Is my CPU thermal throttling?

[Matt505]

Hey! 

 

I've recently noticed some framerate drops in my games, firstly with Assassins Creed Origins, then Odyssey. These games were not having framerate drops a few months back, though it is substantially warmer here now

 

The drops seem associated with an increase in CPU fan speed, followed by the fan speed immediately dropping. I've done some analysis with MSI afterburner (see the pic attached). It seems that the CPU temps drop all the sudden, and this is associated with a CPU clock drop, i.e; framerate drop. 

 

I assume this is thermal throttling, and the purchase of a new cooling system would be the solution (I currently do not have the best cooler ever). But just wasted to check! 

 

Cheers guys! 

CPU is a Intel 17 - 6700K, GPU is a 1070. 

 

[Skiiwee29]

Temps are hitting 91c... thats definitely indicative of inducing thermal throttling. 

[boey]

Have you tried reapplying thermal paste? It could help slightly. I had some preapplied paste from Dell on my prebuilt, I swapped the paste out for some Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut and I went from 85-90C under load to around 70. I swapped the cooler to a Cryorig H7 and now I barely touch 60C under load.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

i honestly wouldn't use that machine for anything heavy until you fix the cooling... for the cpu and mobo's sake...

[schwellmo92]

41 minutes ago, Skiiwee29 said:

Temps are hitting 91c... thats definitely indicative of inducing thermal throttling. 

Incorrect, thermal throttling wont start till 100-105c.

 

A 6700K will have noticeable frame drops in certain spots on AC, it's a CPU heavy game.

[SkilledRebuilds]

Games located on a non-defragged HDD?

You'd be surprised..

[Matt505]

On 1/6/2019 at 5:33 PM, _d0nut said:

Have you tried reapplying thermal paste? It could help slightly. I had some preapplied paste from Dell on my prebuilt, I swapped the paste out for some Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut and I went from 85-90C under load to around 70. I swapped the cooler to a Cryorig H7 and now I barely touch 60C under load.

I've also heard of conductonaut? The liquid METAL variety...does it have much gain over the conductonaut thermal paste?

[seon123]

25 minutes ago, Matt505 said:

I've also heard of conductonaut? The liquid METAL variety...does it have much gain over the conductonaut thermal paste?

You don't use liquid metal TIM between the IHS and the heatsink. It will just get absorbed into the copper, so you'll have to reapply it all the time. 

It's used between the die and the IHS, where you'll see a few degrees gain. 

[boey]

2 hours ago, Matt505 said:

I've also heard of conductonaut? The liquid METAL variety...does it have much gain over the conductonaut thermal paste?

Liquid metal tends to only be used between a CPU heat spreader(the metal bit of the cpu) and the actual die itself, so you have to delid the cpu(which is pretty dangerous and voids your warranty).

 

Also it is used between a GPU cooler and GPU die to improve performance. The downside is that liquid metal is electrically conductive, and is pretty runny at room temperature. If it somehow spills onto something that has an electric current running through it, whether it’s on a GPU or CPU, it would short the system and fry your parts.

 

It is generally not recommended to apply liquid metal on anything unless you really know what you’re doing.

 

For now, stick to Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. It is one of the best non-conductive thermal pastes out there, but is a little more expensive than something like Arctic MX-4.

 

By the way, what cooler are you using? For an example of how effective a repaste and cheap cooler upgrade is, I had an Alienware prebuilt with a Stock Intel heatsink and an i5-8400. It had really low quality thermal paste too. I switched to a Cryorig H7 and repasted with kryonaut, and i see temps drop from all case and cpu fans at 100% with CPU at 85C under load, to all case fans and cpu fans at 50% with the CPU barely touching 60C under load.

[Matt505]

11 hours ago, _d0nut said:

Liquid metal tends to only be used between a CPU heat spreader(the metal bit of the cpu) and the actual die itself, so you have to delid the cpu(which is pretty dangerous and voids your warranty).

 

Also it is used between a GPU cooler and GPU die to improve performance. The downside is that liquid metal is electrically conductive, and is pretty runny at room temperature. If it somehow spills onto something that has an electric current running through it, whether it’s on a GPU or CPU, it would short the system and fry your parts.

 

It is generally not recommended to apply liquid metal on anything unless you really know what you’re doing.

 

For now, stick to Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. It is one of the best non-conductive thermal pastes out there, but is a little more expensive than something like Arctic MX-4.

 

By the way, what cooler are you using? For an example of how effective a repaste and cheap cooler upgrade is, I had an Alienware prebuilt with a Stock Intel heatsink and an i5-8400. It had really low quality thermal paste too. I switched to a Cryorig H7 and repasted with kryonaut, and i see temps drop from all case and cpu fans at 100% with CPU at 85C under load, to all case fans and cpu fans at 50% with the CPU barely touching 60C under load.

