My new i9-13900F throttles often while gaming

[guidoC]

I just upgraded my build with a new processor, however I'm getting really worried as it is heating a lot and throttling quite often when gaming.

My specs are

• i9-13900F with Dark Rock 4 cooler

• Gigabyte RX 6800XT Gaming OC 16GB

• Micro ATX case with 2 intakes fans and 2 exhaust fans (ventilation is not optimal but decent enough)

 

The first thing I had to do when I installed the CPU was to go into the BIOS and set back PL1 and PL2 values to the Intel recommended ones (65W and 219W). This helped a little bit and it seems to have stopped throttling when I run benchmarks with CineBench.

However, when I'm gaming, even if the CPU usage is much lower than during Cinebench (about 30-40%), the temperature is hovering around 80-90 all the time and I get quite frequent thermal throttling. This is happening especially in Fortnite. The CPU power consumption never exceeds 100W so I have to imagine that, in scenarios when other components are also heating the case, the cooler cannot keep up with the heat given by the CPU (at least that's my current hypothesis).

 

Here is part of my gaming session captured

 

Here I instead tried to run Cinenebench and Unigine Heaven to stress both CPU and GPU at the same time.

 

As I'm not really interested in overclocking or having the best performing CPU on the market I'm thinking about some options

• downgrade the CPU with something less power hungry of the same generation, although I wouldn't want to go below an i7 so that may not make a big difference

• exchange the Dark Rock 4 Air cooler with an AIO, but I don't have a lot of space for the radiator so the one I was considering (NZXT Kraken 120 ) may be even less efficient than the air cooler and I would have to take one exhaust fan out to fit it

• fiddle again with the settings in the BIOS? However if I have to downgrade the power draw of the CPU I may as well change it with a lower model

• change case (this is the last resort)

Do you have some suggestions?

[Average Nerd]

Is the fan on the CPU cooler pulling or pushing air through it?

From the picture it looks like it's pushing, so it fights the exhaust fans for air. You can either flip the fan around so it pulls air through the cooler into the rear exhaust fan, or turn the whole cooler around/put the fan on the other side.

[TatamiMatt]

16 minutes ago, guidoC said:

I just upgraded my build with a new processor, however I'm getting really worried as it is heating a lot and throttling quite often when gaming.

My specs are

• i9-13900F with Dark Rock 4 cooler

• Gigabyte RX 6800XT Gaming OC 16GB

• Micro ATX case with 2 intakes fans and 2 exhaust fans (ventilation is not optimal but decent enough)

 

The first thing I had to do when I installed the CPU was to go into the BIOS and set back PL1 and PL2 values to the Intel recommended ones (65W and 219W). This helped a little bit and it seems to have stopped throttling when I run benchmarks with CineBench.

However, when I'm gaming, even if the CPU usage is much lower than during Cinebench (about 30-40%), the temperature is hovering around 80-90 all the time and I get quite frequent thermal throttling. This is happening especially in Fortnite. The CPU power consumption never exceeds 100W so I have to imagine that, in scenarios when other components are also heating the case, the cooler cannot keep up with the heat given by the CPU (at least that's my current hypothesis).

 

Here is part of my gaming session captured

 

Here I instead tried to run Cinenebench and Unigine Heaven to stress both CPU and GPU at the same time.

 

As I'm not really interested in overclocking or having the best performing CPU on the market I'm thinking about some options

• downgrade the CPU with something less power hungry of the same generation, although I wouldn't want to go below an i7 so that may not make a big difference

• exchange the Dark Rock 4 Air cooler with an AIO, but I don't have a lot of space for the radiator so the one I was considering (NZXT Kraken 120 ) may be even less efficient than the air cooler and I would have to take one exhaust fan out to fit it

• fiddle again with the settings in the BIOS? However if I have to downgrade the power draw of the CPU I may as well change it with a lower model

• change case (this is the last resort)

Do you have some suggestions?

Flip both those fans to intake to absolutely douse your cooler with fresh air, the PSU will exhaust this hot air, youre making every fan struggle with the current setup

 

Also put another fan on the rear of the cooler to exhaust the air straight into the PSU instead of into the open space between the 2, will get rid of the hot air quicker

[guidoC]

22 minutes ago, Average Nerd said:

Is the fan on the CPU cooler pulling or pushing air through it?

From the picture it looks like it's pushing, so it fights the exhaust fans for air. You can either flip the fan around so it pulls air through the cooler into the rear exhaust fan, or turn the whole cooler around/put the fan on the other side.

Actually it is pushing air out of the CPU cooler, I think this should be the advised installation setup right? This also means that the hot air going out of the CPU cooler is also pushed to the left exhaust fan directly. 

[TatamiMatt]

4 minutes ago, guidoC said:

Actually it is pushing air out of the CPU cooler, I think this should be the advised installation setup right? This also means that the hot air going out of the CPU cooler is also pushed to the left exhaust fan directly. 

Lemme draw it up for you

 

This is what you have i believe

 

This is the airflow path youll want instead

[Average Nerd]

2 minutes ago, guidoC said:

Actually it is pushing air out of the CPU cooler

Can you take a picture of the CPU fan with the system powered off? I'm pretty certain the fan is backwards and pushing air the wrong way.

[guidoC]

8 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

Flip both those fans to intake to absolutely douse your cooler with fresh air, the PSU will exhaust this hot air, youre making every fan struggle with the current setup

 

Also put another fan on the rear of the cooler to exhaust the air straight into the PSU instead of into the open space between the 2, will get rid of the hot air quicker

Sorry, the picture is incomplete because I just realized I had not installed the intake fans yet. 

