i5-9400f Boost Problems

[TheFightingSquid]

This is my first post.  I have some problems with my i5-9400f.  The i5-9400f is rated with a boost clock at 4.1 Ghz (I believe this is single core).  However, my cpu never goes above 3.9 Ghz on any of its cores (they don't go below either because I set the high performance power plan).

 

Relevant Information:

I check the turbo of all cores while running Cinebench r20 (pictured below).  No core ever goes above 3.9 Ghz.  

I have an aftermarket cooler that keeps the processor pretty cool.

MEC has been disabled and enabled.

I have tried to lock the frequency by manually setting it to 4.1 Ghz in the BIOS.

I have increased the voltage.

^nothing changed any of my processor's boost behavior

 

Now for the stranger part.  I accepted that it might never boost, and tried to compensate with a BCLK overclock.  I set it to 101 to test stability, booted up, and ran the test again.

I got the exact same result!  The BCLK overclock had 0 effect on pushing my CPU above 3.9.

 

Follow up question.  When I increase the voltage, the CPU draws more watts (it went from 40 to 60) depending on what I set it at.  However, there was no performance gain at wither level.  Where is this power going?

[Jurrunio]

1. If you want to read CPU frequency, use CPU-Z

 

2. Turbo frequency as such

4,100 MHz (1 core), 4,000 MHz (2 cores), 4,000 MHz (3 cores), 4,000 MHz (4 cores), 3,900 MHz (5 cores), 3,900 MHz (6 cores)

 

so it's doing totally what it should be doing

[Mister Woof]

Agree to above.

 

Also, in my experience I don't think any Intel CPUs ever hit their single core boost speeds at stock settings.

 

Maybe in Cinebench single core benchmarks, but in any real app expect it to behave at all-core boost at best.

[Fasauceome]

7 minutes ago, TheFightingSquid said:

The i5-9400f is rated with a boost clock at 4.1 Ghz (I believe this is single core).  However, my cpu never goes above 3.9 Ghz on any of its cores

it's literally impossible to engage only a single core in windows. The task scheduler will always use 2 or more, making the single core turbo a bit of a fantasy

[TheFightingSquid]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

it's literally impossible to engage only a single core in windows. The task scheduler will always use 2 or more, making the single core turbo a bit of a fantasy

So basically, the "4.1 Ghz boost" that Intel advertises is nothing more than marketing?

[Mister Woof]

5 minutes ago, TheFightingSquid said:

So basically, the "4.1 Ghz boost" that Intel advertises is nothing more than marketing?

AMD is no different. They all do it. If you have a Z board and willing to do some OC, you can possibly bump up a tiny bit with BCLK overclocking. I got my 9400 to 4ghz all-core (well, close, like 3.98ghz).

 

But tbh we are talking a difference of 200mhz between 3.8 and 4.1; you can't really perceive this.

[Jurrunio]

20 minutes ago, TheFightingSquid said:

So basically, the "4.1 Ghz boost" that Intel advertises is nothing more than marketing?

More like the upper limit of what it can do, not the best it would do

[Fasauceome]

32 minutes ago, TheFightingSquid said:

So basically, the "4.1 Ghz boost" that Intel advertises is nothing more than marketing?

It can do it just fine, the problem is with windows

[Mister Woof]

14 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

It can do it just fine, the problem is with windows

It can probably do more too, but the problem there is with Intel locking shit down

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, Mister Woof said:

It can probably do more too, but the problem there is with Intel locking shit down

I mean, not everyone can afford the 9600K so Intel bins the cheaper 9400f

 

Even if it can do more, you only get what you pay for

[TheFightingSquid]

46 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

AMD is no different. They all do it. If you have a Z board and willing to do some OC, you can possibly bump up a tiny bit with BCLK overclocking. I got my 9400 to 4ghz all-core (well, close, like 3.98ghz).

 

But tbh we are talking a difference of 200mhz between 3.8 and 4.1; you can't really perceive this.

What are your BCLK overclock settings?  I'm going to try that again.

[TheFightingSquid]

I know it's 200 Mhz, but I've been pushing all my hardware as fast as it can go just because it is a hobby.

[Mister Woof]

2 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

I mean, not everyone can afford the 9600K so Intel bins the cheaper 9400f

 

Even if it can do more, you only get what you pay for

I'm just getting a bit tired of their draconian business models.

 

AMD has really spoiled all of us lately with the flexibility.

[Tristerin]

58 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

it's literally impossible to engage only a single core in windows. The task scheduler will always use 2 or more, making the single core turbo a bit of a fantasy

I haven't seen you post in forever, glad to see you (maybe Ive just missed your posts)

[Mister Woof]

2 minutes ago, TheFightingSquid said:

What are your BCLK overclock settings?  I'm going to try that again.

