MSI Z490 A PRO, intel i5 10600k, best settings in bios and msi center

[shane.intel155402da]

I checked the setting, previously it was set to water cooler and I changed it to tower air cooler, I have an MSI Z490 A PRO, Noctua NH DH-15, Thermaltake smart 600w/12v,intel i5-10600k, Crucial ballistix 16gb/8x2 3200 ddr4 dram, Corsair carbide series 100r

-most recent bios updated
-xmp1 profile used, changed to 3200mhz
-msi user scenario : balanced
-cooling wizard- profile 3, customize, cpu fan set to smart fan

cpu lite load control was set to normal, changed cpu lite load to 4, didn't see a difference then changed to 1, no difference, then changed to auto. set to auto.

My initial concern was the loud fans which were never tuned or adjusted. I have a rear fan, 2 at the top for exhaust (silent wings 3), the noctua cooler with 1 fan on it.

The desktop is used for reading, often will load many browser tabs(10-15) for reading and UO, ultima online 3 clients running. I prefer to use a profile that corresponds with cpu usage efficiently with auto adjusting fan control and very silent at idle. At some time a light software for architecture designing might be used, or a software such as sims.

With 1 browser, 15 tabs, and 3 clients, msi center, specs from hardware monitoring
cpu usage 7-16%, avg 8%
cpu frequncy 4500mhz
sys fan 1 is approx 980 rpm
sys fan 2 1200 rpm
sys fan 6 1200 rpm
cpu fan 0, saw it change to 300, usually 0.
cpu core temp 102f
cpu socket temp 95f
system temp 100

what is the reason for the cpu fan rpm at 0 most of the time. That's suppose to be the noctua cooler, which has 1 fan on it. The fan is moving. I removed the second fan from the noctua cooler because it was causing unnecessary noise.
-updated- inspected the cpu fan smart fan settings and adjusted the first graph point setting to 40% 93f and the second point to 50% 104f
cpu fan rpm is 740-760

In msi center-hardware monitoring, on the right the last line is "resizable bar" disabled, where is the setting for that.

In bios I set all fans to smart control and msi center-user scenario "balanced". Is that the best configuration for my setup and usage.

What lowers cpu core temp to the 90f's? increasing the cpu fan rpm doesn't lower the cpu core temp.

 

[citay]

Check my Guide: How to set up a fan curve in the BIOS, this will hopefully answer a bunch of questions. I have the same cooler by the way, and the screenshot for the fan on the CPU_FAN header is for the middle fan on the Noctua, the other one is on PUMP_FAN on my board. So for CPU_FAN you can try my settings. Note that everything is in °C, not Fahrenheit, and °C is sort of the "official" temperature unit we will use on this international forum, sorry for that. So you will have to do the conversion there, if necessary, although the BIOS also shows the °F value.

Now, some other things that caught my attention.

Thermaltake smart 600w

Thermaltake SMART is their bottom-tier PSU model line, which exact model is it? Some of them are really bad, to the point that i would replace them, but i will wait for the exact model to say more about this issue.

cpu lite load control was set to normal, changed cpu lite load to 4, didn't see a difference then changed to 1, no difference, then changed to auto. set to auto.

There is a big difference, especially in power draw under full load. But you don't use MSI Center for monitoring, it has very incomplete monitoring, you'd use HWinfo Sensors, also see here and follow the link. In fact, i don't use MSI Center for reasons. You can do it all in the BIOS, that's how i do it.

In msi center-hardware monitoring, on the right the last line is "resizable bar" disabled, where is the setting for that.

In the BIOS:

Re-Size BAR Support [Enabled] gives you a slight performance increase with graphics card that support this feature (you can look it up). If you don't use a discrete graphics card (you didn't list one), then this setting doesn't really matter for you.

cpu fan rpm is 740-760

What lowers cpu core temp to the 90f's? increasing the cpu fan rpm doesn't lower the cpu core temp.

90°F is like what, a bit over 30°C? Shouldn't be too difficult to reach that, but only in idle of course! As soon as you have some load going on, it will not stay at such a low temperature, because the power draw is higher. There is no need to fight for such low temperatures though, it's only important that the temperatures and noise don't go out of hand. If you have nothing open (for example after having booted Windows and giving it five minutes for background tasks to complete), then you should see around 30°C or so CPU temperature, even at low fan speeds like mine (under 500 RPM in idle). Then you check that everything is still coolable under full load, for example with Cinebench like in the thread i linked, and set the fan curves so there is no excessive noise in mid-load scenarios. Then you're more or less done. You can almost copy my fan curves, if you want.

