Cooling the 9900KS

[Diet]

Hey Everyone, I've been trying to keep my 9900KS cool on stock settings without much success and I figured I'd throw it out to the community for suggestions if anyone's interested/willing to read the book of a post below:

 

Here's a profile of the system:

ASRock Z390 PHANTOM GAMING X ( Link to manual I've been using )

i9-9900KS (Stock 4.0GHz, 5.0 GHz Boost)

Noctua NH-D15 SSO2 D-Type Premium CPU Cooler, NF-A15 x 2 PWM Fans

CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 128GB (4 x 32GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2666

GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2070 Super GAMING OC 3X 8G

EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G+

(System was primarily built for light gaming, with the large ram amount for video/audio editing on the side and research/data analysis work I do for my school that eats 90gb of ram like candy, and that's with it being limited to that)

 

The issue I've been running into since I built the system is the temperatures while rendering videos/compiling analysis, pretty much anything that runs 100% cpu usage, (or if I do any synthetic benchmarks, but I don't really care if it can do those). While doing a handbrake render the CPU quickly reaches 100C+ (as high as 114C) before I quickly stop it before the whole thing catches on fire. During which the package TDP peaks at 260W-290W and a vccore as high as 1.45V (keep in mind this is all with the defaults bios settings). My idles are generally good (37C-43C), and lighter loads like gaming it only see 60C to low-mid 70Cs.

 

I've reseated the cooler nearly a dozen times now, with 3 different paste (Noctua NT-H1, Arctic Silver 5, and Corsair TM30) using various amounts just to make sure that wasn't the issue (ultimately the NT-H1 with a generous small X-shape amount seemed "best", but still very hot under load).

 

I've been playing with a variety of tuning settings, my initial thought was to undervolt it a bit and lock the Vcore down, however it wouldn't boot stableish (into windows, but errors in rendors or blue screen within ten minutes) until about 1.37, but running it in adaptive mode with a -0.04V (40mv) offset let me run at a much lower average Vcore with peaks around 1.40. I tried just locking it at a high 1.39, which it was seemingly stable at, but didn't really help the temperature problem (no surprise at that voltage).

 

My current "fix" is I've set the IccMax to 190A, and the boost power max to 200W. However It (expectantly) hard limits on the EDP current and drops to 4.5GHz-4.75GHz as soon as the render starts, but this lets me at least keep it around 85C for the duration so it doesn't melt out of the socket. While it's clocked down due to the 190A IccMax EDP throttle the package TDP is at about 165W, vcore jumping around 1.2-1.3, but at an average of 4.65GHz and it's still ~85C under full rendering load. Which would all be fine, if it was at 5GHz, at those settings it's essentially running at stock 9900K tuning, but for much higher heat than I've seen other people report.

 

I'll be honest, I'm not much of an overclocker, there's probably a bunch of errors I made above, I've just been trying to resolve this heat issue through research as best as possible and am running out of options other than "well, that sucks, guess the chip just can't run defaults without overheating" (I know "defaults" is a relative term with enthusiast hardware, but right now I can't even boost 5GHz under full load for 5 seconds without risk of damage as it skyrockets above 100C despite the settings I've tried).

 

Is there any way to improve this? Would an AIO or custom water loop be the only solution? Would that even help? Is this expected or did I just hard lose the bin lottery on a chip that's supposed to be cherry picked? Maybe this is all expected and it's like that by design, and I'm just expecting way too much out of it, I'd like to be able to not have it throttling though under normal full loads if possible. If I have to have it throttle to survive, is it better to throttle on EDP Current or Power Max Wattage? Or something else entirely?

[Diet]

11 minutes ago, BlueScope819 said:

I have a great solution for you. Instead of spending $500 on a custom loop, which is basically the only way you can keep it cool, buy a 3900x and keep using your cooler.

Fun idea, but that would cost significantly more than even a fancy $500 custom loop if I wanted to get a comparable motherboard to go with it. Also doesn't really answer any of the questions I posted, well except that you're maybe suggesting a custom water loop could be better, so that's something!

Grasping at straws here, it's been a frustrating week.

