MSI Z790 GAMING PLUS WIFI + i7-14700k: Slightly high CPU temperature even not heavy load

[Otto_83]

Hello, I would like some suggestions regarding the temperatures of my CPU i7-14700k, which at the moment seem slightly high to me.
To avoid CPU thermal throttling during benchmark, I changed these settings in the motherboard BIOS ( Msi Z790 GAMING PLUS WIFI- AMI BIOS 7E06vH4 ):
CPU cooler type: Boxed Cooler
PL1-PL2: 240W
MSI enhanced turbo = Disabled
Intel C-State = Enabled
IA CEP Support = Enabled
tvb voltage optimizations = enabled
tvb ratio clipping = enabled
tvb ratio clipping enhanced = Enabled
In this way, the CPU temperature under heavy load (Cinebench 2024), is around 93°.

Working with Adobe Lightroom the average temperature is 30°, but sometimes it suddenly rises to 72°, after a few seconds it returns below 40°.
What worries me most are the CPU temp spikes, especially when the load is not that high, such as when I use Lightroom or other programs that are not very demanding on the CPU.
I'll post some screenshots to help you understand better.
Thanks in advance and sorry for my bad English

My PC specifications:
-MB: Msi Z790 GAMING PLUS WIFI
-CPU: I7-14700K
-PSU: Kolink REGULATOR 750W
-RAM: CORSAIR VENGEANCE DDR5 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 6400MHz CL32 Intel
-VGA: ASUS DUAL NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 OC Edition
-AIO: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 (Rev.7), mounted on top of the case
-CASE: be quiet! Shadow Base 800
-FANS: 3x PURE WINGS 3 140mm on front- 1xPURE WINGS 3 140mm on rear

 

[Otto_83]

Finally found some time to run some tests.
Last time I had set the CPU Lite load to level 3, but I noticed that sometimes the PC would not BOOT, so I set it to level 5.
I ran 32 cycles of y cruncher N63, a 40-minute stress test with OCCT, and a test with cinebench 2024, now I have to do the 40 cycles of GB6.
During the tests the temperatures seemed good, the system seemed stable but I noticed a strange thing: Although I set 230w as power limit from BIOS, during the tests the CPU never exceeded 196w. Am I doing something wrong?
Ah! forgot, I also uninstalled Avast now the PC runs much better.

 

[mh.shuvro0157b02e6]

Hello, I would like some suggestions regarding the temperatures of my CPU i7-14700k, which at the moment seem slightly high to me.
To avoid CPU thermal throttling during benchmark, I changed these settings in the motherboard BIOS ( Msi Z790 GAMING PLUS WIFI- AMI BIOS 7E06vH4 ):
CPU cooler type: Boxed Cooler
PL1-PL2: 240W
MSI enhanced turbo = Disabled
Intel C-State = Enabled
IA CEP Support = Enabled
tvb voltage optimizations = enabled
tvb ratio clipping = enabled
tvb ratio clipping enhanced = Enabled
In this way, the CPU temperature under heavy load (Cinebench 2024), is around 93°.

Working with Adobe Lightroom the average temperature is 30°, but sometimes it suddenly rises to 72°, after a few seconds it returns below 40°.
What worries me most are the CPU temp spikes, especially when the load is not that high, such as when I use Lightroom or other programs that are not very demanding on the CPU.
I'll post some screenshots to help you understand better.
Thanks in advance and sorry for my bad English

My PC specifications:
-MB: Msi Z790 GAMING PLUS WIFI
-CPU: I7-14700K
-PSU: Kolink REGULATOR 750W
-RAM: CORSAIR VENGEANCE DDR5 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 6400MHz CL32 Intel
-VGA: ASUS DUAL NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 OC Edition
-AIO: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 (Rev.7), mounted on top of the case
-CASE: be quiet! Shadow Base 800
-FANS: 3x PURE WINGS 3 140mm on front- 1xPURE WINGS 3 140mm on rear

I was experiencing a similar issue with my setup, which is also an MSI Z790 Gaming Plus WiFi motherboard paired with a 14700K CPU. However, your idle temperatures seem pretty good. My idle temperatures average around 45°C, with a minimum of 33°C, even though I'm using a Thermalright Notte Frozen 360 AIO with a contact frame.

