo. I have heard that the 10850K is a hot cpu & my intention is to keep the cpu as cool as possible. I don't plan on doing any overclocking at all. I will just use the PC for games, Adobe Lightroom, some casual video editing, video calls & multimedia.
I want the cpu to run at the lowest power consumption/ running cool without losing any cpu performance for the mentioned tasks.

Can you folks suggest the recommended BIOS settings for the mentioned motherboard (MSI Z590 Carbon) & how much negative offset should I put for the cpu to make it run as cool as possible?

Note: I may buy an AIO after a few months but right now I will be using the Cooler Master MasterAir MA612 stealth argb cooler.
 
Solution
anything more than -0.070mv offset did not make difference to lowering temps while running Cinebench R23
If your CPU is power limit throttling during Cinebench, then you will not see any difference in temperature when you lower the voltage. Whether the CPU is at default voltage or undervolted, the CPU will be consuming the same 150W. Temperatures will be exactly the same.

Lowering the voltage should show up as a difference in the CPU speed and this should improve your Cinebench results. You can set the Minimum Test Duration to Off in Cinebench to run a single test. Keep track of your scores while testing. If you run two Cinebench tests back to back, the second test might be significantly lower because you will end up with more...

iTRiP

Honorable
Feb 4, 2019
913
72
11,090
If I were you I'd just set everything to default and run with the setup like that, should not encounter a single problem this way and clear to game nonstop.

Might just want to mention or at least check if you have a compatible PSU , since you did not post that above.
 

Tito77

Commendable
Aug 19, 2019
34
1
1,535
If I were you I'd just set everything to default and run with the setup like that, should not encounter a single problem this way and clear to game nonstop.

Might just want to mention or at least check if you have a compatible PSU , since you did not post that above.
I have a NZXT C850 80+ Gold PSU.

Umm, the BIOS defaults have the OC mode set to Expert by default. I loaded the default values & it always sets it self to Expert mode & I guess some overclock also applied. I am not very good at these stuff. :(

The BIOS screenshots are below.
 
Last edited:

Tito77

Commendable
Aug 19, 2019
34
1
1,535
poUh1BAOj
pnsLfwuEj
pnqnSU0Nj
 

iTRiP

Honorable
Feb 4, 2019
913
72
11,090
With your above posted screenshot setting, I cant see anything wrong and should serve as good playable.

Might want to check out what that setting (Per Core Hyper-threading is all about) seems like something you might want to think enabling but I really don't know, google searches don't provide any use full info on this, but I would think that such a setting would if turned on give hyperthreading core independent Mhz range or something other beneficial.

The other setting I would look at is the (Link) setting on the ram timing mode, what other settings you have there? it might not be the best setting as of yet.
 
Last edited:
@Tito77
The best way to cool down a 10850K is to reduce the CPU voltage. Using a negative offset voltage between -50 mV and -100 mV can really help out these CPUs. Here is an example of my 10850K running Cinebench at the default 10900K all core speed of 4900 MHz.

Not all 10850K are as good as this one. Play around with the voltage and see how much voltage your CPU needs to run stable. The default Intel voltage is always on the high side. This allows Intel to guarantee long term stability.

zJuSAPA.png
 

Tito77

Commendable
Aug 19, 2019
34
1
1,535
With your above posted screenshot setting, I cant see anything wrong and should serve as good playable.

Might want to check out what that setting (Per Core Hyper-threading is all about) seems like something you might want to think enabling but I really don't know, google searches don't provide any use full info on this, but I would think that such a setting would if turned on give hyperthreading core independent Mhz range or something other beneficial.

The other setting I would look at is the (Link) setting on the ram timing mode, what other settings you have there? it might not be the best setting as of yet.
Sorry for the late reply, I was a bit occupied at work yesterday & didn't get a chance to reply.

Here is the RAM timings in BIOS. I have only applied XMP & did not change any other RAM timing in BIOS.

po7gQJGej
 

Tito77

Commendable
Aug 19, 2019
34
1
1,535
@Tito77
The best way to cool down a 10850K is to reduce the CPU voltage. Using a negative offset voltage between -50 mV and -100 mV can really help out these CPUs. Here is an example of my 10850K running Cinebench at the default 10900K all core speed of 4900 MHz.

Not all 10850K are as good as this one. Play around with the voltage and see how much voltage your CPU needs to run stable. The default Intel voltage is always on the high side. This allows Intel to guarantee long term stability.

zJuSAPA.png
Thank you for the suggestion friend.

So, -50 mV will be 0.050 & -100mV will be 0.100 values in the motherboard with offset mode set to negative?

Also may I ask what CPU cooler & motherboard are you using? Those temps looks really cool!
I tried running Cinebench R23 with the motherboard default settings (in the pics), the CPU core temps jumped up to 92-94C within a few moments.
 
So, -50 mV will be 0.050 & -100mV will be 0.100
That is correct.

