9900K not boosting past 4.7ghz

[maizenblue]

I installed a 9900k with an asus Maximus hero XI and a noctua d15s and it was regularly boosting to 5ghz. I ended up doing a full windows reinstall. Downloaded new drivers and my GPU was performing slightly better but now my 9900k wont ever boost past 4.7ghz and my benchmarks are lower.

 

Temps are around the same. Slightly higher despite the lower clock speed, but still gets up to 72c running Cinebench r20 and time spy. Not high enough to be throttling my speeds though. Wondering what would have made my boost speed drop.

[Guest]

Did you use the chipset drivers Windows installed or from Asus?

[maizenblue]

3 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Did you use the chipset drivers Windows installed or from Asus?

I think I started out with Windows and then used Asus, with no difference. Ill look into it. Which are preferred?

[schwellmo92]

26 minutes ago, maizenblue said:

I think I started out with Windows and then used Asus, with no difference. Ill look into it. Which are preferred?

You should use the Intel chipset drivers. 4.7GHz is normal for R20, does it not go past 4.7GHz in Time Spy either?

[maizenblue]

15 minutes ago, schwellmo92 said:

You should use the Intel chipset drivers. 4.7GHz is normal for R20, does it not go past 4.7GHz in Time Spy either?

It is locked at 4.7 apparently. Not one core has gone above it for a second since my windows reinstall. Before that I could check hwmonitor at any time and one core or another would usually be boosting to 5ghz and it seemed like multple cores would be around 4.9.

[Guest]

Have you tried to clear cmos yet?

[schwellmo92]

18 minutes ago, maizenblue said:

It is locked at 4.7 apparently. Not one core has gone above it for a second since my windows reinstall. Before that I could check hwmonitor at any time and one core or another would usually be boosting to 5ghz and it seemed like multple cores would be around 4.9.

Try reset your BIOS?

[maizenblue]

11 hours ago, schwellmo92 said:

Try reset your BIOS?

I did hit f7 and put it back to defaults and the only change was it boosted from 4.7 to 4.728 or something. When i enabled xmp to put my Dram back at 3600mhz it went back down to 4.7.

[maizenblue]

11 hours ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Have you tried to clear cmos yet?

Havent. That would put my bios back at factory default right? Ive never done that before. 

[maizenblue]

I think im going to uninstall all this stupid asus AI suite bs. Its just too much, its ridiculous. They even put some idiotic sonic radar overlay in bf4 that was hard to get rid of. Its probably just slathered windows with bloat.

 

What about asus armoury crate? I dont even know wtf it is but it popped up asking me to install as soon as i reinstalled windows. I did thinking it had necessary drivers.

 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, maizenblue said:

Havent. That would put my bios back at factory default right? Ive never done that before. 

Yes. Defaults

[maizenblue]

23 hours ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Yes. Defaults

So for an update. I talked to Intel tech support. They basically said as long as it boosts beyond 3.6ghz it is working as intended and whether it boosts to 5ghz depends on the "silicon lottery". He did say it could also depend on the OS and other software and/or bios factors. 

 

That just sounds amazing to me. Intel just admitted that whether your CPU reaches their advertised clock speeds at stock settings depends on winning the silicon lottery. Not overclocking mind you, but simply stock speeds. They did suggest contacting ASUS and seeing if their motherboard or some driver issues are to blame, but ASUS tech support is virtually worthless at anything that isnt obvious. I did give it a quick try but lost patience after 20 plus minutes of getting nowhere with an employee that sounded like it was their first day on the job and who knew less about the motherboard than I did. 

 

So basically, if anyone is considering a 9900k, buyer beware. Its been suggested all the good performing 9900k's were used for the 9900KS, so you are not only likely to get one that is not only a poor overclocker, but wont even perform to advertised stock speeds.