 

[Otto_83]

Yes, in idle my temps are not bad. but consider that temps of my CPU, currently are very similar to yours, although they are slightly lower for now.
Summer is coming in Italy, now there are the first hints of warm weather. Obviously there will be much higher temps in the middle of summer, and that worries me a little bit. But in the end I think the CPU temps under full load will never go above 80 degrees with my current settings, at least I hope so.
There are some things I still can't figure out. With the new beta bios (7E06vH52), with the standard Intel preset, the default value of CPU Lite Load is 16, instead with the last stable bios (7E06vH4) with the "Boxed cooler" preset or whatever it's called, CPU lite load is automatically set to 13. With the "Liquid cooler" preset, CPU lite load is automatically set to 9.
I can't figure out what the reason is, but I'm sure this goes to affect the CPU temps. Now I manually set CPU Lite Load to 6, but in my opinion this should be better explained by MSI.
With the CPU Lite load set to intel default the voltages are crazy and the temps are too high.

 

[mh.shuvro0157b02e6]

Yes, in idle my temps are not bad. but consider that temps of my CPU, currently are very similar to yours, although they are slightly lower for now.
Summer is coming in Italy, now there are the first hints of warm weather. Obviously there will be much higher temps in the middle of summer, and that worries me a little bit. But in the end I think the CPU temps under full load will never go above 80 degrees with my current settings, at least I hope so.
There are some things I still can't figure out. With the new beta bios (7E06vH52), with the standard Intel preset, the default value of CPU Lite Load is 16, instead with the last stable bios (7E06vH4) with the "Boxed cooler" preset or whatever it's called, CPU lite load is automatically set to 13. With the "Liquid cooler" preset, CPU lite load is automatically set to 9.
I can't figure out what the reason is, but I'm sure this goes to affect the CPU temps. Now I manually set CPU Lite Load to 6, but in my opinion this should be better explained by MSI.
With the CPU Lite load set to intel default the voltages are crazy and the temps are too high.

Yes, you are right. Weather, season, and room temperature can affect CPU temperatures. My room temperature averages around 32°C, and with air conditioning, it's 27°C. Given this, my CPU temperatures seem normal.

It's good to hear that you've found the perfect settings for your system. Currently, I'm using PL1/PL2 set to 253/253 and a max current of 400A. Should I also set my CPU Lite Load to 6? It's currently set to auto (16) with the boxed cooler preset.

Additionally, I would like to know about your experience with this motherboard. What operating system are you using? Have you faced any low volume issues? I'm experiencing very low sound output with this motherboard. I've tried installing and reinstalling all the Realtek audio drivers, but the volume remains low. Even at level 100, it sounds like it's only at 50% volume.

 

[Otto_83]

In general, I am happy with this motherboard.
I am using Windows 10 and have not encountered any problems with its sound card. I am using 2.1 amplified speakers though. I haven't tried connecting headphones directly yet.
Later when I get back home I will try to connect headphones and let you know.
Another thing that comes to mind is many sound cards integrated on the motherboard, may have problems handling headphones or speakers with high impedance if these are not amplified.
What headphones or speakers are you using?

 

[Otto_83]

I would like to ask one thing.
Is it normal to reach thermal throttling only on a P-core with CPU package temperature at 82C?

These are current BIOS settings:

 

[atentatora]

You should increase the polling rate of HWiNFO. Maybe it didn't have enough time to register the temp.

 

[Otto_83]

You should increase the polling rate of HWiNFO. Maybe it didn't have enough time to register the temp.

I hadn't thought about it, now it is set to 2000 ms which is the default value. Do you think 5000 ms might be enough?

 

[citay]

Increasing the polling rate means lowering the interval, so for example to 500 ms (half a second) instead of two seconds.

 

[Otto_83]

Increasing the polling rate means lowering the interval, so for example to 500 ms (half a second) instead of two seconds.

ha okay! So it is the opposite of what I thought
Thanks you guys I will try with 500ms as you suggested.