I just changed it to 102 and left it as is. Disabled all the power saving features as well. It's an ASRock Z370 Extreme 4. 

 

I didn't do a super intensive stress test, but my son hasn't complained of any freezing. He also only uses SATA SSDs so iirc this method of OC doesn't play very well with NVME drives.

 

Honestly, it's less than 100mhz and affects everything else on the system in potentially unwanted ways. It's not really worth it.

[Mister Woof]

Just now, Tristerin said:

I haven't seen you post in forever, glad to see you (maybe Ive just missed your posts)

I, too, was missing that handsome face around these parts.

[TheFightingSquid]

Thanks everyone.  It's a shame that Intel has a locked multiplier on non k processors.  

On a final note, cpu-z says 3.9 on every core through core 6.

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, TheFightingSquid said:

Thanks everyone.  It's a shame that Intel has a locked multiplier on non k processors.  

On a final note, cpu-z says 3.9 on every core through core 6.

does BCLK (CPU-Z calls it bus speed) go above 100MHz?

[TheFightingSquid]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

does BCLK (CPU-Z calls it bus speed) go above 100MHz?

Short answer - No.  However, it does fluctuate between 99.95 and 100.05 

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, TheFightingSquid said:

Short answer - No.  However, it does fluctuate between 99.95 and 100.05 

So it hasn't applied your BCLK overclock (I assume Z chipset board). Btw it's fluctuating because Spread Spectrum is enabled (to prevent EM interference... if you even have something to interfere with)

[TheFightingSquid]

12 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

So it hasn't applied your BCLK overclock (I assume Z chipset board). Btw it's fluctuating because Spread Spectrum is enabled (to prevent EM interference... if you even have something to interfere with)

That's what it looks like.  From my understanding, BCLK overclocking effects CPU and ram, but doesn't effect pcie lanes.

[Jurrunio]

4 minutes ago, TheFightingSquid said:

but doesn't effect pcie lanes.

Yes it does. This is not FSB back in the days when we still have independent north bridge and south bridge.

[Mister Woof]

14 minutes ago, TheFightingSquid said:

That's what it looks like.  From my understanding, BCLK overclocking effects CPU and ram, but doesn't effect pcie lanes.

They do, this is why NVME ssds and bclk OC apparently don't get along. Haven't personally tried it though.

[unclewebb]

4 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

it's literally impossible to engage only a single core in windows.

Some people might think that but it is not true.    

 

My laptop has a 4700MQ processor with the following specs when overclocked.

 

 

While running a single thread TS Bench test, ThrottleStop is reporting a multiplier of 35.97. 

 

 

In order for the multiplier to average a value that high, it must be using the 1 core 36 multiplier 97% of the time.  The other 3% of the time, it is probably using the 35 multiplier when 2 cores are active.  Many popular monitoring apps do not follow the Intel recommended monitoring procedure or worse than that, they put too big of a load on the CPU so they cannot accurately monitor what the CPU is doing. 

 

On non K CPUs, you need to have either the core C3, C6 or C7 C states enabled.  This is required so Intel's non K CPUs can use the highest turbo multipliers.  The package C states are optional.  The common advice in forums is to disable the C states.  This just prevents the non K CPUs from using their highest multipliers when they are lightly loaded.  

[SYPRACTION]

On 1/18/2020 at 1:54 AM, TheFightingSquid said:

This is my first post.  I have some problems with my i5-9400f.  The i5-9400f is rated with a boost clock at 4.1 Ghz (I believe this is single core).  However, my cpu never goes above 3.9 Ghz on any of its cores (they don't go below either because I set the high performance power plan).

 

Relevant Information:

I check the turbo of all cores while running Cinebench r20 (pictured below).  No core ever goes above 3.9 Ghz.  

I have an aftermarket cooler that keeps the processor pretty cool.

MEC has been disabled and enabled.

I have tried to lock the frequency by manually setting it to 4.1 Ghz in the BIOS.

I have increased the voltage.

^nothing changed any of my processor's boost behavior

 

Now for the stranger part.  I accepted that it might never boost, and tried to compensate with a BCLK overclock.  I set it to 101 to test stability, booted up, and ran the test again.

I got the exact same result!  The BCLK overclock had 0 effect on pushing my CPU above 3.9.

 

Follow up question.  When I increase the voltage, the CPU draws more watts (it went from 40 to 60) depending on what I set it at.  However, there was no performance gain at wither level.  Where is this power going?

I dunno how. I had the same problem. But after I disabled the other boot options and set fast boot on in my BIOS, the problem was fixed. Now, I get the 4.1 Ghz on all cores.