Overclock-101
It might looks old but it’s not!
This post was written for LEVEL51 Laptop with 8th Gen Desktop CPU (Yes our Laptop USE DESKTOP CPU in some models) but the same principle still applies for all modern Intel Desktop/Laptop CPUs
As someone who has been using computer since 1990s and have tried almost everything from AMD and Intel (Cyrix included! but I doubted not many people would know about this CPU! — I can say that Intel offer more finely tuned overclock experience and there is a lot that can be adjusted.
Intel’s program used for overclocking is called Intel XTU, (which you can download it from here. Also, you should read about why your CPU does not always run at Maximum Boost Clock, to get the base knowledge of what we are trying to do with overclocking
For AMD fans who use Ryzen, I have been using Ryzen 7 1700x on my desktop PC as well, the program to use is call Ryzen Master. I have adjusted it to 3.9GHz with 1.35V voltage because if using at 3. 5GHz default clock it felt really slow. However, there is not much to talk about in Ryzen Master (at the time of writing) — just clock and voltage and that’s it. I have tried to reach 4.0GHz but that took 1.45V which is super scary for modern CPU.
What are we going to adjust for Overclocking?
For overclocking Intel CPUs, there are two related settings: Thermal and Clock Speed . These two are inevitably related because as the speed increases, the CPU will radiate more heat
The LEVEL51 series NX , SX, is powered by the i7-8750H CPU, which is a non-overclockable CPU. We will only be able to fine-tune the Thermals but not Clock Speed. Althoguh, we could make it run at FASTER clock speed regardless.
As for our LEVEL51 Laptops that use Desktop CPUs, namely NXL or XL17, if you are using CPU that ends with K — you will be able to adjust both.
If you still haven’t read this post before — I can tell you in brief that: Each CPU will have a specification about its heat that will be radiated from CPU when it is working called TDP.
This value is used as reference point for system designers to design a cooling system that is capable of remove that amount of heat from your CPU. The reason why you can make your CPU runs cooler is because the heatsink/water cooling system that you have used is capable to remove more heat from CPU than its TDP value — just like you are using 25,000 BTU Air-con in a small room.
Settings About the Heat Management Systems
Overclocking is like tuning a car, but the car may not be as good as the CPU because in the CPU chip nowadays there are many self-protection circuits in order to make it work as long as possible. with maximum efficiency.
And One of the most important variables is heat.
As mentioned before, Heatsinks are designed to support the cooling of the CPU according to the TDP specified, but another point that affects the cooling is. thermal conductor Or many people call silicone, TIM (Thermal Interface Material) , Thermal Grease, or Thermal Paste.
Of course, the people who designed our laptop at Clevo has designed the cooling system by taking into account the performance of the TIM that will be used too — as well as the cost and complexity to produce the laptop. One way to improve the efficiency of cooling system is just to replace this TIM with higher-performing ones.
For LEVEL51, the most potent one we offer is LIQUID Pro, which is a pure metal TIM that require special care and treatment. You can find test results from the YouTube channel, Play3r TV (Click to open the video)
By using this high potency TIM — the CPU will be able to cool faster — allowing it to run at a higher higher speed for the same TDP Level. (Since the heat is removed faster, the heat level at CPU is lower) Or we can do the opposite by setting the laptop to run at higher TDP Levels
Well, it’s time to Open Intel XTU and select All Controls under Advanced Tuning .
For the heat-related options, they are as follows.
Core Voltage Offset : The offset of voltage that will be supplied to CPU — which means that if the CPU chooses to use 1.0V, we will give it less. For example, if we set -0.050V, it means that if the CPU chooses 1.0V, it will use the value 0.95V instead.
The positive effect of reducing the Voltage Offset (meaning more negative: such as -0.1V) is less heat radiated from CPU — allowing it to run at LOWER heat Level
The negative effect of reducing the Voltage Offset is stability — it might be blue screen or just froze. How much you can reduce depend on each CPU sample that you have.
