Gigabyte Z390 M Gaming build with working NVRAM

[aliengfx]

Personally, I don't like setting LLC too high. It causes a lot of overshoot when CPU is under load and power consumption gets really high.

I suggest trying CPU multiplier 49 and see if the system is stable. If yes, you probably need more voltage to get it stable 50.

Perfect, I'll try now and I'll let you know. Thank you.

 

[tedyun]

Thank you for your answer, so far I've:

1. Set XMP to Profile 1
2. Disabled Enhance Multi Core Performance
3. Disabled Vt-d
4. Set LLC to Turbo
5. Set CPU Base Clock to 100 MHz
6. Set CPU Multiplier to 50
7. Set CPU Vcore to 1.300

Do you think should I try with a different LLC setting?

I'll defer to PC's advice here, but for my rig (the related GB Z390 Gaming X), I enabled Enhanced Multi-core performance.

The other thing I did was to initially set CPU Vcore at auto, and then when running benchmarks, you can use HWMonitorSMC2 to look at how much voltage your CPU is drawing at max load. For me, my optimal setting was 1.45V at 50. I was never able to get it to go higher than 50 though, even when cranking the voltage. At a certain point, the machine starts to throttle if the voltages are too high.

 

[nottooshabby]

If you set the set CPU Multiplier to 50, Does that force all cores to 50, or do you have to go in and set the turbo ratio to 50 for all 8 cores?

I am having good luck overclocking my i9 even with my marginal cooler. These instructions seem to work for me.

9900K @ 5Ghz 1.2V guide Gigabyte Z390 Master

I feel when it comes to overclocking, people think they should increase as many settings as possible, which produces more heat from the motherboard and CPU, which is not great, especially for a 24/7 OC. I use an Offset and speed shift for when I don't need all the performance (Typically when...

www.overclockers.co.uk

I am using the Power Saving load line and Low Vcore loadline calibration.

CPU Vcore set to "Normal" which unlocks the Dynamic Vcore which I have at -0.015. I also enabled speed shift.

My best Geekbench is now 1380/9059. Temps are hitting 80C max. Idle is still around 27C.

 

[pastrychef]

I'll defer to PC's advice here, but for my rig (the related GB Z390 Gaming X), I enabled Enhanced Multi-core performance.

The other thing I did was to initially set CPU Vcore at auto, and then when running benchmarks, you can use HWMonitorSMC2 to look at how much voltage your CPU is drawing at max load. For me, my optimal setting was 1.45V at 50. I was never able to get it to go higher than 50 though, even when cranking the voltage. At a certain point, the machine starts to throttle if the voltages are too high.

Wow. 1.45v is VERY high. Which LLC setting do you use?

On my older stepping i9-9900K:
I get 5.0GHz with 1.29v and LLC level at High.
I can get 5.1GHz with 1.33v and LLC at Turbo. But in the summer months, this caused the CPU to run too hot when under load for my taste.

On my newer stepping i9-9900K:
I tried using the same settings as my older 9900K but it was extremely unstable and needed considerably more voltage. I stopped testing when it went too far for my taste and I'm currently running it at stock speeds. I'll test more as time permits.

 

[pastrychef]

If you set the set CPU Multiplier to 50, Does that force all cores to 50, or do you have to go in and set the turbo ratio to 50 for all 8 cores?

I am having good luck overclocking my i9 even with my marginal cooler. These instructions seem to work for me.

9900K @ 5Ghz 1.2V guide Gigabyte Z390 Master

I feel when it comes to overclocking, people think they should increase as many settings as possible, which produces more heat from the motherboard and CPU, which is not great, especially for a 24/7 OC. I use an Offset and speed shift for when I don't need all the performance (Typically when...

www.overclockers.co.uk

I am using the Power Saving load line and Low Vcore loadline calibration.

CPU Vcore set to "Normal" which unlocks the Dynamic Vcore which I have at -0.015. I also enabled speed shift.

My best Geekbench is now 1380/9059. Temps are hitting 80C max. Idle is still around 27C.

I never had much luck with adaptive voltage. Maybe I'll give it another try since I'm now on a different version of BIOS...

Here are my Geekbench results with 5.0GHz with Safari running and Intel Power Gadget installed (I have found that having Intel Power Gadget installed shaves about 100-200 points off Geekbench multicore score.)


Here are my idle temps (in Fahrenheit).

