Low clock speed while running cinebench

[esece]

I have an i7 14700k, and when idle, the clock speed is at max, but when I run Cinebench, it lowers to 4 MHz. I don't really know if this is wrong, if it is that big of a deal, but when watching a Linus video, they were running a multicore test on Cinebench, and the clock was at max speed, so I want to know if everything is okay.

 

 

[RONOTHAN##]

What are the temps when running cinebench? My first thought is Thermal throttling, but could be some other type of throttling. What motherboard and CPU are you using as well? 

[esece]

33 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

What are the temps when running cinebench? My first thought is Thermal throttling, but could be some other type of throttling. What motherboard and CPU are you using as well? 

Temps seem fine. I'm using an i7 14700k on an MSI PRO B760M-P DDR4. I believe I may have a RAM bottleneck issue. I have two 16 GB sticks, but one is 3200 and the other is 2400, and both are running at 2400. Could that be the problem?

[RONOTHAN##]

14 minutes ago, esece said:

MSI PRO B760M-P

There's your problem. That board has a VRM that wasn't designed to handle a lot of current with little cooling, so the board is likely overheating/has a very low power/current limit to prevent overheating, causing the CPU to throttle back clock speed and voltage in order to prevent something from catching on fire. That board, practically speaking, doesn't not support the 14700K, it just can't provide the power it needs to operate at the advertised speeds. 

 

14 minutes ago, esece said:

I have two 16 GB sticks, but one is 3200 and the other is 2400, and both are running at 2400. Could that be the problem?

I mean, it's not great, but Cinebench does not care about RAM speed, and most other applications are going to be more limited by the motherboard than the RAM speed. 

[esece]

Yes, you are completely right. The MOS (I don't know what that is) is reaching 100°C. So what motherboard should I get? And is this the reason why I'm getting 21k points instead of the 35k I should get on Cinebench?

[RONOTHAN##]

6 hours ago, esece said:

Yes, you are completely right. The MOS (I don't know what that is) is reaching 100°C. So what motherboard should I get? And is this the reason why I'm getting 21k points instead of the 35k I should get on Cinebench?

The MOS temp is the MOSFETs, or the part that converts the +12V from the PSU to the ~1.2V that the CPU can use. As for what board to get, what would your price range be and what features do you need? There's a lot of decent options out there depending on what features you need, so take that into account. And yes, that's why your Cinebench score is ~14k points lower than it should be. 

 

 

Make sure to quote so we get a notification, I just happened to come back here and see this. 

[esece]

3 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

The MOS temp is the MOSFETs, or the part that converts the +12V from the PSU to the ~1.2V that the CPU can use. As for what board to get, what would your price range be and what features do you need? There's a lot of decent options out there depending on what features you need, so take that into account. And yes, that's why your Cinebench score is ~14k points lower than it should be. 

 

 

Make sure to quote so we get a notification, I just happened to come back here and see this. 

Oh, sorry, I don't really know how this works yet.
 

I don't need Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or anything like that. But I could benefit from having a couple more USB ports on the I/O, but if it has five, it is at least sufficient. It has to have at least space for two SATA drives, and it would be nice if it had two M.2 slots. And it has to be DDR4. Also, it should have that little button to update the BIOS without a CPU, in case it comes outdated for the 14th gen. Oh, and just as a little bonus, it would be neat if it had an ARGB port so I can synchronize my RGB.

But in the end, the only thing that really matters is that it doesn't bottleneck my CPU. Also, my case supports ATX, Micro-ATX, and Mini-ITX.
 

I'm from Argentina, so the prices and stock are different from those in the USA. This is a list of motherboards that I think may be compatible and are reasonably priced (prices in US dollars):

• Gigabyte Z790 S DDR4 - $193.33
• Gigabyte Z790 S Wi-Fi DDR4 - $220.26
• MSI PRO Z790-P DDR4 - $220.83
• Asrock Z790M PG Lightning DDR4 - $235.16
• Asus TUF Gaming Z790-Plus Wi-Fi DDR4 - $273.77 (this is borderline out of budget)

This is almost every model available in DDR4 for the "Z" series. There were a couple more, but they were unreasonably expensive. Another option is waiting a couple of months with this motherboard and then upgrading to DDR5 and also buying new RAM, but I'm not really sure about that or if it's worth the upgrade.
 