Turbo Boost Short Power Max : This is Power Limit 2 (PL2) — usually it will be set to 20-30% more than CPU TDP Value. Such as 81W for 65W TDP CPU. This value control maximum heat that will radiate from CPU at any given time — but NOT ALL THE TIME. It’s for short burst only
The positive effect of increasing the PL2 is your CPU can boost higher during a short time window.
The negative effect of increasing the PL2 is there could be a short time that your CPU Temperature shoot up because your heatsink could not keep up with sudden surge in heat output.
Turbo Boost Power Max: This is Power Limit 1 (PL1), in other words, the TDP of the CPU itself. It is usually set to equal TDP. By design, the CPU should run at its base clock speed when it radiates heat equal to this TDP value.
The positive effect of increasing the PL1 is your CPU will run at higher clocks when CPU Load is 100%
The negative effect of increasing PL1 is your CPU will be hotter, remember that the heatsink was designed for a given TDP value — increasing the TDP beyond what heatsink was designed for — it won’t be able to keep up.
Turbo Boost Power Time Window : This is quite confusing setting and very hard to see in practice, due to many factor affecting it.
This is the time the CPU will try to maintain the PL1 level. Assuming that we set it for 8 seconds, within 8 seconds the heat from the CPU will not exceed PL1.
The disadvantage of reducing the Turbo Boost Time Window is that the CPU will run at a higher TDP level than PL1 but less often than PL2.
Processor Core IccMax : By design, CPU will attempt to use higher voltage when its getting hotter to improve stability. So, as your CPU runs and gets hotter — it will begin to request higher and higher voltage, which it turn, also make it hotter! To ensure that the CPU will not stuck in this endless voltage increasing loop, you can use IccMax to control the maximum amount of electricity (Current) that CPU can draw.
AVX Offset : The reduction of clock speed when the AVX instruction set is used, which is a set of instructions to increase the efficiency of working with a large number of floating point numbers.
It’s a very power hungry instruction so the CPU needs to lower its clock speed to help. For example, if the CPU was running at 4.0GHz, if AVX Offset of 5 was set, it would run at 3.5GHz instead when AVX instructions is used.
The disadvantage of adding AVX Offset is that the CPU will run at a lower speed. When using the AVX instruction set
Let’s get to know your CPU Status
For testing. t is recommended to use LinX. You can download it from many places. It is recommended to download from Softpedia website .
Now go to Settings and adjust Priority Class to Idle first, because otherwise your laptop will appears frozen since Linx (Linpack) will use the CPU fully so much that there is no time left for us to process our clicks.
And before pressing the Start button, press All after Memory (MiB) to make it expand the Problem Size larger so it can run a little longer per cycle.
Here are the stats from the XTU screen captured from the i7-8700K in the NXL with PL1 set to 45W times the i7-8750H and Turbo Boost Short Power Max off.
What does the graph and status tell us?
Power Limit Throttling in yellow is now displayed Yes, this tells us that Our CPUs are now radiate heat at PL1 level and we’re getting Power Throttled.
Package TDP is the amount of heat that the CPU is releasing at the moment. You can see that it is 45W, equal to what we set in the value of PL1 (Turbo Boost Power Max). This includes all parts of the CPU, that is, if the GPU and Memory Unit is hard at work, it will also be included in Package TDP.
Max Core Frequency is the maximum speed from all cores that are currently running. Currently, Active Core Count is 6, which mean it is using all 6 cores on the i7-8700K and now it’s running at just 3.0GHz. Almost the same as i7-8750H Laptop with 6 Core Active.
Processor Cache Frequency is the speed of Cache or high-speed memory on the CPU. This is the speed of L3 Cache. Normally, L1, L2 should be running at the same speed as Core speed. If you enjoyed reading our post, I recommend you read about Cache/Memory Coherency as well too. And you will understand why there is Xeon/Opteron CPUs.
Current Limit Throttling Whether the CPU was Current Throttled
Intel Datasheet has specification on the absolute maximum current which CPU can cope with and it is 138A for 6-8 Core CPUs. You will see this, if your cooling solution is TOO GOOD — and there is nothing you can do. You could increase Process Core IccMax, but that is not recommended!!!