[jones177]

I have a i9 9900k at 5ghz all cores using 1.27v and uses 142 watts under load.

It idles at around 32c.

 

If you are going up to 1.45v you are using some sort of multicore enhancement. 

My advice is to use an XMP profile for you ram and disable multicore enhancement.

 

Then look for a manual overclocking tutorial for your board.

[Diet]

2 minutes ago, BlueScope819 said:

As in sell your 9900ks and board and buy one for your Ryzen 9. You may actually be up on the deal in terms of cost. It's unfortunate that you fell for the 9900 keep spending. The thing about Ryzen is that you don't need a fancy motherboard to avoid burning your VRMs into a paste, you can get a high end B450 board and have all the features you want. You could get this:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XQgzK8/asus-rog-strix-b450-f-gaming-atx-am4-motherboard-strix-b450-f-gaming

With the CPU:

https://www.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-3900X-24-Thread-Processor/dp/B07SXMZLP9/

For like $550 and you can sell your 9900ks for $700...

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=9900ks&_sacat=0&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1

You get 4 extra cores out of the deal while making $200 not counting your current motherboard which you can sell for even more profit. Ryzen 4000 is coming soon, so you can upgrade in the future if you want more single thread. If you end up switching after B550 comes out get a high end B550 instead.

 

Honestly if I was going to do all that (and good luck not getting charge-backed on ebay on a used processor, that sounds like a nightmare), I'd at least wait till the 4000 series is out (which I may still do). For right now though I'm just looking for some solutions that aren't "start over with different hardware".

 

  

2 minutes ago, jones177 said:

I have a i9 9900k at 5ghz all cores using 1.27v and uses 142 watts under load.

It idles at around 32c.

 

If you are going up to 1.45v you are using some sort of multicore enhancement. 

My advice is to use an XMP profile for you ram and disable multicore enhancement.

 

Then look for a manual overclocking tutorial for your board.

 

I definitely have multicore enhancement turned off (it's actually off by default thankfully). I was using the XMP profile to begin with, I considered that as my "default" before I did anything at the beginning when I first built it. I ended up running hotter with XMP enabled (at idle, medium load, and high load, well, high load just spiked like anything else).

 

I feel like even though I have MCE disabled, it's somehow not disabled, but I just checked in the bios to make sure. Is there any other way to tell? It shows up as a feature in XTU, but I don't think that means it's enabled.

 

I'll keep looking for information on the board, unfortunately it seems to not be very popular compared to their "taichi" line.

 

[jones177]

10 hours ago, BlueScope819 said:

That's probably what it is, but what I'm saying is he can make $200 by switching to Ryzen 9 and it would be way faster for his workload. A 9900k is way overpriced for what is is, a 9900 keep spending even more so, look at eBay.

The OP has a problem and maybe for them changing platforms could be a solution but I know that an i9 9900k can run cool even overclocked. All my Intel CPUs run cool even at 5.1ghz.  

I have had Intel CPUs run hot in the past and it is usually the fault the motherboard. My i7 6700k did nothing but throttle when I first got it but through it I learned about VRMs and cooling solutions. It now idles in the high 20s because it now has a motherboard with better VRMs and a better cooling solution.   

 

I also don't think the OP should give up. You learn less that way.

[Zberg]

10 hours ago, Diet said:

Honestly if I was going to do all that (and good luck not getting charge-backed on ebay on a used processor, that sounds like a nightmare), I'd at least wait till the 4000 series is out (which I may still do). For right now though I'm just looking for some solutions that aren't "start over with different hardware".

Man that really doesn't make great sense, as its supposed to be binned higher.  I got a very warm 9900k, and I initially had a D15 on it and even though it required a good amount of voltage the D15 was able to keep up with an all core 5.0 (though temps got to high 80s low 90s).  Most normal 9900k can get to 5.0 by the 1.35-1.37 vcore range (and the good ones can significantly lower).  The KS in theory should have to be better than that since it is actually binned, but it seems you got a warm one.  Wonder if its related to the motherboard?

