[SOLVED] What voltage does the Core i9-10900K CPU run on?

[LilAbner_45]

I've seen articles saying around 1.3V, and other articles saying as much as 1.5V. Don't know how much overclocking is involved. But those seem to be in the ballpark. Am I close?

Reason I'm asking is, my son and I are building up a Core-i9-10900K system. Our 850W power supply has 12V, 5V, 3.3V, and -12V. It has the usual power able with 24 pins that goes to the power socket on the motherboard. It also has a few extra cable that go to the "CPU Power" sockets near the CPU, an 8-pin Moleax and a 4-pin molex. But those cables that go to the "CPU power" sockets, carry only 12V!

It's not feeding 12V directly to the CPU power pins, is it? Or is there some kind of mondo voltage regulator on the motherboard that reduces the so-called "CPU Power" to 1.3 or 1.5 volts or so?

 

[Darkbreeze]

You're reading too much into it. It's information you don't need to know. ALL ATX motherboards use the same EPS 12v power connections for the auxiliary CPU power. Some use only a single four pin connection. Some use 2 x4 pin EPS. And a lot of newer boards have 3 x4pin EPS 12v connectors, which you can differentiate from the PCI connectors as they will actually be 4+4 pin, not 6+2 pin or 8 pin like the PCI/PEG power connections. They will say either "CPU" or "EPS" on the plug, cable or in some cases on the PSU itself.

For the 10900k you will WANT a power supply that HAS dual 4+4 pin EPS cables so that you can use all of one and half of the other. Normally, that is only required for high end overclocking, but with that i9 I believe you will definitely want it and might actually NEED it.

You will also want a very high quality unit, and right now, any power supply much less a good one, is incredibly hard to come by and outrageously expensive since very little product has made it's way here over the last three months from China while everybody and their brothers have been building new systems or upgrading while stuck at home.

What is the ACTUAL model of your power supply?

 

[CompuTronix]

... articles saying around 1.3V, and other articles saying as much as 1.5V ... those cables that go to the "CPU power" sockets, carry only 12V! ... It's not feeding 12V directly to the CPU power pins, is it? Or is there some kind of mondo voltage regulator on the motherboard that reduces the so-called "CPU Power" to 1.3 or 1.5 volts or so?

LilAbner_45,

It seems that what you're referring to is "Core" voltage, which is also called "Vcore".

The power supply (PSU) feeds +12 volts DC to the motherboard's Voltage Regulator Modules (VRMs) which are controlled by BIOS. The VRMs then supply the motherboard's socket pins with whatever Vcore level is necessary to assure that the processor can maintain stable operation. Specific Core voltage levels are determined according to various BIOS settings to support specific clock speed settings. These settings are pre-set at default values "out-of-the-box" but can be adjusted on "Z" motherboards to increase clock speed, which is, of course, "overclocking".

Since 5th through 10th generation processors are all 14 nanometer microarchitecture, they have a maximum recommended Vcore that differs from some of Intel's previous microarchitectures. Therefore, Vcore for your i9-10900K should never be set in BIOS to exceed 1.400 volts. Also, ideal Core temperature should not exceed 80°C. Detailed explanations and illustrations concerning Core voltage and Core temperature limits are located in our Intel Temperature Guide.

Here's an excellent guide written by my very esteemed colleague, Darkbreeze, which answers many questions you may have, regardless of whether or not you intend to overclock:

CPU overclocking guide and tutorial for beginners

CT

 

[Darkbreeze]

And that, 👆, is the information that I was saying you don't really "need to know", in order to resolve your question, but which is very good to know, in general.