[Ebony Falcon]

Make sure mce is enabled 

and you have high perf mode set in windows 

 

also try reflagging the old bios to see what happens 

 

 

[Touch My Hamm]

Update bios, clear cmos, use up to date drivers, make sure software is reading correctly, Check temps, use testing software like prime95 or software that would allow the cpu to boost up. If not hitting the speeds you want, if your motherboard allows it and cooling headroom try a bit of overclocking. Good Luck and I hope it works out for ya. 

[maizenblue]

2 hours ago, Ebony Falcon said:

Make sure mce is enabled 

and you have high perf mode set in windows 

 

also try reflagging the old bios to see what happens 

 

 

So I changed MCE from disabled to auto, and put windows in high perf mode. The CPU did boost to 5ghz after that. I ran cinebench and did score higher, but temps were also way higher. Every cpu core jumped in temp to the high 60s at least and stayed there the entire test, with a few going to mid 70s. In timespy my CPU score actually dropped significantly despite boosting to 5ghz. I dont know if that was something temp related or there was some throttling occuring. Max temps didnt exceed 70c.

 

Whats odd is before my windows reinstall I thought I had MCE disabled and it still boosted to 5ghz, but maybe I was wrong and it was on auto. My temps were way lower then despite it reaching 5ghz. 

 

This 9900k is a tricky one for sure. Im tempted to just leave MCE disabled and live with 4.7ghz, especially after my timespy score dropping, since gaming is the main reason I bought this cpu. Ill give it a shot in battlefield 1 and see if theres a noticeable performance diff and how temps are. 

 

Is MCE even considered overclocking? Is the term overclocking really just kind of semantics with modern processors and their boost technology?

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, maizenblue said:

So I changed MCE from disabled to auto, and put windows in high perf mode. The CPU did boost to 5ghz after that. I ran cinebench and did score higher, but temps were also way higher. Every cpu core jumped in temp to the high 60s at least and stayed there the entire test, with a few going to mid 70s. In timespy my CPU score actually dropped significantly despite boosting to 5ghz. I dont know if that was something temp related or there was some throttling occuring. Max temps didnt exceed 70c.

 

Whats odd is before my windows reinstall I thought I had MCE disabled and it still boosted to 5ghz, but maybe I was wrong and it was on auto. My temps were way lower then despite it reaching 5ghz. 

 

This 9900k is a tricky one for sure. Im tempted to just leave MCE disabled and live with 4.7ghz, especially after my timespy score dropping, since gaming is the main reason I bought this cpu. Ill give it a shot in battlefield 1 and see if theres a noticeable performance diff and how temps are. 

 

Is MCE even considered overclocking? Is the term overclocking really just kind of semantics with modern processors and their boost technology?

MCE tends to use more voltage than necessary. Best bet, keep it disabled and manually clock your cores.

 

You can boost cores individually (Core 0 always the highest) or all together. This helps you get some cores higher than others without pumping voltages. So for example, you could set cores 0 and 1 to 5ghz, 2 and 3 to 4.8ghz, the rest at 4.6ghz and probably be able to run 1.360v or less (give or take). 

 

70c is not a big deal. You want to stay low as possible, I limit any daily heavy processing to 85c. Not fond of higher temps than that, but is capable. 

 

Play around with it manually. Intel is better in this way IMO.

[unclewebb]

1 hour ago, ShrimpBrime said:

You can boost cores individually

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/186605/intel-core-i9-9900k-processor-16m-cache-up-to-5-00-ghz.html

 

That is not how Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 works.  Some monitoring software has users believing that individual cores can run at different speeds at the same time.  For the 9900K, that is not true.  All active cores at any moment in time are all using the exact same multiplier.  The multiplier that the CPU uses is based on how many cores are active.  The settings in the BIOS do not let you change the maximum multiplier for individual cores. 

 

@maizenblue  Uninstall AiSuite and Armoury Crate.  The Asus Maximus Hero has a rich, full featured BIOS.  Learn how to make adjustments in the BIOS.  Post some screenshots of your BIOS settings.

