13600kf underperforming

[Issn77]

Hey, i'm having trouble with my 13600kf, i've had it for quite some time but i've only noticed now that it does not meet the performance expectations. On cyberpunk, the cpu struggles to keep 60 fps in crowded areas (such as tom's dinner or v's megablock street for those of you who played), i play 1440p dlss quality high settings, but crowd density in medium. Also i did a cinebench R23 and i only score 17000 when i expect something like 23000 from what i've seen online. 

Do know that while i built my pc, i am no expert and am still learning, and all the cpu things is probably where i know the least, be indulgent.

 

my specs:

3060ti

13600kf

Z690 ds3h DDR4

16GB DDR4 3200MT/S dual channel

coolermaster aio

550w psu.

 

from that you may say the issue is pretty obvious, the psu is too low power. I made this PC with leftover components i had in a pre built, I kept the memory, power supply and case. I checked on power calculators before buying everything else and it was supposed to be okay. I didn't do anything with the bios nor did i try to overclock (since an attempt some time ago resulted in the pc not booting) . So i did some tests:

 

The cpu is supposed to boost in game to 5ghz, but i'm stuck at 4.4ghz. The tdp is supposed to be around 150w to 170w at max, mine doesn't want to push more than a 100w, while my gpu is using the expected amount (around 200w)

 

I did a few occt tests:

-When testing for power, my gpu draws around 200w, my cpu draws around 90w to 100w, and the clock speed jumps from 800Mhz to 5100Mhz, giving a average of 4400Mhz (4.4Ghz)

 

So then to see if it really was the psu, i went and did a cpu only stress test, if it was the psu i expected the draw to go to max tdp (170w) and the clock speed to 5100Mhz,since the gpu isn't being pushed, all the power should be able to go to the cpu correctly right? But that's not what happened:

I did get 5100Mhz but then only reached 100w of draw, which i don't really understand, why didn't it go to the maximum draw but still reach 5100Mhz??

 

Also one other thing that makes me thing it might not be the psu is my memory, like i said i took it from a prebuilt, it's two no name 8gb memory stick, that aren't even compatible with XMP on my motherboard. 

And this is where i don't know much, but i've seen that ram like this can bottleneck a cpu, but i don't know to what extent. 

 

So i'd really like some help there, if there's a software issue that i don't know about that can be resolved without buying anything, i'd like that since i'm not really in a position where i can spend money rn. 

Thanks in advance for you time, here's attached a my performace while runnig cyberpunk in a dense area.

 

 

 

 

 

[leclod]

Ok, in the bios you can (probably) set a cpu power limit. Maybe that limit is set wrong.

Your cpu temps look alright from what I can see.

I believe neither your psu nor Ram have something to do here. 550W look alright to me for your system. You could undervolt both your gpu and cpu though. You can "easily" shave 50+W.

 

See, here I got PL1 and 2 Power Limits set to 4000W whereas you have 125W

 

16GB is on the low side nowadays. Check from time to time where you stay, you can use afterburner for that.

I do exceed those from time to time.

But 3200MT/s is not bad. I don't believe you got 3200 Ram without an XMP profile. Is it running at 2133MT/s ?

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by leclod

[Issn77]

7 hours ago, leclod said:

Ok, in the bios you can (probably) set a cpu power limit. Maybe that limit is set wrong.

Your cpu temps look alright from what I can see.

I believe neither your psu nor Ram have something to do here. 550W look alright to me for your system. You could undervolt both your gpu and cpu though. You can "easily" shave 50+W.

 

See, here I got PL1 and 2 Power Limits set to 4000W whereas you have 125W

 

16GB is on the low side nowadays. Check from time to time where you stay, you can use afterburner for that.

I do exceed those from time to time.

But 3200MT/s is not bad. I don't believe you got 3200 Ram without an XMP profile. Is it running at 2133MT/s ?