The reason you get Current Limit Throttling is because Temperature is Low so the CPU never get to the PL1/PL2 level so it can boost freely until it hit its maximum boost clock specified by you or by Intel.
As it runs faster, it draws more current and that is why there is this Current Limit to prevent CPU from killing itself by drawing too much electron through itself. (YES, COLD could KILL your CPU Too!!)
Mainboard VR Thermal Throttling and Thermal Throttling are two things to avoid. The first one means our power supply circuit on the mainboard (VR = Voltage Regulator) is too hot — becasue it is supplying a lot of current to the CPU. Thermal throttling means your CPU already running at TJMax (T Junction Maximum) — the point just be fore the things in CPU will actually melts.
Package Temperature is temperature of the overall CPU Package, which includes its GPU and also Memory Controller.
The word throttling generally means that The speed of the CPU is being controlled (Throttle) for various reasons described above.
We can also press the wrench symbol to show more status, let’s also addCore Voltage for next excercise.
How PL1/PL2 and Core Voltage Offset Affect Clock Speed
To get better understanding of PL1/PL2 and all this Turbo Boosting stuff, lets try this:
- Turbo Boost Power Max : 45W
- Turbo Boost Power Time Window : 4s
- AVX Offset : 0
Then open LinX and set it to work for abit until Power Limit Throttling Lit up. Then try to increase the Turbo Boost Power Max to 50, you will see a minor speed increase — in my case it goes from 2.95GHz to about 3.1GHz.
At Turbo Boost Power Max = 80, the CPU is now running at 3.77GHz
Noticed that there will be some periods where there is no Power Limit Throttling and the heat is reduced as well, even though the utilization is at 100% This is when AVX code in LinX is not running. You will see that without AVX Code, CPU could go up to 4.
29GHz while the Package TDP is just 73W!
Now let’s see the effect of Voltage Offset. This could crash your laptop/PC so pleae save your work first! Note that you need to REDUCE the offset — that means it must have Negative Sign in front of the values. Let’s try setting Voltage offset to -0.1000V
It can be seen that when the Voltage Offset is set to -0.100V, the speed increases from 3.77GHz to 4.08GHz (an increase of 8%) . You could try to give it more offset, each time by 0.025V increments, for example
- -0.1000V to -0.1250V
- -0.1250V to -0.1500V
- -0.1500V to -0.1750V
At -0.125V, Clock Speed increases from 3.77GHz to 4.17 GHz already (10% increase).
At -0.1500V, we get 4.23 GHz (12% increase)
But for this CPU, it is not stable at -0.1500V and then a Blue Screen occurs.
As you can see, the Clock speed of CPU came from multitude of factors — but the most important thing is the Heat Output. If you want more Clock Speed, just try to keep your CPU Cooler.
Of course, it would be more challenging for most Laptops since the cooling space is limited and it was designed to run at a specific TDP value. So you could get better clock speed by using Voltage Offset as well as using better TIM as we did.
Adjust the speed with a multiplier
«Overclocking» these days is actually just adjusting this «multiplier». Do not forget that usually the CPU that we use today came with Automatic Overclock system already — which is the Turbo Boost. For example, i7-8700K’s base Clock is 3.7GHz and the Boost Clock is 4.7GHz. Here we are just going to allow it to overclock even more.
The settings are in XTU, right here.
You can see that while it is advertised that boost clock is 4.7GHz, in reality if you are using all 6 cores — the clock would be at 4.
3GHz Maximum (43x = 43 x 100 = 4300, 100MHz is the system clock speed)
For a machine that is a CPU that does not have a K code, of course, it cannot be adjusted. And if you are using K CPU with H-Series motherboard (not Z series) — you will not be able to change this value as well.