 

What do you want your CPU to do?  Do you want it to run at its default specs?  Do you want to overclock it or have all cores running at 5.0 GHz all of the time regardless of how many cores are active?  Do you want it to run slow when lightly loaded?  Explain exactly what you are trying to accomplish and someone familiar with your motherboard will have a better chance of being able to help you.  

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, unclewebb said:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/186605/intel-core-i9-9900k-processor-16m-cache-up-to-5-00-ghz.html

 

That is not how Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 works.  Some monitoring software has users believing that individual cores can run at different speeds at the same time.  For the 9900K, that is not true.  All active cores at any moment in time are all using the exact same multiplier.  The multiplier that the CPU uses is based on how many cores are active.  The settings in the BIOS do not let you change the maximum multiplier for individual cores. 

 

@maizenblue  Uninstall AiSuite and Armoury Crate.  The Asus Maximus Hero has a rich, full featured BIOS.  Learn how to make adjustments in the BIOS.  Post some screenshots of your BIOS settings.

 

What do you want your CPU to do?  Do you want it to run at its default specs?  Do you want to overclock it or have all cores running at 5.0 GHz all of the time regardless of how many cores are active?  Do you want it to run slow when lightly loaded?  Explain exactly what you are trying to accomplish and someone familiar with your motherboard will have a better chance of being able to help you.  

The Intel Turbo boost 2.0 get's over ridden while choosing user defined multipliers. This is a motherboard feature. 

 

You can select "per core" or "all core" or auto.....

[maizenblue]

13 hours ago, unclewebb said:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/186605/intel-core-i9-9900k-processor-16m-cache-up-to-5-00-ghz.html

 

That is not how Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 works.  Some monitoring software has users believing that individual cores can run at different speeds at the same time.  For the 9900K, that is not true.  All active cores at any moment in time are all using the exact same multiplier.  The multiplier that the CPU uses is based on how many cores are active.  The settings in the BIOS do not let you change the maximum multiplier for individual cores. 

 

@maizenblue  Uninstall AiSuite and Armoury Crate.  The Asus Maximus Hero has a rich, full featured BIOS.  Learn how to make adjustments in the BIOS.  Post some screenshots of your BIOS settings.

 

What do you want your CPU to do?  Do you want it to run at its default specs?  Do you want to overclock it or have all cores running at 5.0 GHz all of the time regardless of how many cores are active?  Do you want it to run slow when lightly loaded?  Explain exactly what you are trying to accomplish and someone familiar with your motherboard will have a better chance of being able to help you.  

I want it to run at default specs mainly. I bought it for gaming. I use it for other things obviously, but gaming is why i splurged on the cpu instead of just getting a cheap 2700x/mobo for nearly 1/4 of the price(which I kind of regret not doing now). What started me looking over clock speeds was that it seemed to be sluggish in battlefield 1. I had to check to make sure vsync wasnt on because thats how it felt,  and the FPS seemed slightly less than my 4790k i upgraded from. It was confusing, so thats when i started benchmarking, reinstalling windows and troubleshooting. You are right on the boost. I was looking at my clock speeds in hdmonitor and they are ALL pegged at 4.7ghz.

 

What threw me off is that in the brief time before i reinstalled windows I remember seeing the clock speed at 5ghz regularly when i looked in ai suite. Then after the reinstall it never got above 4.7. Maybe its optimized at 4.7 all cores now thanks to updated drivers instead of bouncing around with one core boosting up to 5ghz before the reinstall. My benchmarks are still low in cinebench and timespy, but maybe because im going on reviews on cpus from before they started binning for the 9900ks.

 

EDIT: The behavior of this cpu is just so consistently odd. Right now at default non OC settings with MCE disabled in bios its acting like I have an all core overclock. Because even at idle every core is pegged at 4.7ghz. Im wondering if ai suite isnt somehow doing an all core oc. I just use it for fan control. Might uninstall it again. 