Sweet, I'll try out Kryonaut. 

 

I got my PC about 3 years ago before I knew much about PC's (I've built several high end ones for mates in the years since), so I got a corsair prebuilt mini ITX system, that came with a SSF HF Liquid cooler. With the knowledge I have now, I never would have got that, and would've got an ATX tower haha! 

 

My aim is to see if the thermal paste makes much difference, and if not, I'll upgrade to a new case (current one sucks for airflow and cannot put any more fans in past stock config) and cooling solution. Plus, I'll still have the good paste to apply again regardless! 

 

If all that fails, then it's probably just the CPU showing it's age...in which case I may just do a larger upgrade (what a shame  ) 

[boey]

1 hour ago, Matt505 said:

Sweet, I'll try out Kryonaut. 

 

I got my PC about 3 years ago before I knew much about PC's (I've built several high end ones for mates in the years since), so I got a corsair prebuilt mini ITX system, that came with a SSF HF Liquid cooler. With the knowledge I have now, I never would have got that, and would've got an ATX tower haha! 

 

My aim is to see if the thermal paste makes much difference, and if not, I'll upgrade to a new case (current one sucks for airflow and cannot put any more fans in past stock config) and cooling solution. Plus, I'll still have the good paste to apply again regardless! 

  

If all that fails, then it's probably just the CPU showing it's age...in which case I may just do a larger upgrade (what a shame  ) 

If you are not planning to OC, then a Cryorig H7 will be the best bang for your buck(Think Hyper 212 Evo is more expensive or something, but it performs worse).

 

If you are planning to OC, You could get a be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4(assuming your RAM is below 40mm in height according to their website) or Noctua NH-D15(colours are much uglier than be quiet's counterpart, and RAM height limit is 32mm). Both perform on par with many 240mm AIOs and are much much quieter, since AIOs rely on high static pressure fans for performance and those fans can get pretty loud.

 

If you want to OC and your RAM is too tall for the be quiet Dark Rock Pro 4/Noctua NH-D15, then an AIO is probably your best bet.

 

Note that thermal grizzly kryonaut comes in 1g tubes and 5.55g tubes. I used a 1g tube of kryonaut for 1 application and about 1/4-1/3 of the tube is used. You won't have many tries for repasting with the 1g tube.

 

It's possible that your liquid cooler's coolant has evaporated slightly, causing air pockets to form which can decrease cooling capability. Maybe your radiator is dusty? I had a friend who had a mini ITX build in a Silverstone Sugo SG13, his radiator and front dust filter was literally filled to the absolute brim with dust bunnies. I used nearly the entire can of compressed air to clean it up, since his i5-3570k at stock was consistently going up to 95-100C under load. After cleaning the radiator and fans, draining the loop+refilling it with distilled water, and replacing the thermal paste with Arctic MX-4, he now is able to overclock the CPU to 4.5GHz and stays around 70-80C under load. If you have spare time you could probably clean that AIO and sell it for a little bit of cash

 

[Matt505]

Hey! 

 

I chucked in kyronaut and saw a massive improvement in temps! So that's cool. I am still getting occasional drops in framerate though (much less frequently). It is correlated with a drop in CPU clock, and GPU usage - which occur together. Any ideas!?

[X_X]

On 1/6/2019 at 1:23 PM, Matt505 said:

The drops seem associated with an increase in CPU fan speed, followed by the fan speed immediately dropping. I've done some analysis with MSI afterburner (see the pic attached). It seems that the CPU temps drop all the sudden, and this is associated with a CPU clock drop, i.e; framerate drop.

 

That is not CPU temperature throttling. Your CPU speed is being slam dunked to 800MHz which is indicative of Bi-Directional PROCHOT being activated. This is usually connected to the VRHOT line from your VRM. IOW the VRM / MOSFETs are getting too hot. Provide them better cooling and/or limit CPU power consumption through PL1 / PL2. While power throttling will reduce the CPU ratio it shouldn't be a whole lot if correctly set.

[Matt505]

On 2/11/2019 at 8:03 PM, X_X said:

 

That is not CPU temperature throttling. Your CPU speed is being slam dunked to 800MHz which is indicative of Bi-Directional PROCHOT being activated. This is usually connected to the VRHOT line from your VRM. IOW the VRM / MOSFETs are getting too hot. Provide them better cooling and/or limit CPU power consumption through PL1 / PL2. While power throttling will reduce the CPU ratio it shouldn't be a whole lot if correctly set.

I reduced my voltage to the CPU (as there's no better cooling solution in current ITX case), and there is no throttling at all! No reduction in gaming quality either. This, combined with the new thermal compound should let me survive a little longer until an upgrade! Cheers all!