 

Mixed feelings, being that it is so hard to even get a 9900KS without paying 700 bucks on the used market, so it would be great to have one.  Would make me want to make it work.  However, being that they are selling for so much, you might actually make a buck on it if you sold it now?  Just thinking out loud.  The person on ebay that buys it might call it defective if it runs that hot though, and demand a refund.  Any chance you can RMA?

 

 

 

[xg32]

i'm using my 9900k at 165-185w with a d15 and it's fine, probably an airflow issue with the case, the 9900ks is 185w stock iirc, definitely wouldn't recommend a 3900x for gaming with comet lake out and zen 3 on the horizon.

[Diet]

1 hour ago, Zberg said:

Man that really doesn't make great sense, as its supposed to be binned higher.  I got a very warm 9900k, and I initially had a D15 on it and even though it required a good amount of voltage the D15 was able to keep up with an all core 5.0 (though temps got to high 80s low 90s).  Most normal 9900k can get to 5.0 by the 1.35-1.37 vcore range (and the good ones can significantly lower).  The KS in theory should have to be better than that since it is actually binned, but it seems you got a warm one.  Wonder if its related to the motherboard?

 

Mixed feelings, being that it is so hard to even get a 9900KS without paying 700 bucks on the used market, so it would be great to have one.  Would make me want to make it work.  However, being that they are selling for so much, you might actually make a buck on it if you sold it now?  Just thinking out loud.  The person on ebay that buys it might call it defective if it runs that hot though, and demand a refund.  Any chance you can RMA?

 

 

 

I've been battling this on and off since december, I got the chip when they came out, just have been far too busy to really dig into trying to figure it out until recently when we started to wrap up the year. So I don't think an RMA is an option, even if it was, I'm pretty sure the chips have come and gone and they'd have to give me something different (which I suppose wouldn't be the end of the world, but it'd suck to downgrade with better options on the horizon). Your sentiments on ebaying it are pretty much how I assume it would go, maybe it is just the motherboard, but I'd feel pretty bad to replace that to only have the issue continue (though I'd probably have a much better chance of selling it without major issues. I really do want to find a way to make it work if I can.

  

58 minutes ago, xg32 said:

i'm using my 9900k at 165-185w with a d15 and it's fine, probably an airflow issue with the case, the 9900ks is 185w stock iirc, definitely wouldn't recommend a 3900x for gaming with comet lake out and zen 3 on the horizon.

 

Case is a Phanteks Enthoo Luxe PH-ES614LTG_AG (Full ATX with pretty nice cable management options), all the fan slots are filled with Noctua NF-P14s redux-1500 PWM, 2 in front on intake, 3 on top out, 1 in the back out, and of course the two NF-A15s on the cpu's NH-D15. Everything is set to max speed above cpu>60C (60% when idle), so they're pretty much all running full go as soon as I do anything. Cable managements is... decent, the only things really in the way of airflow is the two cables running to the back of the GPU, everything else is behind the back panel as much as possible. I can borrow a chem hood thermometer and put it inside the case to test the ambient air temperature though, kind of curious now that you mention it, but I'd honestly be surprised if that was the issue (and I've run it open case a good handful of times while testing the various thermal paste I borrowed, and the results seemed pretty similar).

 

Honestly I'd just buy some water cooling hardware if I thought it'd really help, but I feel like with everything I've tested and the numbers I'm seeing I'd just run into the same issues (I just feel like it wouldn't be that much better than the NH-D15, but maybe it would be? I dunno). The various benchmarks I could find comparing it to water cooling are alway "NH-D15 does ~65 (or something around there) and the water cooling does (insert some amount +/- 5C)", none of them ever show the NH-D15 failing to cool something that the water cooling comes in and saves the day, it's always a somewhat small difference. I'm gonna continue to play around with the bios when I get more time this weekend read up some more, but I'm still open to any suggestions, thanks for your comments everyone.

[xg32]

38 minutes ago, Diet said:

.

240w draw isn't normal, so see if you can get it down to 160-180w with some bios settings. Your motherboard is running 5ghz on the 9900ks which only takes 185w at most (u'd have to real unlucky)

 

I'm not even sure if water's the answer here if the mobo "stock" is 1.45v, highest ive seen for everyday use is 1.375v, 1.45 is probably enough for 5.2-5.3