Power Throttling with no limited power

[bhrain]

Hi, I have used Throttlestop for quite a while with my older CPU i5 9400F and was all great, never had any problems. Recently I bought a brand new i7 8700K, made a clean install of Windows 10 22H2 Pro and installed Throttlestop again. I have done some configuration but I noticed that PL1 is on in yellow on the Limits tab, wich I pressume is power throttling. I tried raising the power limit on the TPL tab but didn't work, PL1 is still there. Also I noticed that my CPU is not hitting the max MHZ Turbo wich is supposed to be 4.7mhz, when I try benchmark it with any software including Throttlestop, it get fixed on 4.3Mhz. Sometimes with no loads on the CPU it hits 4.4Mhz max. I already disabled any power limitations on the BIOS of my motherboard and I'm using a custom power scheme on windows wich force the CPU to aways perfom at max.

So, I'm having 2 problems:
1. PL1 Power throttling idk why
2. Max MHZ is not being achieved idk why too

I'm attaching a screenshot of my Throttlestop config

OBS: Yes, I undervolted the CPU but the mentioned problems persist even with no undervolt and I already even tried giving more voltage to the CPU on the bios but the problems persist.

System specs:
CPU: i7 8700K 3.70Mhz @ 4.7Mhz | Max temps on benchs: 67 C°
CPU Cooler: Water Cooler 240mm Rise Mode Black
Thermal paste on CPU: GD900 3G ; 14w/Mk
GPU: RTX 3050
PSU: 650w 80+ bronze
Motherboard: MSI B360M MORTAR
RAM: 8Gbx3 2666Mhz CL14
Windows: 10 22H2 Pro
Softwares in the background: Throttlestop, MSI Afterburner, Riot Vanguard, Nvidia, Razer Synapse 3

 

[unclewebb]

The 8700K is an unlocked CPU that supports overclocking but this is only possible when it is installed on a motherboard with a Z series chipset. The B360M chipset on your motherboard does not support any overclocking. Setting any of the turbo ratios in the FIVR window higher than the default values will be ignored. The Turbo column in the Turbo Ratio Limits section of the FIVR window shows the default values for your CPU. You might as well set all of the Ratios values back to the default values because you cannot overclock on this motherboard.

When 6 cores are active, the highest multiplier is 43. (99.767 MHz X 43 = 4289.98 MHz)

To use the higher turbo ratios when the CPU is lightly loaded, the core C states must be enabled in the BIOS. You can use ThrottleStop to check what C states are being used when your computer is idle at the desktop. People love to disable the power saving features like the C states but in your case, disabling the C states will make the CPU run slower, not faster. The maximum cache ratio is also limited when running an 8700K on a B360M motherboard.

The PL1 box in yellow is OK. When it is red, that indicates power limit throttling is in progress. In the Turbo Power Limits window I would clear both Clamp boxes and I would set the turbo time limit to the default 28 seconds. Requesting 3 million seconds of turbo boost does not do anything good or bad. I would set the PP0 Power Limit to 0, press Apply and then I would clear the PP0 Power Limit box and press OK. This setting does not need to be used.

I prefer to enable Speed Shift Technology in the BIOS. This is the way modern CPUs and Windows control the CPU speed. Even if you want to run at max speed all of the time, it is still OK to enable Speed Shift.

You can disable C1E if the other C states like C3 or C7 are being used.

There is probably no need to check the Clock Mod box. 8th Gen computers rarely if ever use this type of throttling. You only need to check this box if you ever see numbers in the Mod column that are less than 100.0.

4.7Mhz

The original 8086 from the late 1970s used to run at 5 MHz. Modern CPUs run at GHz speed.

Intel 8086 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[bhrain]

The 8700K is an unlocked CPU that supports overclocking but this is only possible when it is installed on a motherboard with a Z series chipset. The B360M chipset on your motherboard does not support any overclocking. Setting any of the turbo ratios in the FIVR window higher than the default values will be ignored. The Turbo column in the Turbo Ratio Limits section of the FIVR window shows the default values for your CPU. You might as well set all of the Ratios values back to the default values because you cannot overclock on this motherboard.