 

[shane.intel155402da]

Thermaltake Smart 600w

Smart 600W

Smart SPD-0600P – 600W 80 PLUS® Standard Certified APFC PSU

thermaltakeusa.com

Nvidia geforce gtx 760 2gb

 

[citay]

Thermaltake Smart 600w

Smart 600W

Smart SPD-0600P – 600W 80 PLUS® Standard Certified APFC PSU

thermaltakeusa.com

The Thermaltake Smart 80PLUS White is classed as "Tier F • Replace immediately" on the PSU tier list, so it's one of the worst brand-name PSU models on the market. PSUs in Tier F are known to have "heavily malfunctioning protections, QC issues or design flaws leading to widespread malfunctions / DoAs".

This PSU model is the result of too much cost-cutting measures to reach a certain price point, and the result is a PSU that is magnitudes worse than if the price was a bit higher to build it better. I would replace it with a higher-quality one (no lower than Tier C), see my Guide: How to find a good PSU.

It's not even about the brand, Thermaltake are very capable of building high-quality PSU models. It's just that - similar to EVGA - they also offer some garbage-tier ones, so you really have to make sure that you get a decent model.

If i were to optimize something about this PC, then a higher-quality PSU would be at the top of my list.

About your screenshots: Temperatures are completely ok, and fan speeds are on the high side in idle. You can reduce them to around 500 RPM when there's no CPU load (lowest point of the fan curve). For my Noctua fans that corresponds to around 20% at 35°C in the BIOS fan curve. Then at 50°C you can set 30% fan speed, at 75°C you can set 67% fan speed, and at 90°C you can set 100%. For the system fans, you have to check what good values are for those. If they are 3-pin fans, they can't be controlled via PWM-percentage like the Noctua fans, they have to be DC-voltage-controlled instead (you can set that in the BIOS).

Nvidia geforce gtx 760 2gb

Wow, that's like what, 11 years old? This can actually cause problems in a newer system.

Have you ever tried with just the Intel iGPU of the CPU? Shouldn't be that much worse by now, perhaps.

 

[shane.intel155402da]

What reasons could be used to determine if problems exist in my system from the nvidia. It was bought during the gpu shortage as a temporary gpu, used for at least two years without a problem.

I did try with the Intel igpu, I added the nvidia when I was using a second screen. Currently there is an audio error, static/distorted sound from the speaker when no audio is played and same error when audio is played, without the audio being heard. There's a thread for it. I removed the nvidia and audio error exists.

I was able to tune the sys fans from the msi center. I increased the fan settings to monitor for a few days and will be adjusting each point.

 

[FlyingScot]

CiTay is giving you great info, but just in case my info can be of assistance, I have included it below.

I have a 10600K with a dual-fan NH-D15 setup. In my testing, I have seen the NH-D15 fans fail to start at boot time (or stall intermittently) if RPM is allowed to fall below 317RPM. In my case, that was less than 17% PWM duty-cycle. I use the following fan curve, which might be a little on the aggressive side at the higher temp ranges but is perfectly quiet during non-gaming tasks. Incidentally, the most noise comes from top exhaust fans. You might be better of with reinstalling the 2nd fan on the NH-D15 and eliminating the top fans. In testing, the top exhaust (or intake) fans did virtually nothing to the cooling performance of my particular case, perhaps -1 deg C to CPU temps, maybe a little more for GPU temps. But they were just not worth the noise penalty.

Smart Mode PWM

0.1s / 0.3s

70C / 100% [>1400rpm]

60C / 70%

50C / 45%

40C / 18% [>350rpm]

My Rear 140mm fan curve is as follows:

Smart Mode DC

0.1s / 0.2s

75C / 12.0v [100%]

65C / 10.2v [85%]

55C / 8.4v [70%]

40C / 4.8v [40%]

I think the above fan settings help the air move straight through the cooler and out the rear.

Here is my front fan setup (3 x 120mm 1200rpm max):

Smart Mode DC

0.1s / 0.2s

75C / 12.0v [100%]

65C / 10.44v [87%]

55C / 8.4v [70%]

40C / 6.0v [50%]

Idle temps = CPU<35C, GPU <40C when ambient = 18C - 22C.
All non-gaming tasks are whisper quiet, which looks like what you are shooting for. In fact, the noisiest component by far is the WD Black 1TB 7200 rpm HDD. When it goes to sleep, the noise level is cut in half. BTW, my tower case is on the floor next to my desk, not on the desk.
Gaming noise level is high, but that could be tuned a little.

