Z490i unify issues 11900k

[paladito158d02e3]

Hi
I recently bought an 11900k to use with my z490i unify
The problem is if i enable xmp i cant post with 3200 mhz ram speed in gear 1, the best i can go is 2800 mhz gear 1 with which i see black artifacts on screen.
In gear 2 it posts with 3200 mhz no problems expect the bad perfomance in games.
I tried to increase vccsa and vccio and ram voltage to max values but to no avail.
The memory and board worked great with xmp with my 10700k
Could the imc of the 11900k be broken ? it is certified for 3200 mhz gear 1
My specs
meg msi z490i unify latest bios 7C77v1C
G.Skill Aegis 32GB DDR4 F4-3200C16D-32GIS xmp profile DDR4-3200 CL16-18-18-38 1.35V ( i know the memory is not in the qvl list but the list for 11th gen is old 2021-08-25 and i cant find ram in it that i can buy )
intel 11900k

I will appreciate any help

 

[citay]

For 11th gen, VCCIO is not it (leave it on Auto), VCCIO2 is the memory controller voltage. There's no need to max out SA or IO2, instead, that can be very dangerous for your IMC, you can grill it if you max them out. Let's assume the IMC survived the voltage and wasn't degraded from it that quickly. You can set SA and IO2 to 1.35V, that should be more than plenty for the IMC at that speed in Gear1. Set your DRAM Voltage to 1.4V and see if this helps.

 

[paladito158d02e3]

Thanks for the reply
When i say max i mean max recommended values for daily use so 1.4 vccsa and 1.35 vccio and 1.5 dram to no avail , i didnt know about vccio2 but i cant find it in bios under voltage settings

 

[citay]

Ok. I think i know what the issue is now. Since your Z490 BIOS is not exposing the VCCIO2 value (as it was designed for 10th gen CPUs, and only got 11th gen compatibility with a BIOS update), you cannot raise the value, and neither does the BIOS, meaning it always stays at the default of probably 1.05V or maybe even lower. This is not even enough for DDR4-3200 Gear1.

When you raise VCCIO, it does nothing for an 11th gen CPU, since the memory controller voltage went to VCCIO2 instead (also sometimes called "Rocket Lake Memory" voltage). So what this all means, you might be limited to whatever the CPU's IMC can manage at default voltage, which won't be auto-raised for higher RAM speeds. So the IMC is severely voltage-starved to allow for higher XMP speeds in Gear1 mode, but it's enough for Gear2 mode. That's my best theory.

So either you get something like a 10850K, which i think was the better CPU anyway, this will have the IMC on VCCIO again. Of course 10th gen also didn't have any Gear1/Gear2 yet, it was probably the best IMC for DDR4 that Intel ever had so far. Or you switch to a MSI MEG Z590I Unify which will expose and auto-raise VCCIO2. Or you make do with your RAM in Gear2 mode.

 

[paladito158d02e3]

What you say makes sense.
So that means that every user with msi z490 board that uses 11th gen can't reach gear 1 3200mhz , is it something that can be fixed with a bios update ? I wonder why there aren't more posts for this problem then

 

[citay]

I posted about this potential issue before, read here for example, https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/z590-msi-tomahawk-ram-problem.368643/page-2#post-2088923

And i have always advised to pair a Z490 board with a 10th gen CPU and Z590 with an 11th gen. But yeah, not too many reports about it. Maybe your particular CPU's IMC needs a bit of higher voltage to reach a certain frequency in Gear1, and others can reach it with a bit lower voltage. If it really has to do with VCCIO2 as i think it might.

You can create a ticket with MSI and explain your troubles, maybe they can do something about it. Also, can you make a screenshot of your voltage settings in the BIOS?
Press F12 in the BIOS to save a screenshot to a FAT32 USB stick and then convert to PNG before uploading.