View attachment 383680

When 6 cores are active, the highest multiplier is 43. (99.767 MHz X 43 = 4289.98 MHz)

To use the higher turbo ratios when the CPU is lightly loaded, the core C states must be enabled in the BIOS. You can use ThrottleStop to check what C states are being used when your computer is idle at the desktop. People love to disable the power saving features like the C states but in your case, it will make the CPU run slower, not faster, if you do this. The maximum cache ratio will also be limited when running a 8700K on a B360M motherboard.

The PL1 box in yellow is OK. When it is red, that indicates power limit throttling is in progress. In the Turbo Power Limits window I would clear both Clamp boxes and I would set the turbo time limit to the default 28 seconds. Requesting 3 million seconds of turbo boost does not do anything good or bad. I would set the PP0 Power Limit to 0, press Apply and then I would clear the PP0 Power Limit box and press OK. This setting does not need to be used.

I prefer to enable Speed Shift Technology in the BIOS. This is the way modern CPUs and Windows control the CPU speed. Even if you want to run at max speed all of the time, it is still OK to enable Speed Shift.

You can disable C1E if the other C states like C3 or C7 are being used.

There is probably no need to check the Clock Mod box. 8th Gen computers rarely if ever use this type of throttling. You only need to check this box if you ever see numbers in the Mod column that are less than 100.0.


The original 8086 from the late 1970s used to run at 5 MHz. Modern CPUs run at GHz speed.

Intel 8086 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hey, thanks for the answer, I still have a few questions.

I have done everything you said but I don't quite understand about the C States. I'm attaching a screenshot of my C States configuration on Throttlestop while idle, is everything right? Because my motherboard don't have any options to config C-States whatsoever.
Also, I noticed that leaving the SpeedShift On or Off didn't make any difference, since leaving it off was my last test and did nothing, I just leaved like that.

I understand now about my motherboard can't overclock it at all but is this clock speed right? I can't really even run the CPU on 4.7Ghz or there's a way? That's quite strange because my bios have the setting to put the CPU clock even on 5.0Ghz (besides not reaching that when doing so) and when I was testing some benchmarks I saw my CPU clocks spike to 4.6Ghz for a second and coming back to 4.3Ghz and never happened again.

 

[unclewebb]

is everything right?

Your screenshot shows that the CPU cores are averaging about 90% of the time in the low power C7 state. That confirms that the C states are properly enabled. This is what allows the CPU to use multipliers higher than 43 when it is lightly loaded.

leaving the SpeedShift On or Off didn't make any difference

Is there a Speed Shift setting in the BIOS? Your CPU is running fine as is. If you ever have a problem with it not running at full speed then consider enabling Speed Shift. If you ever upgrade (downgrade) to Windows 11, I would enable Speed Shift in the BIOS. Windows 11 likes to assume that Speed Shift is enabled which can cause problems if it is not.

my bios have the setting to put the CPU clock even on 5.0Ghz

Not all BIOS features work as promised. Overclocking might have initially worked on an early ES engineering sample processor. At some later date Intel locked out any overclocking features on motherboards with the B360M chipset.

when I was testing some benchmarks I saw my CPU clocks spike to 4.6Ghz for a second and coming back to 4.3Ghz and never happened again.

The 46 multiplier is only available when at most 2 cores are active. Try running a TS Bench - 1 Thread test or a Cinebench single core test. In a perfect world you might see close to 4.6 GHz. The problem is that Windows has 1001 background tasks that continuously wake up additional cores. This prevents the CPU from using the highest turbo multipliers for any significant length of time. You might get 50 milliseconds at the 46 multiplier but then it will need to drop down when Windows wakes up an additional core to process a background task. Eliminate as many useless background tasks as possible and your CPU will run slightly faster. Watch the ThrottleStop C0% data. You want that number as low as possible when your computer is idle at the desktop.