 

[shane.intel155402da]

CiTay is giving you great info, but just in case my info can be of assistance, I have included it below.

I have a 10600K with a dual-fan NH-D15 setup. In my testing, I have seen the NH-D15 fans fail to start at boot time (or stall intermittently) if RPM is allowed to fall below 317RPM. In my case, that was less than 17% PWM duty-cycle. I use the following fan curve, which might be a little on the aggressive side at the higher temp ranges but is perfectly quiet during non-gaming tasks. Incidentally, the most noise comes from top exhaust fans. You might be better of with reinstalling the 2nd fan on the NH-D15 and eliminating the top fans. In testing, the top exhaust (or intake) fans did virtually nothing to the cooling performance of my particular case, perhaps -1 deg C to CPU temps, maybe a little more for GPU temps. But they were just not worth the noise penalty.

Smart Mode PWM

0.1s / 0.3s

70C / 100% [>1400rpm]

60C / 70%

50C / 45%

40C / 18% [>350rpm]

My Rear 140mm fan curve is as follows:

Smart Mode DC

0.1s / 0.2s

75C / 12.0v [100%]

65C / 10.2v [85%]

55C / 8.4v [70%]

40C / 4.8v [40%]

I think the above fan settings help the air move straight through the cooler and out the rear.

Here is my front fan setup (3 x 120mm 1200rpm max):

Smart Mode DC

0.1s / 0.2s

75C / 12.0v [100%]

65C / 10.44v [87%]

55C / 8.4v [70%]

40C / 6.0v [50%]

Idle temps = CPU<35C, GPU <40C when ambient = 18C - 22C.
All non-gaming tasks are whisper quiet, which looks like what you are shooting for. In fact, the noisiest component by far is the WD Black 1TB 7200 rpm HDD. When it goes to sleep, the noise level is cut in half. BTW, my tower case is on the floor next to my desk, not on the desk.
Gaming noise level is high, but that could be tuned a little.

Did you notice any noise from installing two fans on the noctua? I removed one because the second fan caused a noise. 0 fans on the front.

 

[FlyingScot]

I've never run my setup with only one fan, so it's hard to say what "noise" you are perceiving. Trust me, I am very sensitive to noises, etc., but I have never had an issue with my NH-D15. Noise from fans can have one or more characteristics, often referred to as bearing noise (sounds like metal-on-metal grinding), whirring noise, and whooshing noise. The latter is almost impossible to avoid because what you are hearing is the movement of air. Many consider this to be the best kind of noise from a fan. A whirring noise is the result of a little bearing noise (sometimes) and the way the blade design "chops" the air. It is characteristic of the overall fan design. A bearing noise is not unusual in some designs where fan longevity is the goal. However, if bearing noise is very audible then the fan is likely starting to fail or is defective from the factory. Noctua fans use their own proprietary bearings, which is a hybrid fluid bearing design. One way to check if a bearing is failing is to spin it by hand and listen for any clicking. For fluid bearings, you can also look for oil stains around the center hub. If the Noctua fan in question is not defective, and assuming you installed it correctly (both flow direction and not hitting the heatsink fins) then the noise characteristic is likely normal. Again, my A15 fans on the NH-D15 have a very pleasant whooshing sound without any obvious bearing or chopping sounds. However, some people have accidentally installed the middle fan backwards and had both noise issue and cooling issues. It does happen if one is not paying attention. So my only recommendation is to give it another try to run with two fans. Just make sure to install them correctly. The air exits from the Noctua label side. Perhaps turn off the top case fans in BIOS (or MSI Center) so you can really know how the 2nd fan contributes to noise levels.

 

[citay]

What reasons could be used to determine if problems exist in my system from the nvidia. It was bought during the gpu shortage as a temporary gpu, used for at least two years without a problem.

I assume you are still on Win10, correct? The problems may arise once you attempt the upgrade to Win11 (which everyone will have to do in a bit over one year's of time), because that requires the BIOS to be in UEFI mode, and i'm not sure if a GeForce 760 plays nice with that.

I did try with the Intel igpu, I added the nvidia when I was using a second screen.

