Intel, XMP and voltage.

[csoul15a402e4]

Sorry for the long post!

I have a i9-11900k with a MSI MEG Z590 ACE ATX LGA1200 Motherboard and G.Skill Ripjaws V 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-4000 CL18 Memory. I am trying to get the best performance I can primarily for gaming. I am running with adaptive boost and hyperthreading and per core hyperthreading all enabled and on auto. I also have a 1600w PSU, so no worry about juice. When running XMP to run stable on gear 1, I enable XMP and then manually lower the mhz to 3333. Mind you this is also on 1N. I also have MSI intel game boost enabled. My voltages are (Core 1.4 - SA 1.3 - IO 1.056 - IO 2 1.354) They are all on Auto beside the Core which is set to 1.4 just like the DRAM. Is it worth raising the voltages manually on the CPU side? Or switch to Gear 2 while still on 1N running at 4000mhz which is stable also? Should I stay at gear 2 and OC the mhz higher on the ram? Trying not to fry anything with higher voltages lol. Also, some additional info shows on MSI's website shows that these ram sticks are on their approved list with my motherboard on XMP. Which I'm assuming they were running on gear 2, cause my system is not stable at 4000mhz in gear 1.

Sorry again for the long post any suggestions would help thanks!

 

[darkhawk]

You're probably best off reading this article : https://wccftech.com/msi-talks-inte...ost-technology-gear-modes-power-temperatures/
It also mentions an MSI Youtube video that most of the pictures are based from.
Overall, Gear 1 causes a larger stress on the CPU, which actually increases the temp, causing the clocks to drop.
Gear 2 causes less temp, which means the CPU can stay at a higher clock. At some point, as long as the memory can get high enough, Gear 2 does become better. I want to say it's somewhere in the 4000MHz@CL18 is the same as the best Gear 1 ratio, and any higher gets you even more performance.

 

[csoul15a402e4]

Really helpful thanks. Next question would be then; Would higher mhz or lower latency in gear 2? So should I focus running higher then 4000 or get the cl lower? since gear 2 runs half? Or would the basic practice of raise the mhz as high as I can go till im unstable then lower timings till unstable.

 

[citay]

Two things:

1) I would definitely disable GameBoost, especially on the 11900K. GameBoost is the worst overclocking method there is, for several reasons. It will apply too much voltage everywhere, because MSI wanted to make it work with all types of CPUs of varying quality. So they add huge safety margins for the VCore, which is in no way adapted to your specific CPU. This tends to make power consumption and heat production skyrocket, without improving performance anywhere near equally as much. GameBoost also doesn't take into account the best way to utilize the turbo modes. Any automatic overclocking that is not optimized to your specific CPU is bad, but GameBoost especially so.

But i would not overclock the 11900K whatsoever. That specific CPU is actually driven above its natural limit at stock, by the four different turbo mechanisms (one of which Intel only added two weeks before launch in a desperate last-ditch attempt at the performance crown at least in gaming). So once you enable that last addition, called ABT (Adaptive Boost Technology), you are already running it in what would be considered a highly overclocked state with any previous CPU model. See here: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?...msi-z590-ace-motherboard.361936/#post-2054207

The 11900K is the result of Intel being cornered by a strong competitor and seeing itself forced to squeeze water from a rock. Meaning, going way above the point of optimal efficiency on the voltage-per-frequency mapping, in order to have a halfway competetive high-end CPU model as a stop-gap solution until Alder Lake was ready. If you want to overclock an 11900K beyond what the turbo modes already achieve, it's a losing game. You can't get much more performance out of it, but it will use drastically more power and generate a lot more heat. So, small benefit, huge downsides.

If you want the highest performance from this silicon at a reasonable power consumption, leave ABT off, don't overclock manually, just remove the power limits by selecting "Water Cooler" in the BIOS. If you have good CPU cooling, this should achieve a great performance. It will still have very high power consumption, but not the crazy levels you reach with ABT or OC for minimal benefit in speed.


2) Always strive for Gear1 mode. This is only possible up to a certain RAM frequency, and if you go above it and Gear2 mode is required, the performance hit is substantial.
I talk about this further under 4) in my thread RAM explained: Why two modules are better than four / single- vs. dual-rank / stability testing

Most games will prefer the lower latencies you get at DDR4-3600~3800 Gear1. In Gear2 mode, you have higher internal latencies, so you only get the higher RAM bandwidth as the main benefit, but games care less about that than they do about the latencies. The only things that could profit are RAM-bandwidth-dependent workloads.

CR1T / 1N is really difficult at higher speeds with your dual-rank RAM. I would give priority to Gear1 at a decent speed like DDR4-3600 over insisting on CR1T.

 

[RemusM]

Really helpful thanks. Next question would be then; Would higher mhz or lower latency in gear 2? So should I focus running higher then 4000 or get the cl lower? since gear 2 runs half? Or would the basic practice of raise the mhz as high as I can go till im unstable then lower timings till unstable.

In most of the real-world scenarios (including games) 3600MHz in Gear 1 is as good as 4400MHz in Gear 2.
But DDR4 at speeds above 4000MHz run very hot and they require high voltages (including for CPU IMC).
On the other hand, for >90% of the current CPUs, anything faster than 3600MHz does not run stable in Gear 1.
Even more: CL14 is not a great option for DDR4-3600 (you need high voltages as well).
And finally, keep in mind this rule: more memory you have, lower speed you'll get.

The bottom line: for 2x8GB or 2x16GB you should go for DDR4-3600 CL16 in Gear 1.
For 2x32GB you can try 3600MHz, but sooner or later you might get into stability issues.
So for 64GB I would try 3200-3466MHz in Gear 1.
good luck

 

[csoul15a402e4]

Yea, in Gear one as I mentioned above I'm only stable at 3333. Working on raising past 4400 in gear 2 currently.

 

[citay]

First, disable GameBoost, then try to reacher higher RAM speeds in Gear1 using higher SA/IO2 voltages like 1.4V (you can try to lower them again later).

 

[csoul15a402e4]

First, disable GameBoost, then try to reacher higher RAM speeds in Gear1 using higher SA/IO2 voltages like 1.4V (you can try to lower them again later).

Yea, I was at around 1.5 ish and I just dont feel comfortable going past that. I have Gear 2 at around 4466 with decent timings. After bout 5 benchmarks for different games. I have around a 10fps increase on gear 2 then my gear 1.