My computer averages less than 0.1% in the C0 state when it is idle.

 

[bhrain]

Hey, thanks for the answering again!
I noticed that you mentioned about process in the background. I'm glad to say that I have done a lot of debloat on this PC and the maximum process that runs on the background(including windows ones) is 160. I think is pretty low already, should influence much. I also have reinstalled my windows to windows 11 to test things out but it all still the same, then I came back to windows 10.

About the speed shift: Yes, my bios have a option to disable/enable it but that's it. I tried both and makes no difference at all.

I have run the TS Bench on Single core as you asked, the results is in the image attached. During the test I noticed that the general Clock Speed showing was 4.389 at most of the time and all cores FID was 43.50+. Also, I may add that when I'm doing anything beside Gaming, the clock speed goes up to 4.45 Max and generally stays on 4.4 but as soon as I open any game, it drop fixed to exactly 4.289 (4.3)

I mean, I don't really care about overclocking but I really wanted to at least run the CPU as it should, wich is 4.7Ghz by fabric. The fact that I'm missing 00.400Ghz that I paid for is annoying.

 

[unclewebb]

I really wanted to at least run the CPU as it should

Your CPU is running exactly as Intel promised it would run. The 47 multiplier is only used when a single core is active. When running any version of Windows, that happens virtually never or for only a few milliseconds at a time. It would be hard for anyone to detect let alone notice any performance difference.

Most games might not load all 6 cores at the exact same time but they are constantly using all 6 cores often enough that the multiplier is limited to 43. That is just how Intel CPUs work. The marketing department did a good job of promising the world. The engineering department did not get the memo. Just one of many reasons why some enthusiasts switched to AMD Ryzen.

The only way to get more performance out of an 8700K is to buy a different motherboard which has the Z series chipset. That would allow some overclocking but doing this is beyond the Intel default specs for an 8700K.

 

[bhrain]

Your CPU is running exactly as Intel promised it would run. The 47 multiplier is only used when a single core is active. When running any version of Windows, that happens virtually never or for only a few milliseconds at a time. It would be hard for anyone to detect let alone notice any performance difference.

Most games might not load all 6 cores at the exact same time but they are constantly using all 6 cores often enough that the multiplier is limited to 43. That is just how Intel CPUs work. The marketing department did a good job of promising the world. The engineering department did not get the memo. Just one of many reasons why some enthusiasts switched to AMD Ryzen.

The only way to get more performance out of an 8700K is to buy a different motherboard which has the Z series chipset. That would allow some overclocking but doing this is beyond the Intel default specs for an 8700K.

I understand now, thanks. So, as long as the Throttlestop goes I'm already reaching the max for my CPU and there's nothing more that I can do even with that software, right?
Well, thanks for you attention to my problem and for all the responses. Guess I'll look for the cheapest Z series I can find.

 

[unclewebb]

there's nothing more that I can do even with that software, right?

The only way to get more performance out of an 8700K is to buy a different motherboard which has the Z series chipset.

Guess I'll look for the cheapest Z series I can find.

Intel 8th Gen CPUs are ancient. Buying a used motherboard is not a good investment. It could die the day after you buy it. The performance difference even when fully overclocked will be barely noticeable. Start saving up for something newer and sell what you have when you are ready to buy.

 

[bhrain]

Intel 8th Gen CPUs are ancient. Buying a used motherboard is not a good investment. It could die the day after you buy it. The performance difference even when fully overclocked will be barely noticeable. Start saving up for something newer and sell what you have when you are ready to buy.

Yeah, I'm not gonna buy anything used but I'll wait until I see some series Z for cheap brand new. I live in Brazil and the prices here are skyhigh, sometimes even for used things. But well, that's it. all my questions was answered. Thank you so much for helping, you were very kind and helpful. Cheers