Why wont my Intel Boost work?

CrossCroissant · October 7, 2020

Hey folks,

yesterday i upgraded my gaming rig from an i7-4770 (non k!) to a 10700k. For these update i installed the following components:

- Asrock Z490 M-ITX AC
- Corsair 32gb RGB Pro 3600 Ram (Running at 18-22-42 @ 3600Mhz, i dont know about ram, but sounded kinda good )

- Intel I7 10700k (in a nice Avengers package)

- a 2tb Intel M.2 Drive

already installed and kept:

- 1080 KFA2

- 550W SFX Power Supply

- 1xHDD, 2xSSDs

the System runs in a Ibuypower Revolt 2 case. So its a pretty slim case, with bad airflow. To counter that i installed a custom single loop, with a 280mm Radiator at the bottom which is keeping my GPU and CPU relativly cool.

After installing my new hardware i instantly started a artifical all core system load, which ended up getting all 8 Cores to stable 4,7 GHz. But this was not the reason i went for intel, intel was my Go because of my daily use case. 95% of daily loads are games, which will need a high single core performance. So i started CPU-Z and fired up a "1-Thread" stress test and still none of my cores would go higher than 4,7GHz. After that i tried some Games and again never saw a single peek over 4,7 GHz.

I then tried fiddling in the Bios. All IPM related settings were enabled or on auto (i booted several times and tried everything), intel tuning utility showed thos settings as enabled. Core Ratios were on auto, resulting in a setup with 2 Cores set to x51 (which looked absolutely right) and still nothing over 4,7Ghz (im still running single threaded workloads). At this point i tried trial and error, searched for Intel 10th Core CPU Management drivers and installed the "Intel® Performance Maximizer for 10th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors". After installing and starting the programm it stated, that my Setup is not supported by the IPM Software

So i went back into the Bios and set the core Ratio to "per core" and tried setting the two "best" Cores to x51, and the rest below (to 49 and 48 which seemed reasonable for me). In Windows i checked core frequencies and was buffed to see, that now every core was running at 5,1Ghz. Under Load they worked fine with great performance for about 10 Seconds, then my Mainboard intervened and power limited my Cores to 4,8Ghz. I quit my "researching" at this point and reached the following result:

- At single Threaded workloads my System performs with 5,1 Ghz up to ~5 Cores.

- If more than ~5 Cores are under heavy load my Mainboard power limits to 4,8Ghz all Cores.

- Under Gaming (Squad, 2k, 1,5x Oversampling, all high) my CPU temperature does not reach 60°C

- Under synthetic all core load my temperature peaks 95°C, going down to 70° when power limiting

- My Mainboard does not allow to edit the power limitation (Asrock=cheap mos?) so im stuck with "low" all core performance but also my cooling with a single 280mm wouldnt be suitable for that scenario.

My question now is, why couldnt i get the clever Intel Boost to run? Is it cuz i didnt do a fresh windows installation?

Does my Setup (sustained 5,1Ghz for up to ~5 Core load) have any disadvantage over the Intel Boost? Cuz it feels like my setup is actually doing kinda the same. Boosting high in low threaded tasks, going to lower frequencies on more threaded tasks, maybe only better cuz more Cores are "boosting" high.

I run FurMark and Prime95 in different configurations together, the system was for the 15min of testing absolutely stable. (i was worried cuz of my 550W Power Supply)

Impressions of the Build

CrossCroissant · October 13, 2020

Im expecting 5,1GHz for Loads with less than 4 active Cores...

Im getting a max GHz Peak of 4,9GHz, while only having 2 Active Cores (see lower right corner, Active Core Count and Max Core Frequency)

Help