No need for that, your motherboard has 1x HDMI and 1x DisplayPort (DP) outputs. If none of your monitors have a DP input, then use a DP-to-HDMI cable.

Currently there is an audio error, static/distorted sound from the speaker when no audio is played and same error when audio is played, without the audio being heard. There's a thread for it. I removed the nvidia and audio error exists.

Audible distortions could actually be PSU-related (with a Tier F PSU, anything is possible), but the audio should be audible when you play something, this sounds more like a driver problem of sorts.

I was able to tune the sys fans from the msi center. I increased the fan settings to monitor for a few days and will be adjusting each point.

I like to set everything in the BIOS, but do it how you like it best. I would not increase the fan speeds - on the contrary, for idle and low load, there i would decrease them. If you have too high RPM in idle and at low loads, then you have more noise than necessary and collect more dust in the fins of the coolers.

Did you notice any noise from installing two fans on the noctua? I removed one because the second fan caused a noise.

On their newest Noctua coolers, they started to introduce an offset RPM for the two fans, in the order of 50 RPM. So for example when the middle fan is on 450 RPM, the right-side fan will be on 500 RPM, to avoid oscillations. This is something you can try.

0 fans on the front.

I'm a bit shocked by your cooling setup, looking at the pictures and this information. This is not how you would normally do it. Instead, it would be like this (from my system):

Two 140mm intake case fans in the front (not shown), one 140mm exhaust case fan in the rear, two fans on the Noctua in the correct mounting position. Although i replaced the right-side 140mm fan with a 120mm fan of theirs, for better RAM module clearance. If you remove a fan, you would always remove the side fan, never the middle fan. The middle fan is important for the cooling concept of this cooler.

When you have the Noctua mounted in the alternative orientation (fans pointing upwards), it is drawing in warmed up air from the GPU. Furthermore, the rear exhaust fan in your case is working against the other fans, "stealing away" airflow in that direction.

When you have no case intake fans, only exhaust fans, you have a high underpressure, meaning, air will be pulled in from everywhich way through every crevice, you have almost no control over the airflow direction.

So, the cooler is great, but the airflow concept, not so much...

 

[FlyingScot]

Wow. I'm a little distracted at present, so I didn't catch that photo of the setup. Good catch, CiTay!
Indeed, it's likely the reason for many of your cooling/noise issues. Here's what mine looks like:

Air blows from the front of the case through to the rear of the case. The top of the case has a mesh that is left unobstructed.

 

[shane.intel155402da]

Has anyone tested using an i5-10600k, without fan cooler and with liquid cooler, regular usage (4-10% cpu usage) with the MSI Z490 A Pro and case fans.

 

[FlyingScot]

Has anyone tested using an i5-10600k, without fan cooler and with liquid cooler, regular usage (4-10% cpu usage) with the MSI Z490 A Pro and case fans.

Are you asking because space in your case is too limited to orient the NH-D15 correctly? It’s a terrific cooler, especially for your application. A liquid cooler would be major overkill.

 

[darkhawk]

Has anyone tested using an i5-10600k, without fan cooler and with liquid cooler, regular usage (4-10% cpu usage) with the MSI Z490 A Pro and case fans.

Liquid Cooling for an i5 10600k, assuming you're not overclocking any/much....is gonna be way overkill for that setup. I wouldn't even bother.

In your pictures, it looks like your CPU cooler, Noctua NH DH-15 is rotated 90 degrees. (others have mentioned this above). I'd start there, and rotate it 90 degrees so that the fan on the cooler is blowing air towards the BACK of your case (towards the motherboard back panel I/O connectors). This should help and increase your cooling significantly.
Truth be told, the way your pictures shows it above, it looks like the top case fan is blowing DOWN into the cooler, and the fan on the cooler is probably blowing UP into the cooler, which would mean you'd have air fighting each other through your CPU cooler, which would actually make the temperature INCREASE as the air doesn't pass through cleanly, and could get trapped there because of the opposing fans blowing into each other. Not really a good scenario.

Your power supply is....junk. As citay states above, get a different one. Might be fine for now, but if it does blow up or go bad, I'd expect it to probably kill other things in your computer. Or start a fire possibly.....

As far as the GPU.....I'd stick with the GTX760.....it's actually better than the UHD 630 from Intel, even though it's 4 years newer than the GTX760.....