 

[pandawels198159f02e6]

I am using Windows 10

Found the problem, my first bet was mounting pressure, but its the OS.
Your temps will drop under W11... its magic

 

[Otto_83]

Your temps will drop under W11

Finally, you found the solution!

my first bet was mounting pressure

And you'd have lost the bet because Windows 11 will fix everything!

But taking it more into consideration. i think i have reinstalled my Artic Liquid Freeze ii 360 at least 10 times.
How can I see if there is a problem with the waterblock installation?
About this, I have been used to putting thermal paste on my old i7 6700k for years which has a more square shape. Now with my new processor I can't determine the right amount of thermal paste to put on it. maybe because it has a more rectangular shape?
Last time i applied thermal paste like this. do you think i put too much thermal paste? i apologize for this stupid question.

 

[pandawels198159f02e6]

W10 has some problems with P and E cores.... here and here.
Yeah, spread it like on the image...

What are your temps in games ?
Should be 52-55C avg.

 

[citay]

Last time i applied thermal paste like this. do you think i put too much thermal paste? i apologize for this stupid question.

This amount of thermal paste is still ok (but i wouldn't put more than that). In the newer Arctic coolers, for LGA1700 CPUs, they recommend to put an "X" pattern onto the CPU, just lightly squeezing the tube and moving it along, in other words, not too thick lines. You could also put a thin- to medium-thickness line of paste vertically in the middle, from around the places where you put your top and your bottom "blobs" there.

What you need to look at is when you take off your cooler, how is the thermal paste coverage on the CPU. That tells you much more than the "before" picture here. But no need to take it off now just for that. With this blob pattern, coverage will be ok. The most important thing is good coverage in the central area, the four corners are not important, there is no CPU under there, it's only a vertically oriented rectangular, the most heat comes from there:

 

[Arctucas]

This is the core, coverage over this area is most important.

In my opinion, you have too much TIM in your pic.

When I was keeping the lid on, I only put about a BB sized dot in the middle, and let the cold plate spread it out.


EDIT: Thread Ninja strikes!

 

[Otto_83]

Thanks to all for the helpful advice!

 

[Otto_83]

I was curious, so I removed the CPU heatsink. I had noticed that the thermal paste was not evenly distributed, so I cleaned out the old thermal paste, remounted the backplate even though everything looked fine. I put thermal paste on the CPU, this time a slightly smaller amount than I put last time, and only on the middle of it, and remounted the waterblock. But CPU temperatures still the same as before.
The only thing I did not touch was the contact frame, because it seems to be correctly in place.
Maybe I'm worrying too much, but with the very conservative settings I'm using, I expected lower temperatures than the current ones.
In two days I should receive a thing that measures the ambient temperature. I will use it just for comparison.
This is what I found when I removed the waterblock:
CPU Side:

Heatsink side:

 

[citay]

Yeah, too much thermal paste before. We also have a bit of a top/bottom discrepancy in how it looks, but maybe that's due to the way you pulled it off. For a 360mm AIO, the performance is underwhelming. You can cool this amount of heat with this (it will be close to the limit, but it's possible). Your temperatures, i would expect those at easily >200W with that AIO. Where is the radiator mounted? Also, can you expand the sensors of the GPU? Curious what it's doing.

 

[Otto_83]

I did the test again, this time I set in hwinfo 500ms as global polling, before was set to 1000ms. The situation seems worse, even the Cinebench score is slightly lower than before.
Do you think I should contact Artic and ask for RMA?
By the way, the GPU seems to be sleeping.

Edit: Radiator is mounted on Top

 

[citay]

That cooling performance definitely leaves something to be desired. Don't outright request an RMA, just write them what you have tried so far, maybe attach/link a few photos/screenshots, see what they want you to test.

GPU is clocking down properly, but why is it reporting 53W power draw in idle? That model should be at ~10W in idle. Maybe it's just a bug, some cards show way too high power draw for some reason. I saw it myself on a 3050 before, it showed a higher power draw in the sensors (like 40W or so) than the whole PC was pulling at the wall, measured with an energy meter...