As a matter of fact there are 2 intakes fans at the bottom of the case (where the "grid" is) which are pushing air IN mainly to the GPU (but also in the case) and then 2 exhaust fans at the top which should push out hot air from the CPU (mainly the one on the left) and from the whole case (mainly the one on the top panel).

I don't think having intakes at the top of the case is generally advised...right? If anything warm air will rises (from PSU, CPU and GPU coolers) and I would need to bring that out of the case ASAP.

BTW something quite strange that I noticed is that the PSU fan is only rarely spinning, so it seems there is not so much heat coming from the side of the PSU.

[guidoC]

Just now, Average Nerd said:

Can you take a picture of the CPU fan with the system powered off? I'm pretty certain the fan is backwards and pushing air the wrong way.

I installed it like in the stock picture.

I thought the sticker is indicating the direction of the flow, so it should push air AWAY from the cooler...no? 

 

[TatamiMatt]

2 minutes ago, guidoC said:

Sorry, the picture is incomplete because I just realized I had not installed the intake fans yet. 

As a matter of fact there are 2 intakes fans at the bottom of the case (where the "grid" is) which are pushing air IN mainly to the GPU (but also in the case) and then 2 exhaust fans at the top which should push out hot air from the CPU (mainly the one on the left) and from the whole case (mainly the one on the top panel).

I don't think having intakes at the top of the case is generally advised...right? If anything warm air will rises (from PSU, CPU and GPU coolers) and I would need to bring that out of the case ASAP.

BTW something quite strange that I noticed is that the PSU fan is only rarely spinning, so it seems there is not so much heat coming from the side of the PSU.

Generally no but SFF cases are an entirely different beast, and with the backplate of the GPU you essentially cut your computer into 2 seperate fluid systems that you have to manage seperately

[Average Nerd]

1 minute ago, guidoC said:

I thought the sticker is indicating the direction of the flow, so it should push air AWAY from the cooler...no? 

The fan spins counterclockwise. In this configuration, the fan pushes air through the cooler.

 

[guidoC]

3 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

Lemme draw it up for you

 

This is what you have i believe

Yes, you're right. The only difference is that the CPU fan is pushing air in the opposite direction, so that it kinda goes into the left exhaust fan "directly". 

Regarding the PSU thanks for letting me notice this...I thought the fan on the side was an exhaust and not an intake,. 

[TatamiMatt]

1 minute ago, guidoC said:

I installed it like in the stock picture.

I thought the sticker is indicating the direction of the flow, so it should push air AWAY from the cooler...no? 

 

The direction i showed in my drawing is correct then

[TatamiMatt]

2 minutes ago, guidoC said:

Yes, you're right. The only difference is that the CPU fan is pushing air in the opposite direction, so that it kinda goes into the left exhaust fan "directly". 

I can almost guarantee you at this point, its not

 

EDIT: Sorry that came off as a bit on the nose

 

When it comes to fans, air generally moves towards the sides with supports

[guidoC]

2 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

I can almost guarantee you at this point, its not

 

EDIT: Sorry that came off as a bit on the nose

No worries. 

Ok then I believe this is part of the issue, because of course the left exhaust fan is fighting with the CPU fan as you says.

Would it make sense then to revert the flow of the CPU cooler fan so that it pushes air out and into the left exhaust fan? Then I could also add an additional fan on the other side of the CPU which pushes air in. 

[TatamiMatt]

17 minutes ago, guidoC said:

No worries. 

Ok then I believe this is part of the issue, because of course the left exhaust fan is fighting with the CPU fan as you says.

Would it make sense then to revert the flow of the CPU cooler fan so that it pushes air out and into the left exhaust fan? Then I could also add an additional fan on the other side of the CPU which pushes air in. 

See ideally yes, but in this SFF case the PSU is mounted in a way that if you flip it round itll fight with that fan in the same way, i think your best bet is to flip those rear fans around, and  run the coller as you have it now, and then for the case fans run the back one as normal and run the top one slightly slower, you can also get dust mesh to stick to it if thats an issue for you

[Renegade042]

Anyone reading this thread actually cooling a 13900 on air?

I thought that was heresy or worse...

I got a 13700 KF system (not mine), liquid cooled and it still thermal

throttles during a cinebench multicore test.

And that case (Hyte) is alot bigger than his...

[TatamiMatt]

48 minutes ago, Renegade042 said:

Anyone reading this thread actually cooling a 13900 on air?

I thought that was heresy or worse...

I got a 13700 KF system (not mine), liquid cooled and it still thermal

throttles during a cinebench multicore test.

And that case (Hyte) is alot bigger than his...

13900F so doesnt boost as hard which knocks quite a bit of the top range off which produces the most heat, its still a SPICY CPU, but more viable than a 13900K (on paper almost 35 full Watts of difference at max boost, saying that my 7800X3D when gaming uses about 60-70W, thats a pretty significant drop, still hard to cool, but easier than a K)

 

Edit: and over 200W less for long term boosting apparently, so wont sustaon the max boost for nearly as long but much cooler because of this

[porina]

5 hours ago, guidoC said:

However, when I'm gaming, even if the CPU usage is much lower than during Cinebench (about 30-40%), the temperature is hovering around 80-90 all the time and I get quite frequent thermal throttling. This is happening especially in Fortnite. The CPU power consumption never exceeds 100W so I have to imagine that, in scenarios when other components are also heating the case, the cooler cannot keep up with the heat given by the CPU (at least that's my current hypothesis).

What's probably happening when you see high temps but not high total power is that all the power is going into a few cores, and those are getting hot. I don't know of a good solution to this without adjusting turbo behaviour directly.