The best settings is just let CPU runs at 1 Core Boost Speed even though all cores are active, like this:
This settings means that, the CPU will try to reach 4.7GHz when:
- Package Power does not exceed Turbo Boost Short Power Max/Turbo Boost Power Max
- Processor IccMax is not reached
- Temperature does not reach T Junction
From our Test Laptop (with i7-8700K installed) we can see that it can reach 4.69GHz at the beginning while it’s not very hot and AVX Code is not active
and when we let it run, will see that the speed comes to a stop at 4.1GHz
Conclusion
I hope you enjoy reading this article and got some idea about how PL1/PL2/IccMax are related and we might have given you some ideas how to squeeze out more Clock Speed from Your Laptop.
By the way, you dont have to try so hard and just select our LEVEL51 Laptops which are already capable of running faster than «normal» laptops. i7 in our MB 2021 Model Year is actually faster than Ryzen 9 and almost as fast as i7-11700K Desktop CPU!!!
Have I bought a fake i9-11900K? — Offtopic
Julia Programming Language
photor
#1
Intel i9-11900K is supposed to be the top one in the 11th Gen CPU family. Recently I bought a desktop computer with this CPU, but its performance is not satisfactory. Shortly after that, I bought a laptop with an i7-11800H CPU, and surprisingly found that it’s actually faster than that desktop on matrix multiply with Julia. Then I used cpu-z to benchmark these two CPUs, getting the following results:
i7-11800H806×804 27.
1 KB
i9-11900K502×502 66 KB
which showed that the score of my i9-11900K was much lower than a reference i9-11900K provided by cpu-z. So, what’s the problem? Have I bought a fake i9-11900K?
Gnimuc
#2
No. That’s very likely limited by TDP. You could use Intel® Extreme Tuning Utility (Intel® XTU) to tweak Turbo Boost Power Max related parameters to be unlimited.
2 Likes
photor
#3
Thanks for your suggestion. I installed and ran the XTU to tweak the parameters as follows:
IMG_20220226_1555531920×1440 241 KB
But unfortunately the situation was even worse (580 single thread and 4433 multi thread).
I also tried to change the active power plan from balance to high performance in XTU’s settings, but couldn’t make things better. Have I missed something important?
blackeneth
#4
Two different core designs, similar naming.
11900K is the older Rocket Lake core
11900H is the newer Tiger Lake core
See:
ark.intel.com
Intel product specifications
Intel® product specifications, features and compatibility quick reference guide and code name decoder. Compare products including processors, desktop boards, server products and networking products.
1 Like
photor
#5
Is there anything in BIOS settings that I should touch?
dlakelan
#6
photor:
But unfortunately the situation was even worse (580 single thread and 4433 multi thread).
This suggests you might benefit from improving your cooling.
2 Likes
photor
#7
When benchmarking it using the XTU, the highest temperature is 72 degree, does it mean cooling is crucial for my case? As shown in the attached picture, my system has a pretty low score compared to a typical i9-11900K score on the web. Really weird. BTW, my desktop is a newly bought Dell Vostro 3890, whose cooling system should be of no problem.
XTU1680×1000 97.1 KB
dlakelan
#8
it looks like it has some stats on “thermal throttling” (lower right) check to see if it was doing any thermal throttling (I’m not familiar with any of this as I don’t run Windows).
Gnimuc
#9
Intel
Current and Power Limit Throttling Indicators in the Intel® XTU…
Explains what it means when the Current Limit Throttling and the Power Limit Throttling indicators display “Yes” in the Intel® XTU Utility.
Power limit throttling
There can be multiple reasons why the power limit is throttling on the processor. The three common reasons for power limit throttling:
- Processor Power Limits PL1/PL2 is set too low in Intel® XTU.
- Core Voltage limit is set too low in XTU.
- System doesn’t have sufficient cooling and power delivery.
2 Likes
Elrod
#10
This claims the vostro 3890 comes with a B560 chipset, which tend to be the “budget” motherboards if I understand correctly (vs the Z590).
I’d follow the advice from the post above on Current and Power Limit Throttling, but there is a chance that this motherboard is relatively limited in power delivery.
2 Likes
Gnimuc
#11
B560 + i9-11900K… It makes no sense to me at all that they bundled a non-overclocking motherboard with a “K” CPU.