Here are my temps towards the very end of a Cinebench r23 run. (Btw, I got ~13500 multicore score):

 

[tedyun]

Wow. 1.45v is VERY high. Which LLC setting do you use?

On my older stepping i9-9900K:
I get 5.0GHz with 1.29v and LLC level at High.
I can get 5.1GHz with 1.33v and LLC at Turbo. But in the summer months this caused the CPU to run too hot when under load for my taste.

On my newer stepping i9-9900K:
I tried using the same settings as my older 9900K but it was extremely unstable and needed considerably more voltage. I stopped testing when it went too far for my taste and I'm currently running it at stock speeds. I'll test more as time permits.

I'm using LLC - Turbo, based on our earlier discussion. I think you mentioned with the latest BIOS for the Z390M Gaming, it allowed you to go down to High. With my Gaming X, when I switched to the latest BIOS that had the similar adjustments, it borked my RAM such that I couldn't run it at the rated speed (DDR4 - 3600).

I'll try LLC at High, but I think using the Auto voltages, it was still drawing around 1.45V under load.

I was reading somewhere that the 9900K's were built to allow for these high voltages and overclocking. I haven't messed with it in a while. Maybe I'll try bringing it down.

 

[pastrychef]

I'm using LLC - Turbo, based on our earlier discussion. I think you mentioned with the latest BIOS for the Z390M Gaming, it allowed you to go down to High. With my Gaming X, when I switched to the latest BIOS that had the similar adjustments, it borked my RAM such that I couldn't run it at the rated speed (DDR4 - 3600).

I'll try LLC at High, but I think using the Auto voltages, it was still drawing around 1.45V under load.

I was reading somewhere that the 9900K's were built to allow for these high voltages and overclocking. I haven't messed with it in a while. Maybe I'll try bringing it down.

I suspect that you should be able to bring the Vcore much lower with manual settings.

 

[tedyun]

I suspect that you should be able to bring the Vcore much lower with manual setting

I think you're right! I'm now at 1.35V, with LLC at High and my scores are much better. The temps are better too, so maybe I'm not getting as much throttling...

This is at 5.0GHz

 

[fFour]

I tried following the tweaktown z390 overclocking guide but wasn’t able to set the vcore manually (away from Auto) without crashing windows (by merely launching Firefox for example, long before opening and running Prime95 and HWmonitor), with or without XMP enabled. It seemed like any attempt at manually setting the vcore always caused crash, which sounds wrong from what I’m reading from others.

I found that leaving vcore to Auto and setting LLC to Turbo that I could overclock to 4.9 and run Prime95 indefinitely, seemed stable. 5.0 worked but my gigantic 5700 XT gets hot right next to my cpu cooler so I felt 4.9 was maybe a little safer. But I notice the BIOS reports a high voltage for cpu on right side of pic. System is very stable on Windows and Catalina, but is that Auto voltage for vcore no good in your opinion?

 

[tedyun]

I tried following the tweaktown z390 overclocking guide but wasn’t able to set the vcore manually (away from Auto) without crashing windows (by merely launching Firefox for example, long before opening and running Prime95 and HWmonitor), with or without XMP enabled. It seemed like any attempt at manually setting the vcore always caused crash, which sounds wrong from what I’m reading from others.

I found that leaving vcore to Auto and setting LLC to Turbo that I could overclock to 4.9 and run Prime95 indefinitely, seemed stable. 5.0 worked but my gigantic 5700 XT gets hot right next to my cpu cooler so I felt 4.9 was maybe a little safer. But I notice the BIOS reports a high voltage for cpu on right side of pic. System is very stable on Windows and Catalina, but is that Auto voltage for vcore no good in your opinion?

From what I read (and this is all anecdotal from overclockers) was that the Auto setting basically lets the BIOS go wide open with the voltages, so it will over shoot the minimum amount required by the CPU. I used HWMonitorSMC2 (other apps will work too) to monitor the voltages being applied during the benchmarks, and under the Auto Vcore, the voltage would top out at > 1.4V. So I ended up setting it at 1.45V manually and it seemed to be pretty stable.

But I was also trying to hit 5.1 GHz, and I could never achieve that. I think I just ended up leaving it at 1.45V.

With PC's advice though, I revisited that and by adjusting down the voltage I'm getting better benchmarks! I've seemed to hit the floor at 1.35V for 5.0 GHz but I will keep testing in the 0.05V increments.