[Ebony Falcon]

11 hours ago, maizenblue said:

I want it to run at default specs mainly. I bought it for gaming. I use it for other things obviously, but gaming is why i splurged on the cpu instead of just getting a cheap 2700x/mobo for nearly 1/4 of the price(which I kind of regret not doing now). What started me looking over clock speeds was that it seemed to be sluggish in battlefield 1. I had to check to make sure vsync wasnt on because thats how it felt,  and the FPS seemed slightly less than my 4790k i upgraded from. It was confusing, so thats when i started benchmarking, reinstalling windows and troubleshooting. You are right on the boost. I was looking at my clock speeds in hdmonitor and they are ALL pegged at 4.7ghz.

 

What threw me off is that in the brief time before i reinstalled windows I remember seeing the clock speed at 5ghz regularly when i looked in ai suite. Then after the reinstall it never got above 4.7. Maybe its optimized at 4.7 all cores now thanks to updated drivers instead of bouncing around with one core boosting up to 5ghz before the reinstall. My benchmarks are still low in cinebench and timespy, but maybe because im going on reviews on cpus from before they started binning for the 9900ks.

 

EDIT: The behavior of this cpu is just so consistently odd. Right now at default non OC settings with MCE disabled in bios its acting like I have an all core overclock. Because even at idle every core is pegged at 4.7ghz.

Double check task manager and make sure u have 8 cores and 16 threads enabled

[unclewebb]

15 hours ago, ShrimpBrime said:

The Intel Turbo boost 2.0 get's over ridden while choosing user defined multipliers.

The multipliers that the BIOS lets you select allows you to choose what multiplier your CPU will use based on how many cores are active.  The "all core" feature sets all of the turbo multipliers to the same value.  The ability to run individual cores at different speeds or different multipliers is only available when the CPU supports Turbo Boost 3.0.  The 9900K does not support that feature.

 

13 hours ago, maizenblue said:

Because even at idle every core is pegged at 4.7ghz.

Your Windows settings control this.  If you are using the Windows High Performance power profile and the Minimum and Maximum processor state are both set to 100% then your CPU will run at full speed even when your CPU is idle.  If you want your CPU to slow down when idle, you need to change this Windows setting.  Try using the Balanced power profile instead.

 

 

On 2/23/2020 at 11:02 AM, maizenblue said:

When i enabled xmp to put my Dram back at 3600mhz it went back down to 4.7.

Enabling XMP might have changed the turbo multipliers at the same time.  Use HWiNFO.  It will show you what your Turbo Ratio Limits are set to.  When using XMP, you might need to manually set the turbo multipliers in the BIOS.  If something used to work like the 50 multiplier and now it doesn't, you need to go back.  Disable XMP, boot up and see what HWiNFO reports for your turbo multipliers.  See if your 50 multiplier is being used.  Reboot, go back in the BIOS, enable XMP and test again.

 

The default turbo multipliers for the 9900K are 

50, 50, 50, 48, 48, 47, 47, 47

when 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 cores are active.

 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, unclewebb said:

The multipliers that the BIOS lets you select allows you to choose what multiplier your CPU will use based on how many cores are active.  The "all core" feature sets all of the turbo multipliers to the same value.  The ability to run individual cores at different speeds or different multipliers is only available when the CPU supports Turbo Boost 3.0.  The 9900K does not support that feature.

 

The default turbo multipliers for the 9900K are 

50, 50, 50, 48, 48, 47, 47, 47

when 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 cores are active.

 

Oh I understand better now, thank you.

[maizenblue]

23 hours ago, unclewebb said:

Your Windows settings control this.  If you are using the Windows High Performance power profile and the Minimum and Maximum processor state are both set to 100% then your CPU will run at full speed even when your CPU is idle.  If you want your CPU to slow down when idle, you need to change this Windows setting.  Try using the Balanced power profile instead.

Yep thats why they were all at 4.7. Disabling windows high performance made the clock speeds variable again. It does occassionally boost to 4.8 for a short time every once in a great while and has gotten to 4.9 once. Never 5ghz. 
 