UserBenchmark: Intel UHD Graphics 630 (Desktop Coffee Lake i5 i7) vs Nvidia GTX 760

Intel's UHD GPU's are pretty much junk in comparison to anything that is 15 years old from NVidia or AMD. It probably works just fine as is, and I don't think I'd worry about it much. If that truly is a problem, I'd just get a newer GPU, like a GTX 1060 or 1050, and you'd be fine with that. Even an RX 6600 would be great for you.

Also, let's just put something out there that I'm not sure anyone has.....what's your ambient (ie your room) temperature where the PC is? If the room temperature is 70F, I'd expect to see something around 100F for the CPU. Depending on cooling, airflow, etc.... the CPU could be anywhere from a minimum of 20F to 30F higher at idle loads (ie at the desktop, NO applications open at all). Add in 10 to 50 chrome tabs and you'll probably go up another 10 to 20F depending on what those tabs are and whats going on.

Expecting to be much lower than 100F (or 37C) is kinda pushing things overall, depending on your ambient/room temperature. My room in my house is usually 70 to 74, so I expect things to be in the 100 to 120F range at idle, or with browser tabs open and such. I think this is an important distinction to make here, and perhaps set expectations on what is really achievable. Without a ton more information regarding room temperatures, etc.... it's hard to make much more than some wide general statements about temps.

 

[shane.intel155402da]

Check my Guide: How to set up a fan curve in the BIOS, this will hopefully answer a bunch of questions. I have the same cooler by the way, and the screenshot for the fan on the CPU_FAN header is for the middle fan on the Noctua, the other one is on PUMP_FAN on my board. So for CPU_FAN you can try my settings. Note that everything is in °C, not Fahrenheit, and °C is sort of the "official" temperature unit we will use on this international forum, sorry for that. So you will have to do the conversion there, if necessary, although the BIOS also shows the °F value.

Now, some other things that caught my attention.



Thermaltake SMART is their bottom-tier PSU model line, which exact model is it? Some of them are really bad, to the point that i would replace them, but i will wait for the exact model to say more about this issue.



There is a big difference, especially in power draw under full load. But you don't use MSI Center for monitoring, it has very incomplete monitoring, you'd use HWinfo Sensors, also see here and follow the link. In fact, i don't use MSI Center for reasons. You can do it all in the BIOS, that's how i do it.



In the BIOS:

View attachment 190030

Re-Size BAR Support [Enabled] gives you a slight performance increase with graphics card that support this feature (you can look it up). If you don't use a discrete graphics card (you didn't list one), then this setting doesn't really matter for you.




90°F is like what, a bit over 30°C? Shouldn't be too difficult to reach that, but only in idle of course! As soon as you have some load going on, it will not stay at such a low temperature, because the power draw is higher. There is no need to fight for such low temperatures though, it's only important that the temperatures and noise don't go out of hand. If you have nothing open (for example after having booted Windows and giving it five minutes for background tasks to complete), then you should see around 30°C or so CPU temperature, even at low fan speeds like mine (under 500 RPM in idle). Then you check that everything is still coolable under full load, for example with Cinebench like in the thread i linked, and set the fan curves so there is no excessive noise in mid-load scenarios. Then you're more or less done. You can almost copy my fan curves, if you want.

The cpu core temp in the pic is 32C, is that firstly because of your cpu base speed?

 

[shane.intel155402da]

I assume you are still on Win10, correct? The problems may arise once you attempt the upgrade to Win11 (which everyone will have to do in a bit over one year's of time), because that requires the BIOS to be in UEFI mode, and i'm not sure if a GeForce 760 plays nice with that.



No need for that, your motherboard has 1x HDMI and 1x DisplayPort (DP) outputs. If none of your monitors have a DP input, then use a DP-to-HDMI cable.



Audible distortions could actually be PSU-related (with a Tier F PSU, anything is possible), but the audio should be audible when you play something, this sounds more like a driver problem of sorts.



I like to set everything in the BIOS, but do it how you like it best. I would not increase the fan speeds - on the contrary, for idle and low load, there i would decrease them. If you have too high RPM in idle and at low loads, then you have more noise than necessary and collect more dust in the fins of the coolers.



On their newest Noctua coolers, they started to introduce an offset RPM for the two fans, in the order of 50 RPM. So for example when the middle fan is on 450 RPM, the right-side fan will be on 500 RPM, to avoid oscillations. This is something you can try.



