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The original was posted on /r/intel by /u/AristotelesQC on 2023-12-21 17:33:38+00:00.
Original Title: I set my 14900K power limits to 125 W (PL1 = PL2) following TechPowerUp and Puget Systems articles and wow, it's almost as fast in 99% of scenarios I encounter, it runs cool and my fans are nearly silent with a slight undervolt. This is now my daily driver!
The performance difference in my creative apps I use professionally (Capture One and Photoshop, mostly) is negligible. I also do some occasional gaming at 4K with a 3080 Ti and the performance there is negligible too, especially since my main monitor is 60Hz and I cap it in most games anyway.
I ran a few Cinebench tests (sorry, no screenshots) and I had scores around 1800-1900, while my best score was around 2200 at the "stock" 280 W PL1 power limit on my motherboard. Running a Linpack 2021 stress test in OCCT gives me core temps of around 50 C, according to HWiNFO64. With the default "optimized" profile from my motherboard, I had temps in the high 80s, low 90s.
All in all, for a 224 % power reduction I get at worse a 22 % penalty in heavy all-core multithreaded AVX2 workloads that I pretty much almost never run anyway, while I get near zero loss of performance in single or more lightly threaded applications (most of my usage).
I also get about a reduction of 80 % in heat, which translates to silence, noise being much neglected variable when discussing CPU performance IMO. I set all of my case and radiator fans to 50 % baseline, where they are barely audible, then they ramp up quickly from 51 % at 60 C to 100 % at 70 C but that almost never happens. Restricting the PL2 (and not just the PL1) limit to 125 W also means that I don't have temperature spikes following a boost that would cause a quick fan ramp up.
For those interested, here are my CPU settings in XTU (I could set those in the BIOS too, but since I can't save profiles on my mobo and I had to clear the CMOS a handful of times after trying various RAM overclocks, I much prefer the software route).
- First, I set my motherboard to its lowest OC profile (because all "default" profiles are some kind of "tweaking" or overclocking), which is "Spec Enhance" with my Gigabyte board.
- I then loaded the default profile in XTU, which changed a few things from the base motherboard, but it was close enough. This is to get a starting point at the base Intel spec.
Now, the settings I tweaked:
- Turbo Boost Power Max (PL1): 125,000 W
- Turbo Boost Short Power Max (PL2): 125,000 W
- Core Voltage Offset: -0,035 V (I'm still trying to lower this, but so far I've had good stability with 35 mV)
- Processor Core IccMax: 307,00 A (This was unlocked by default but I read that the 14900K specs are rated at 307 A max, so I set this limit). XTU sometimes tells me that I get current throttling, but it doesn't happen frequently. I guess it still helps slightly with the overall temps.
- AVX2 Ratio Offset: 0,0x. I don't want to gimp my CPU any further since I am already limiting its max current, max power, ad undervolting it.
And that's pretty much it!
Here are some relevant specs of my PC, because I guess these matter too when it comes to temps and stability:
- Corsair Carbide Series Air 540 case with the stock fans stripped out of it
- Corsair HX1500i power supply (below 50 % load its fan turns off, this is a great feature)
- 3x 120 mm front intake fans, 1x 140 mm rear exhaust fan, all Noctua
- Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite X Wifi 7 motherboard
- 14900K CPU (of course) with the Thermalright LGA 1700 contact frame and Arctic MX-6 thermal paste applied on it (cake frosting method)
- Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 AIO, mounted on top in its default push configuration
- 2x 48 GB Corsair Dominator Titanium 6600 DDR5 running at 6800 with the "XMP 2" profile
- MSI 3080 Ti Gaming X 12G (very silent GPU, pairs well with the rest of my system)
Links to the articles mentioned in the title :
Intel Core i9-14900K Raptor Lake Tested at Power Limits Down to 35 W - Temperatures | TechPowerUp
Power Draw and Cooling: Intel Core 14th Gen Processors | Puget Systems