Basically the boost speed is 4.7 at stock for all intents and purposes. So i basically paid 325 dollars over a 3700x set up for an extra 300mhz clock speed. Yay intel.  

[unclewebb]

@maizenblue A lot of monitoring apps do not follow the Intel recommended monitoring method.  Some popular apps are are not very accurate at reporting Intel Turbo Boost, especially when the CPU is rapidly switching tasks between cores while cores are rapidly entering and exiting various C states.  If you want to see what your Intel CPU is really doing, give ThrottleStop a try.  Its multiplier reporting is second to none.

ThrottleStop 8.70.6

https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-throttlestop/

 

It will show you what your Turbo Ratio Limits are set to so you can compare to the Intel specs.  Try running the built TS Bench benchmark and set it to 1 Thread.  This will give you a better idea of whether your CPU is using the 50 multiplier or not.  Turn off your other monitoring apps while testing.  Some of them keep multiple cores overly active and can interfere with your CPU running at its full turbo rated speed.

 

Here is an example from a 4th Gen laptop CPU.  The 4700MQ can use the 36 multiplier when one core is active.  ThrottleStop has no problem showing that the CPU is using the highest multiplier for the majority of the time during a single thread test.

 

 

If you ever get bored running your CPU at its default specs, try setting all of the turbo multipliers to 50.  AMD might be offering more bang for the buck at the moment but there is definitely nothing wrong with a 9900K running at 5.0 GHz.  

 

 

[maizenblue]

57 minutes ago, unclewebb said:

@maizenblue A lot of monitoring apps do not follow the Intel recommended monitoring method.  Some popular apps are are not very accurate at reporting Intel Turbo Boost, especially when the CPU is rapidly switching tasks between cores while cores are rapidly entering and exiting various C states.  If you want to see what your Intel CPU is really doing, give ThrottleStop a try.  Its multiplier reporting is second to none.

ThrottleStop 8.70.6

https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-throttlestop/

 

It will show you what your Turbo Ratio Limits are set to so you can compare to the Intel specs.  Try running the built TS Bench benchmark and set it to 1 Thread.  This will give you a better idea of whether your CPU is using the 50 multiplier or not.  Turn off your other monitoring apps while testing.  Some of them keep multiple cores overly active and can interfere with your CPU running at its full turbo rated speed.

 

Here is an example from a 4th Gen laptop CPU.  The 4700MQ can use the 36 multiplier when one core is active.  ThrottleStop has no problem showing that the CPU is using the highest multiplier for the majority of the time during a single thread test.

 

 

If you ever get bored running your CPU at its default specs, try setting all of the turbo multipliers to 50.  AMD might be offering more bang for the buck at the moment but there is definitely nothing wrong with a 9900K running at 5.0 GHz.  

 

 

Thanks. As much as I have buyers remorse for getting a 9900k, I did have sound reasons why I went with it over AMD initially. AMD still hasnt solved the memory latencey issues completely with Ryzen and this is reflected in some aspects of its performance, and seems like it would always be a small handicap vs intel with this generation of ryzen. The 3700x-3900x also still has lower IPC compared to Intel. I've seen tests at 4ghz with Ryzen 3000 vs Intel that still show intel beating them handily, so its not JUST clock speed. 

 

The buyers remorse comes from the fact I spent WAY more on a mobo than I planned when I already commited to intel and bought the 9900k. The lower mid range mobos just all had their fatal flaws so I was kind of stuck getting an expensive higher end one. Ryzen on the other hand has a couple good lower mid range mobos that would have been perfectly fine with a 3700x. In hindsight its just not remotely worth what I paid. Lesson learned.

 

The second reason is I suspect I really just did get a bad batch of silicon with my particular 9900k. Boost speeds aside, It just benchmarks a lot lower than others Ive seen in things like cinebench and timespy at stock settings. I've done so much messing with windows, bios and other things short of OCing that I think thats just the straw I drew. My Cinebench scores are particularly crappy, despite some fairly high speed memory, a good CPU cooler and a high quality motherboard.