13700k + RTX 4090 PC abruptly reboots under load. Is the 750w PSU to blame?

[qqlejal]

I'm using a 13700k paired with a Inno3D X3 RTX 4090 powered by Corsair SF750, and as the title suggests, the PC occasionally reboots without any blue screens or anything under gaming loads, particularly Cyberpunk 2077, usually at the moment when quickload completes. This hasn't happened in less resource-intensive games yet. The temperatures of both CPU and GPU are fine. I've tried powerlimiting, but with PL1 = 170w and PL2 = 220w on the CPU and power target of 75% on the GPU didn't change anything - the reboots still occasionally happen. I blame this on the PSU, but strictly speaking, when total power consumption is 160w max + 350w max (+ lets say 100w for the rest of components) = 610w max, it shouldn't be a problem for a platinum 750w unit. I have no way of knowing which of its protections is triggered: OPP, OCP, OTP? Maybe the B760 motherboard with 10 + 1 + 1 power phases and no active Chipset/VRM cooling could be the reason?

[Mojo-Jojo]

Transients are the magic word in cases like this. You might be fine with the average power consumption, but power spikes might cause the PSU to trip. This was a major problem with the 3000 series, but the 4000 series also sees its fair share of sudden transients.

 

My bet would be the PSU.

[podkall]

Just now, Mojo-Jojo said:

Transients are the magic word in cases like this. You might be fine with the average power consumption, but power spikes might cause the PSU to trip. This was a major problem with the 3000 series, but the 4000 series also sees its fair share of sudden transients.

 

My bet would be the PSU.

it's a good bet considering 4090's the fastest, even on Techpowerup despite 450W TDP the suggested PSU is 850W:

[Fullmental]

You're probably tripping the overcurrent protection. Those "max" wattage values you quoted are not actual maximums, they're "thermal design" thresholds, as in...well, made up numbers based on whatever the manufacturer wants them to represent. That does not mean they won't exceed them, or spike well beyond the values (this is called transient power spikes). 

 

You can check the actual stock power consumption in a worst case scenario by looking at the charts over on GN: 

 

https://gamersnexus.net/cpus/intel-desperate-i7-14700k-cpu-review-benchmarks-gaming-power

 

This shows the 13700k stock can easily pull 280w on a sustained workload. You're probably not hitting this playing Cyberpunk, but the 13700k is NOT a power efficient chip by any stretch of the imagination. If you assume 200-250w on the CPU at times of peak load, and a steady 450w on the GPU, you're at 650w. Add 100w for other components and you're at the point where transient spikes can and will cause overcurrent protection to trip.

GN hasn't published a written review or mega chart for GPUs yet, but if you watch their review on youtube, they talk about transient spikes being a major issue with the 4090, and they show in the furmark test that the stock 4090 FE can pull 500w. If you have a third party card, it's possible it's factory overclocked and drawing even more power. In other words, your 610w estimate is far below what your system can actually pull in extreme conditions, and may be below even your 75% target (Keep in mind the 75% target does not prevent transients and temporary spikes, it's not a true physical "limit"). If you take just the 280w and 500w values, you're at 780w, without anything else in the system. 

 

I'd recommend you go get at minimum an 850w power supply, better yet a 1000w unit.  The price difference is not all that much, and it'll give you some headroom if you decide to add to the system, overclock, or upgrade down the line.

 

That's not the say the 750w PSU is bad or functioning abnormally either - you really shouldn't plug in these high power components to such a small PSU in the first place. It's designed to trip at certain thresholds, and those thresholds may be tighter on SFF PSUs compared to ATX models, if thermals are a concern with the smaller volume.

[qqlejal]

2 hours ago, Fullmental said:

You're probably tripping the overcurrent protection. Those "max" wattage values you quoted are not actual maximums, they're "thermal design" thresholds, as in...well, made up numbers based on whatever the manufacturer wants them to represent. That does not mean they won't exceed them, or spike well beyond the values (this is called transient power spikes). 

 

You can check the actual stock power consumption in a worst case scenario by looking at the charts over on GN: 

 

https://gamersnexus.net/cpus/intel-desperate-i7-14700k-cpu-review-benchmarks-gaming-power

 

This shows the 13700k stock can easily pull 280w on a sustained workload. You're probably not hitting this playing Cyberpunk, but the 13700k is NOT a power efficient chip by any stretch of the imagination. If you assume 200-250w on the CPU at times of peak load, and a steady 450w on the GPU, you're at 650w. Add 100w for other components and you're at the point where transient spikes can and will cause overcurrent protection to trip.

GN hasn't published a written review or mega chart for GPUs yet, but if you watch their review on youtube, they talk about transient spikes being a major issue with the 4090, and they show in the furmark test that the stock 4090 FE can pull 500w. If you have a third party card, it's possible it's factory overclocked and drawing even more power. In other words, your 610w estimate is far below what your system can actually pull in extreme conditions, and may be below even your 75% target (Keep in mind the 75% target does not prevent transients and temporary spikes, it's not a true physical "limit"). If you take just the 280w and 500w values, you're at 780w, without anything else in the system. 

 

I'd recommend you go get at minimum an 850w power supply, better yet a 1000w unit.  The price difference is not all that much, and it'll give you some headroom if you decide to add to the system, overclock, or upgrade down the line.

 

That's not the say the 750w PSU is bad or functioning abnormally either - you really shouldn't plug in these high power components to such a small PSU in the first place. It's designed to trip at certain thresholds, and those thresholds may be tighter on SFF PSUs compared to ATX models, if thermals are a concern with the smaller volume.