Well, this is a lot of text. Thank you so much for your help!

 

[RONOTHAN##]

12 minutes ago, esece said:

• Gigabyte Z790 S DDR4 - $193.33
• Gigabyte Z790 S Wi-Fi DDR4 - $220.26
• MSI PRO Z790-P DDR4 - $220.83
• Asrock Z790M PG Lightning DDR4 - $235.16
• Asus TUF Gaming Z790-Plus Wi-Fi DDR4 - $273.77 (this is borderline out of budget)

All 5 of these boards are enough to power the 14700K, so get the cheapest one that you want. 

 

13 minutes ago, esece said:

Another option is waiting a couple of months with this motherboard and then upgrading to DDR5 and also buying new RAM, but I'm not really sure about that or if it's worth the upgrade.

Depends on what you're doing. Some applications benefit quite a bit from the faster RAM of DDR5, while others couldn't care less. I would at least look into this option o see what it would end up being price wise. 

[esece]

3 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

All 5 of these boards are enough to power the 14700K, so get the cheapest one that you want. 

 

Depends on what you're doing. Some applications benefit quite a bit from the faster RAM of DDR5, while others couldn't care less. I would at least look into this option o see what it would end up being price wise. 

I'm a music composer for video games; as far as I know, the CPU is by far the most important thing for the programs I use. But I'll do some research and see if DDR5 is worth it. Thank you so much again for the help; you're a really kind person.

[RONOTHAN##]

5 minutes ago, esece said:

I'm a music composer for video games; as far as I know, the CPU is by far the most important thing for the programs I use. But I'll do some research and see if DDR5 is worth it. Thank you so much again for the help; you're a really kind person.

Alright, at least double check. From the bit I know about music production software, they do really like a ton of memory, though not necessarily fast memory. 

[esece]

44 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Alright, at least double check. From the bit I know about music production software, they do really like a ton of memory, though not necessarily fast memory. 

I was comparing prices, and for some reason here in Argentina, DDR5 motherboards are cheaper than DDR4. A MSI Mag Z790 Tomahawk Wifi DDR5 is $240, and a kit of 2 x 16GB 5600 MT/s CL40 Corsair Vengeance is $145. So it might be worth it to wait until I can afford the full upgrade.

[RONOTHAN##]

3 hours ago, esece said:

I was comparing prices, and for some reason here in Argentina, DDR5 motherboards are cheaper than DDR4.

That's not uncommon. DDR5 boards are a lot more popular nowadays, and economies of scale they end up actually cheaper. It gets even better when you look at good B760 boards like the ASRock B760M PG Riptide, which in the US is something like $30 cheaper than the next similar quality DDR4 board last I checked. 

 

3 hours ago, esece said:

a kit of 2 x 16GB 5600 MT/s CL40 Corsair Vengeance is $145

This does sound a bit high for it, though admittedly I don't know Argentinian RAM prices and this could be normal. All I know is the motherboard prices are at about parity with the US and this is almost double what a similar kit will cost in the US. Try looking for non-Corsair RAM possibly, since their stuff at least here is usually quite expensive for what you get. 

[esece]

On 2/2/2025 at 2:18 PM, RONOTHAN## said:

All 5 of these boards are enough to power the 14700K, so get the cheapest one that you want. 

 

Depends on what you're doing. Some applications benefit quite a bit from the faster RAM of DDR5, while others couldn't care less. I would at least look into this option o see what it would end up being price wise. 

If anyone still needs help with this, I finally bought a better motherboard (MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK WIFI DDR5), and the problem was completely solved. Thank you so much for your help.