I'm a bit shocked by your cooling setup, looking at the pictures and this information. This is not how you would normally do it. Instead, it would be like this (from my system):

View attachment 190038

Two 140mm intake case fans in the front (not shown), one 140mm exhaust case fan in the rear, two fans on the Noctua in the correct mounting position. Although i replaced the right-side 140mm fan with a 120mm fan of theirs, for better RAM module clearance. If you remove a fan, you would always remove the side fan, never the middle fan. The middle fan is important for the cooling concept of this cooler.

When you have the Noctua mounted in the alternative orientation (fans pointing upwards), it is drawing in warmed up air from the GPU. Furthermore, the rear exhaust fan in your case is working against the other fans, "stealing away" airflow in that direction.

When you have no case intake fans, only exhaust fans, you have a high underpressure, meaning, air will be pulled in from everywhich way through every crevice, you have almost no control over the airflow direction.

So, the cooler is great, but the airflow concept, not so much...

it's windows 11, uefi

 

[citay]

The cpu core temp in the pic is 32C, is that mostly because of your cpu base speed?

Not really. In the BIOS, it doesn't matter too much if you have an i5 or an i9, or which Intel generation. They will all be at a comparatively low speed, so the temperature with a nice cooler like this Noctua should always be in the low- to mid-30s if the room temperature is in the low 20s and if you have a bit of airflow through the case. In idle in Windows, it will be even lower, and lower voltage and lower C-states on top of that, so even an i9 will have under 10W power draw when nothing is going on. So again, even lower temperatures are possible.

Here are my current temperatures right now, room temperature 23°C, fan speeds very low, i can hardly hear if the PC is on or not.
You see the CPU package power in idle is around 3W, that is important too (i turned on some additional power saving options in the BIOS etc.).

CPU_FAN and PUMP_FAN are the two Noctua fans on the cooler, the other three SYSTEM_FAN are the case fans. You don't need more RPM to reach these temperatures when you have a good, clearly defined airflow through the system.

In your case, i would redo several things about the cooling, starting by putting the Noctua in the "correct" orientation with the middle fan installed, and the right-side fan too, with a slight RPM offset. Then putting one or both fans from the top on the front, as intake fans.

it's windows 11, uefi

Ok good, then the GeForce does play nice with it. Still, i would try just with the iGPU once. For example, i play Civilization VI on the iGPU, with pretty high settings in WQHD resolution. Games like this are totally doable on the iGPU. But this week i'm installing a dedicated GPU for some other games again.

 

[shane.intel155402da]

bios pic, 45c

 

[citay]

Yeah, that's high, unless it's quite hot in your room. I pointed out several things wrong with your cooling setup. If you want better results, you need to change them.

 

[shane.intel155402da]

Not really. In the BIOS, it doesn't matter too much if you have an i5 or an i9, or which Intel generation. They will all be at a comparatively low speed, so the temperature with a nice cooler like this Noctua should always be in the low- to mid-30s if the room temperature is in the low 20s and if you have a bit of airflow through the case. In idle in Windows, it will be even lower, and lower voltage and lower C-states on top of that, so even an i9 will have under 10W power draw when nothing is going on. So again, even lower temperatures are possible.

Here are my current temperatures right now, room temperature 23°C, fan speeds very low, i can hardly hear if the PC is on or not.
You see the CPU package power in idle is around 3W, that is important too (i turned on some additional power saving options in the BIOS etc.).


View attachment 190114

CPU_FAN and PUMP_FAN are the two Noctua fans on the cooler, the other three SYSTEM_FAN are the case fans. You don't need more RPM to reach these temperatures when you have a good, clearly defined airflow through the system.

In your case, i would redo several things about the cooling, starting by putting the Noctua in the "correct" orientation with the middle fan installed, and the right-side fan too, with a slight RPM offset. Then putting one or both fans from the top on the front, as intake fans.



Ok good, then the GeForce does play nice with it. Still, i would try just with the iGPU once. For example, i play Civilization VI on the iGPU, with pretty high settings in WQHD resolution. Games like this are totally doable on the iGPU. But this week i'm installing a dedicated GPU for some other games again.

What is your cpu package power without the changes for power savings at idle without apps and with the apps you use. In the picture, is that info with apps open at idle or without apps

 

[citay]

I had a couple programs open like Firefox and Thunderbird, but not with lots of tabs open. So it's almost as good as having nothing open. Any recent Intel CPU, even without any BIOS tweaking, should have no problem going below 10W power draw in idle. Also, my BIOS temperatures are in the low 30s, and there is much less power-saving active there.