Those "max" values I mentioned are the actual max values I've seen on the MSI afterburner overlay when gaming (with those power limits). I understand that it shows the average values, but I've always thought PSUs were supposed to handle short term spikes. The problem is, on Reddit if you say that Corsair SF750 is not good enough for 13700k, 14700k or even 14900k and RTX 4090, you'll get downvoted to hell by hordes of people assuring they run 14900k with 4090 with no limits on SF750 and never experienced any issues. There must be some reason for that..

[Fullmental]

17 minutes ago, qqlejal said:

Those "max" values I mentioned are the actual max values I've seen on the MSI afterburner overlay when gaming (with those power limits). I understand that it shows the average values, but I've always thought PSUs were supposed to handle short term spikes. The problem is, on Reddit if you say that Corsair SF750 is not good enough for 13700k, 14700k or even 14900k and RTX 4090, you'll get downvoted to hell with hordes of people assuring they run 14900k with 4090 with no limits and never experienced any issues. There must be some reason for that..

MSI Afterburner power readouts are estimates only. PSU cutoffs are based on actual draw. That is why reviewers like GN don't rely on these power consumption "sensors" to provide real world data for their reviews. They will often measure draw directly from the pins on the PSU cables for a more accurate estimate.  

 

As far as Reddit goes, it's a crapshoot. Some might have similar setups that work fine, others might not. Others still might just be *saying* it would work without actually having the setup themselves. You can't verify each claim individually, and I can't verify anything with your system. Ultimately all we have is a best estimate of a worst case scenario to look at here, to say the PSU *is likely* to be tripping its overcurrent protection.

 

Either way, each system is different and the draw of individual components varies, so when you're talking about something this close to the limits of your PSU, YMMV. I could not tell you 100% if your PSU is operating within spec, and capacitor aging may also be at play if your PSU is on the older side.

Whether it's slightly out of spec or not, the most likely fix is upgrading the PSU.

[podkall]

On 12/22/2023 at 7:06 PM, qqlejal said:

Those "max" values I mentioned are the actual max values I've seen on the MSI afterburner overlay when gaming (with those power limits). I understand that it shows the average values, but I've always thought PSUs were supposed to handle short term spikes. The problem is, on Reddit if you say that Corsair SF750 is not good enough for 13700k, 14700k or even 14900k and RTX 4090, you'll get downvoted to hell by hordes of people assuring they run 14900k with 4090 with no limits on SF750 and never experienced any issues. There must be some reason for that..

so the Max values can be whatever, even if you use any vitals tracking software,

 

transient spikes last only few milliseconds, and there's no way sensors or software picks that up, when you blink it's already gone before you open your eyes

 

and that transient spike is temporary power draw which can exceed card's predetermined power draw, or PSU's power delivery

 

RTX 3080 has 320W TDP and recommends 700W, but look at peak power spikes graph:

 

• Despite (3080) being a ~320W card, it drew almost 500W in transient spike, and you can see how fast those spikes come and go and how impossible they are to pick up with regular sensors inside the PC

You have RTX 4090, which in 40 series they seemingly fixed the spikes not being as high as 30 series might get, but still 4090 is a different kind of beast, so even if PSU is within spec, if it gets tripped due to transients, then it's PSU's "fault" ("" because it's just protection protecting the PC)

 

same graph can be seen in this video, describing how high transients can get (at least on 30 series cards), but you could guess what beast like 4090 could do if it does get even a smaller spike than a 30 series card, look for 4:00-4:45 if you don't want to watch the entire video:

 

[Bagzie]

On 12/22/2023 at 3:46 PM, Fullmental said:

You're probably tripping the overcurrent protection. Those "max" wattage values you quoted are not actual maximums, they're "thermal design" thresholds, as in...well, made up numbers based on whatever the manufacturer wants them to represent. That does not mean they won't exceed them, or spike well beyond the values (this is called transient power spikes). 

 

You can check the actual stock power consumption in a worst case scenario by looking at the charts over on GN: 

 

https://gamersnexus.net/cpus/intel-desperate-i7-14700k-cpu-review-benchmarks-gaming-power

 

This shows the 13700k stock can easily pull 280w on a sustained workload. You're probably not hitting this playing Cyberpunk, but the 13700k is NOT a power efficient chip by any stretch of the imagination. If you assume 200-250w on the CPU at times of peak load, and a steady 450w on the GPU, you're at 650w. Add 100w for other components and you're at the point where transient spikes can and will cause overcurrent protection to trip.

GN hasn't published a written review or mega chart for GPUs yet, but if you watch their review on youtube, they talk about transient spikes being a major issue with the 4090, and they show in the furmark test that the stock 4090 FE can pull 500w. If you have a third party card, it's possible it's factory overclocked and drawing even more power. In other words, your 610w estimate is far below what your system can actually pull in extreme conditions, and may be below even your 75% target (Keep in mind the 75% target does not prevent transients and temporary spikes, it's not a true physical "limit"). If you take just the 280w and 500w values, you're at 780w, without anything else in the system. 

 

I'd recommend you go get at minimum an 850w power supply, better yet a 1000w unit.  The price difference is not all that much, and it'll give you some headroom if you decide to add to the system, overclock, or upgrade down the line.

 

That's not the say the 750w PSU is bad or functioning abnormally either - you really shouldn't plug in these high power components to such a small PSU in the first place. It's designed to trip at certain thresholds, and those thresholds may be tighter on SFF PSUs compared to ATX models, if thermals are a concern with the smaller volume.

I think it's probably confounded by the Intel cpu aswell , Might get away with a 7800X3D or something else AMD but the 13700k is a bit of a space heater and combined with the 4090 it's pushing it.