 

Ok so i upped the power limit to 4095 like you but nothing changed, i'm still hovering around 95w and having clock speed of 4400Mhz. For the ram, i don't really know what speed it's runnig, in the bios it says 3200MT/s but i can't find any way to check it live. Also if i undervolt, won't i be doing the reverse of what i'm trying to do which is get higher clockspeed? I thought about giving overclocking another go to see if i can't get any more performance out of it.

 

Also, before this 13600k i had a 10400F, which i changed because in some games like deathloop i never went above 40fps. Come to think of it and looking through benchmark, this cpu too was underperforming quite a lot. So both cpu were underperforming on my system, and i since changed the motherboard, leaving only the psu and ram as a potential culprits. 

 

Edit: So is my ram speed this? Since it's 2 sticks it would be equal to 3200 MHz, which is normal no?

[leclod]

13 hours ago, Issn77 said:

Edit: So is my ram speed this? Since it's 2 sticks it would be equal to 3200 MHz, which is normal no?

You seem to be running at 3200MT/s CL22-22-22-52 2T Gear1 which is far from great. You can probably improve those timings but first things first.

 

Undervolting means less power at same performance. Your gpu can for sure save around 50W (here a quick tutorial). For your cpu I don't know, probably less, those cpus are already very efficient.

 

If it was your psu limiting the system it would shut down and not conveniently stay put. Right now I admit I don't know further either.

Maybe you could go through your bios and make pictures of the relevant pages. Which one is your psu ? a picture of the sticker ?

 

(je parle français)

 

 

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by leclod

[Likwid]

You guys are mnissing the point, problem is that CPU TDP doesn't hit expected values, over 170w.

Try to update bios and checks if that motherboard has known limits.

[Issn77]

15 minutes ago, Likwid said:

You guys are mnissing the point, problem is that CPU TDP doesn't hit expected values, over 170w.

Try to update bios and checks if that motherboard has known limits.

I updated the bios like a month ago and I can't find any info about the motherboard having any limits... Man I really have no idea what's going on here

[TatamiMatt]

26 minutes ago, Issn77 said:

I updated the bios like a month ago and I can't find any info about the motherboard having any limits... Man I really have no idea what's going on here

Is intel boost on?

[leclod]

1 hour ago, Likwid said:

You guys are mnissing the point, problem is that CPU TDP doesn't hit expected values, over 170w.

Wouldn't a 125W limit interfere with a 170W TDP ? Edit : Ok, probably not,

Edited October 9, 2023 by leclod

[Issn77]

1 hour ago, TatamiMatt said:

Is intel boost on?

I tried with it turned on and off, no luck either

[Likwid]

6 minutes ago, Issn77 said:

I tried with it turned on and off, no luck either

Seems like bios problem.

You could try to set PL1 and PL2 to 150W and see what changes.

[Issn77]

18 minutes ago, Likwid said:

Seems like bios problem.

You could try to set PL1 and PL2 to 150W and see what changes.

I did that too lol, was set to 120, upped it to 200, nothing, upped it to 4000, nothing either, I'm pretty sure 150 is going to be the same. It don't think it has to do with bios updates because it was also underperforming before I made and update a month ago.

 

I also don't think it's the mb since like I said in another comment I had a previous CPU (10400f with a prebuilt motherboard) and the CPU was also underperforming.

[TatamiMatt]

does your clock multiplier have a hard limit? with intel boost on/off you should notice some sort of change i think

 

Edit: looked over your first post's image, looks like it hit 5.1GHz at some point so it doesnt have a hard limit it seems?

 

At full cpu load are temps toasty or okay?

 

Other than that sometimes undervolting can actually help with getting full cpu usage and clock speed?

[Issn77]

3 hours ago, TatamiMatt said:

does your clock multiplier have a hard limit? with intel boost on/off you should notice some sort of change i think

 

Edit: looked over your first post's image, looks like it hit 5.1GHz at some point so it doesnt have a hard limit it seems?

 

At full cpu load are temps toasty or okay?

