* wanted to keep to Intel spec out of caution
If you mean damaging/killing the CPU, well, it has self-protection mechanisms like thermal throttling, which prevent any damage from overtemperature. If you have a low-end board model, you might cause the VRM area around the CPU to heat up considerably when the CPU power draw is very high. And of course, you don't want your CPU cooling being overpowered because it can't get rid of the heat from the CPU fast enough anymore. So if you mean that by caution, then yes, it's good to set power limits. If you see that, otherwise, the temperatures get to 90°C and above, then absolutely, power limits are useful to keep it below that.
But don't go by what Intel choose. Those numbers lost all their meaning for normal end users. They have some relevance for OEMs who build PCs and want to have their cooling be able to deal with the official numbers, but not more. That's why they sometimes use special CPU models like the -T models (example i7-13700T: 106W Maximum Turbo Power, 35W Processor Base Power), and use a motherboard where the BIOS is strictly enforcing those limits. Then they can use a cheap cooler and never have to worry about their customers getting into problems. Of course these low power limits, especially the low PBP of 35W (Long Duration power limit) will completely castrate this CPU. On the other hand, if you were to use this CPU with considerably higher power limits or unlimited, then it would probably get quite close to a normal 13700(K). Also read the bottom of
this post.
And for average Joe building his own PC, what good should the Intel numbers be, when they don't know what cooling you use? For a cheap cooler, the limits are too high. For a 360mm AIO for example, it could deal with more heat. And when you leave a modern i7/i9 CPU completely off the leash, it wants to draw 300W and more, that's all with default Intel voltages and frequencies (plus a little extra from the board, which can be reduced by lowering CPU Lite Load). And when you set up the BIOS in a modern board, it will tend to default to maxed out power limits, often it will be pre-selected, or people will select the value that allows a high power draw because it's worded in a certain way. You have a tower cooler, you select tower cooler. Surprise, now the power limits are close to 300W, good luck to the tower cooler...
So it's much better to do a Cinebench R23/R24 run, check the temperatures, then adjust the power limits accordingly you so it's never higher than mid-80°C. If you find that you only have a power draw of 140W in Cinebench, meaning you're not even hitting the Boxed cooler power limits, then the power limits are completely meaningless for your configuration. That's the same for my own PC. I have an i5-13500, which goes to maybe 120W power draw in Cinebench and 140W in Prime95. Temperatures are very low because of my Noctua NH-D15, just as intended. So it doesn't matter if the power limits are set to 181W, 288W or 4096W, i just leave it on Water cooler.
However, the Current limit is the one I'm most fearful about, and that's because I couldn't find that much information and reliable/official documentation about it, the risk of running higher than spec etc. I really wonder how safe it is to keep it over limits. There's an
interesting discussion about this here and in the follow-up.
That's exactly what i was referring to
here. That's why relying on the Current limit is not the best method for keeping the cooling on top of things. First of all, it can throttle too aggressively if set too low. Also, we want to go by the resulting power draw in Watt, the product of voltage (V) * current (A). When we only control the maximum current in Amperes, we don't know what the voltage is. Every single CPU requests a slightly different voltage from the board, according to its quality. So we don't go by Amps, we go by Watts, the end result of it all, this is much more precise than trying to limit the current, for the purpose of a "cooling capability optimization".
But come on, you have 140W power draw, there is nothing to be fearful about. People here on the forum are running their 14700K/14900K at over 300W power draw without batting an eyelid, i have to explain to them that the CPU bouncing off 100°C and a thermal throttling from hell is not the ideal setup for daily use. Yes, ten years ago, 140W would've been extraordinarily high, but by now we are used to much more extreme numbers from Intel (not that that's good).
Anyway, you are fine even with maxed out power limits, your CPU is not even sniffing at the power limits. Try to find out how much additional voltage you can shave off by tuning CPU Lite Load and testing the stability, this is the best thing you can do. And then when it's stable at a relatively low power draw, and you see that your cooling is not overstressed, then there is nothing to worry about.
