Alderlake non K chips are pure magic

Firstly this is my 10900K clocked to 5.3 all cores no offset, and getting that stable needs 1.425v and it can eat up over 250w peak power:


https://i.imgur.com/JgAEgTH.png


Secondly, this is my I5 12600 with thermal limits removed, which runs at 'just' 4.4 Ghz:


https://i.imgur.com/RRunFME.png


While multicore performance is ofc lower due to it being 6c/12t, single core is much higher in both SSE and AVX.


At stock bios settings, the chip uses 1.15v, at which the following is its power and thermals results:


https://i.imgur.com/vyp191v.png


It peaks at 108w power draw, and 83c temp. But now what happens if I undervolt the CPU? ...


https://i.imgur.com/S84usCu.png


Setting the voltage offset to the minimum which brings it to 1.05v vastly reduces the max power draw to 56w, and max temp to 53c.


Unfortunately, the CPU clock monitoring in several such programs had me mistaken, performance is lost at that little voltage as despite that the monitors show 4.4 Ghz, the CPU is no longer actually boosting.

Currently I have managed to maintain boost at 1.115v, and am tweaking from there to find the lowest that I don't get performance drop.

So after fully testing and tuning, 1.115v at max LLC was the lowest I could go without losing performance, also somehow my multithread results went up a lot - likely due to forcing the cache as well as all cores to 4.4 Ghz in the bios:


https://i.imgur.com/fTIfSP7.png

https://i.imgur.com/Hqg2L1D.png


Max power used sits under 90w, and temperatures under 70 which is still a significant improvement over stock.

I just picked up the G7400 Gold, these chips love high BCLK and scale extremely well.

Also worth considering along with the non k

You might want to try and bring the vcore down more to bring temps down even more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Charles Wirth

I just picked up the G7400 Gold, these chips love high BCLK and scale extremely well.

Also worth considering along with the non k

You might want to try and bring the vcore down more to bring temps down even more.

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I already took it as low as I could, but performance starts to drop below 1.115v LLC1 as the CPU stops boosting :(

I'm planning on a 13th gen Pentium and B660 to update my aging G4560 test bench and dual box rig as my H170 mobo has stopped remembering bios settings even with a new battery, and it doesn't support Windows 11.

One problem I only just found out is that Intel have locked the SA voltage on 12th gen+ non K chips, as otherwise people would stop buying K series at this point.

My 4400 kit that does CL15 4600 wont even boot above 4000 on the 12600, same with the previous E dies I passed down. Also 4000 CL16 needs gear 2, and 3600 CL15 gear 1 errors at any voltage without more SA voltage, which is locked at a pathetic 0.95v.

But its only like a few extra FPS with higher ram OC at most, and the extra heat from overclocking these chips for tiny gains is becoming less attractive compared to undervolting, as with the RTX 3000 cards.

I don't think Im going to upgrade my 10900K now, I'll upgrade this rig after a few more generations, then use the 12600 in the desk PC.

The 12600 & 3080 Ti are being paired with an LGC1 55 inch in my lounge soon, delivery and installation today.

10900K & Pentium will be in use for dual boxing in MMOs and couch unfriendly games.

I don't think I'm going to buy any more than the xx600K CPUs in the future, I've never needed them for anything more than gaming. One thing I'm not sure about and need to test though is Anno 1800 performance, it drops all the way to 25 FPS on the 10900K and 1080 Ti at max settings 1440p because of how CPU bottlenecked the game is, on the reddit subforum people went from the same 25 fps lows to 38 with a 12900K.

Also Ryzen 3D cache chips coming out soon, but I will at least wait until Intels 7nm chios before getting another CPU upgrade. 13th gen isnt planned to have any more P cores, just more E cores so meh, from most results the E cores still want to be turned off for gaming and Windows 11.

What cooling did you use on the 12600K?

How long do you run Prime to know your OC is stable?

Kids Upgrade. https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Vinmn/saved/#view=zMyLcf