 

Other than that sometimes undervolting can actually help with getting full cpu usage and clock speed?

Nah my temps are fine, under full load I'm around 65°C, and no I don't have a limits I believe. I'll maybe give undervolting a chance

[Issn77]

13 hours ago, leclod said:

You seem to be running at 3200MT/s CL22-22-22-52 2T Gear1 which is far from great. You can probably improve those timings but first things first.

 

Undervolting means less power at same performance. Your gpu can for sure save around 50W (here a quick tutorial). For your cpu I don't know, probably less, those cpus are already very efficient.

 

If it was your psu limiting the system it would shut down and not conveniently stay put. Right now I admit I don't know further either.

Maybe you could go through your bios and make pictures of the relevant pages. Which one is your psu ? a picture of the sticker ?

 

(je parle français)

 

 

 

Ok so i have some news: First of all i gave cinebech another go, and here and only here do i reach the 150 to 170 watts. I just didn't notice before. What's weird is that HWinfo still shows that i am at 4400Mhz, while occt show that i am at 5100Mhz, but i do believe that i might be at 5100 MHz considering the power draw.

 

Here's another issue i dicovered, my fan curves were not right at all and my aio fans never kicking to 100%. So i did reach the 150 watt draw on cb but then immediatly plumetted to 50w and then up to 150 again etc... So i was thermal throttling.

I set them right, now when i do a cinebench benchmark, i start off at around 24000 points which is right, but then after 1 min or 2 i start thermal throttling again even though my fans are kicking 100%. I do seem to have a thermal problem even though it's not expected with my aio, my idle temps are 42°C which seems a bit high and even just launching internet launches it to 60°C. I'll try changing the thermal paste and resetting it in place.

 

But i still don't think it's the issue though. After setting my fan curves right, when playing cyberpunk i'm still stalling at 100watts maximum. Even though i could in theory go to 170w for a min or 2. It just doesn't want to go higher. Also, occt shows 5100MHz when playing while HWinfo shows 4400MHz. I don't really know which one to believe since one cinebench it seems occt was right but on cyberpunk since i'm only at a 100w i'll expect to be more towards the 4400MHz. I don't know what's happening with that. The task manager is telling me wether i'm doing a cb test and drawing 170w or playing and only drawing 100w i'm still at 4,6Ghz. But then i launch internet and it spikes to 5.2 GHz. I really have no idea what's going on with that.

 

Here are the photos of my bios you asked for: 

 

Edit: i just reinstalled my aio, temps are better, but i still get some thermal throttle further down the line when i push 170W. I guess my aio might just not be good enough for that. Doesn't solve the problem where i can't get more than 100w and 5Ghz in game.

[Likwid]

I would reset bios do default settings, set CPU fan speed how it worked best now and check if there still is a problem, 13th gen k cpu are really hard to cool have seen people with 360 rads having problems with 5-10 min loads

[Mark Kaine]

On 10/8/2023 at 4:50 PM, Issn77 said:

So then to see if it really was the psu, i went and did a cpu only stress test, if it was the psu i expected the draw to go to max tdp (170w) and the clock speed to 5100Mhz,since the gpu isn't being pushed, all the power should be able to go to the cpu correctly right? 

incorrect,  to test power draw realistically you need to stress CPU and GPU *at the same time* 

 

so run superposition at highest settings (4k test) and Prime 95 highest settings (it'll tell you which test uses most power) *at the same time, simultaneously*

 

but, yes, just get over it and buy a better psu and cpu cooler i guess? 

[Mark Kaine]

On 10/9/2023 at 9:35 PM, Issn77 said:

The task manager is telling me wether i'm doing a cb test and drawing 170w or playing and only drawing 100w i'm still at 4,6Ghz. But then i launch internet and it spikes to 5.2 GHz. I really have no idea what's going on with that.

 

this is completely normal cpu behavior btw

 

 

the higher your load is the less likely you will see "max frequency".

 

 

read the fine print, it'll say "up to", not "up to at 100% usage"