My room temperature is usually about 18°C during the winter. I have an Asus ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming motherboard and a Corsair AIO cooler.

https://www.corsair.com/ca/en/Categ...oling/iCUE-RGB-PRO-XT-Coolers/p/CW-9060044-WW

default settings
Run HWiNFO and see how much Vcore voltage is actually going to your CPU. This is typically much higher than it needs to be. Shaving off some voltage can make a huge difference, especially when full load testing. Peak core temps can drop 15°C during Cinebench compared to default settings. All CPUs are unique and my 10850K is probably better than average. It never hurts to try using less voltage. If your computer crashes when testing, you have gone too far and it needs more voltage.
 
You don't have to mess with vcore settings
This website shows some testing I did. Less voltage can make a dramatic difference to how hot these CPUs get. I would definitely do some fine tuning, especially if I only had an air cooler. These CPUs have a lot of performance headroom if you can keep them cool.


I agree with setting the turbo power limits to what your cooling can manage. Setting the long term PL1 power limit to the Intel default 125W value will kill full load performance. It is best to do some testing and play around with these settings.
 

Tito77

Commendable
Aug 19, 2019
34
1
1,535
Long duration here should be 125W and short duration 250W.
If you know how much TDP your cooler can handle, at the temps you want, then you can put both of these values to that amount.

You don't have to mess with vcore settings unless your CPU is still running too hot even with proper TDP settings.
The cooler I have is Cooler Master MasterAir MA612 ARGB which has a TDP of about 180W from what someone else told. I couldn't find any official info about the TDP of this cooler from anywhere.
So I have set Long Duration Power Limit to 150W & Short Duration Power to 180W with the Long Duration maintained & CPU Power Limit to default Values.

Set the offset to -0.070mv. The closest stable offset I got without any hangs was -0.090mv but anything more than -0.070mv offset did not make difference to lowering temps while running Cinebench R23.

I have also noticed that the negative offset only applies while running Cinebench, Intel XTU & the cpu vcore value in stays around 1.194. But its seems the offset sometimes doesn't work properly while gaming as I saw the cpu vcore values go up to 1.25+

With these above values, the cpu core temps stay around 72-78C. But I have noticed that they will sometimes jump to like 85C for less than a second & go back down to ~77C. Is this normal behavior?
 
anything more than -0.070mv offset did not make difference to lowering temps while running Cinebench R23
If your CPU is power limit throttling during Cinebench, then you will not see any difference in temperature when you lower the voltage. Whether the CPU is at default voltage or undervolted, the CPU will be consuming the same 150W. Temperatures will be exactly the same.

Lowering the voltage should show up as a difference in the CPU speed and this should improve your Cinebench results. You can set the Minimum Test Duration to Off in Cinebench to run a single test. Keep track of your scores while testing. If you run two Cinebench tests back to back, the second test might be significantly lower because you will end up with more power limit throttling. It takes a lot of effort to get consistent benchmark results when these CPUs are turbo power limited.

You need to use a tool like ThrottleStop to accurately track the CPU multiplier. Any tiny change in the CPU multiplier while Cinebench testing will be accurately reported when power limit throttling is in progress.

T21ElWc.png


while gaming as I saw the cpu vcore values go up to 1.25+
What are you using to monitor voltage? I like watching the HWiNFO VCore voltage. The VID voltage that many tools report is not the same as the actual voltage going to the CPU. VID voltage should be ignored.

Depending on your BIOS, the actual voltage might vary based on CPU speed or the type of CPU instructions the CPU is executing. Tests that use a lot of AVX instructions might use different voltage compared to tests that do not use these instructions.

Did you lock your 10850K to a fixed maximum speed? At default settings, the 10850K will use the 52 multiplier and run at 5200 MHz when 1 or 2 cores are active. This can send the voltage sky rocketing upward.

I have noticed that they will sometimes jump to like 85C
Peak CPU core temperatures can change instantly, many times per second. That is nothing unusual or dangerous. 85°C is a normal operating temperature for an Intel Core i CPU.
 
Solution

Tito77

Commendable
Aug 19, 2019
34
1
1,535
What are you using to monitor voltage? I like watching the HWiNFO VCore voltage. The VID voltage that many tools report is not the same as the actual voltage going to the CPU. VID voltage should be ignored.
I used HWMonitor to check the VCore voltage.

Did you lock your 10850K to a fixed maximum speed? At default settings, the 10850K will use the 52 multiplier and run at 5200 MHz when 1 or 2 cores are active. This can send the voltage sky rocketing upward.
No I haven't locked the processor. Yes, I noticed that it goes to ~5100-5200 Mhz when running games. How can I lock the CPU to run at 4800 or 4900 Mhz? Could you please let me know what settings do I need to change in BIOS for that? (My BIOS screenshots are shared in the earlier comments)
 

Tito77

Commendable
Aug 19, 2019
34
1
1,535
Try using HWiNFO to confirm that HWMonitor is reading your voltage correctly.

This I would say is a good point and a good practice. Verify the readings with another utility and HWINFO is a good one. It's contantly maintained and debugged.
I have verified HWMonitor readings with HWINFO & both are more or less equal to each other.

In your first BIOS screenshot it says All Core near the top and then below that it says CPU Ratio and that is set to Auto
Thank you! I will try that! :)