3 Likes
simeonschaub
#12
One thing nobody has asked yet is what your RAM configuration is. What clock speeds does it support, perhaps you might even have to change the clock in the BIOS to take full advantage of your hardware? Something that can be quite important is that you have at least two matching memory sticks and you need to ensure that you followed the motherboard instructions on what slots they should be placed in.
1 Like
nilshg
#13
I had never considered that — am currently planning to replace one of the 16GB sticks in my new Lenovo P14 with a 32GB one, are you saying I might reduce overall system performance by doing this?
Elrod
#14
I believe it should work, but all sticks will probably have to run at the most conservative speeds.
Thus, there’s no sense buying a faster 32GB stick than the 16GB sticks you already have (unless you’re replacing all the 16 GB sticks), while if you buy a slower 32GB stick, this will force you 16GB sticks to run slower to match.
Similar with voltage, you’ll probably need to run the maximum voltage any of them need.
2 Likes
goerch
#15
@photor: did you talk to Dell customer support yet? I’d have trusted them to deliver somewhat balanced systems…
AFAIU that CPU could be quite pricey…
1 Like
nilshg
#16
Great, thanks — in this instance Lenovo has helpfully decided to solder on one of the two sticks, so it looks im basically limited to buying replacement RAM with the same specs
photor
#17
No thermal throttling but there is power limit throttling:
Throttling1680×1000 93.
2 KB
BTW, most of the tuning is not accessible by me in the XTU.
photor
#18
I think you are right. When benchmarking it in XTU, the Core TDP seems to be limited at 58W and the Power Limit Throttling is always yes during the benchmarking. So I think 58W is the limit of that motherboard.
photor
#19
The following is the RAM config:
Memory502×502 72.1 KB
photor
#20
Thanks, but what to talk about to the Dell support? Ask it to change a motherboard for that machine? If it is not willing to do that, is it easy for me to change a motherboard by myself?
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How much power does the turbine give? | Turbo Magic |
The turbocharger is a rotating assembly used to increase the power of an internal combustion engine.
The main parts of the structure are: a turbine, a compressor and a shaft on which the first two elements are installed. The turbine rotor is driven by exhaust gases. The operation of the compressor rotor allows you to compress the air entering the intake system. What percentage of power does the turbine add, and what advantages does the device provide? nine0003
Features of the turbocharger
The turbocharger is part of the drive system of various vehicles. The task of the turbine is to increase the efficiency and power of the engine by forcing additional air into the combustion chamber and thus increase the amount of fuel supplied to the combustion chamber, which is impossible at atmospheric pressure.
Be sure to take into account the effect of «turbo lag» in the operation of the turbine. It is known that a turbocharger is driven by exhaust gases. By reducing the engine speed and speed, the amount of exhaust gases is also reduced. In this case, if you sharply press the gas pedal, then the turbocharger shaft, on which the rotors are located, will not pick up a sufficiently high speed.
Then a «turbo lag» is created. This is the period between pressing the gas and reaching the final charge air pressure for the corresponding engine speed. In this case, the reaction of the engine to pressing the gas pedal is delayed. nine0003
When the turbine in the car is running at full power, you can feel a specific jerk and a slight push in the seat. Manufacturers consider this undesirable. To avoid this situation, it is recommended to fill the car completely.
Advantages and disadvantages of turbochargers
Oversaturation of the automotive industry with turbochargers is due to the fact that turbines allow you to increase the power of a car, which reduces the cost of its operation.
The benefits of turbochargers include:
- Increases engine efficiency. This happens as a result of increasing its power while reducing fuel consumption.
- Installing a turbocharger improves engine efficiency. As a result, models with such a device are smaller and lighter.
- The turbine does not load the engine, as it is driven by the energy of the exhaust gases.
- There is a significant reduction in emissions of harmful chemicals from exhaust gases into the atmosphere. nine0020
- You can really save. When using gasoline engines with a turbocharger, fuel consumption is reduced by about 30%, and in diesel engines by 40%.
- The turbocharger automatically adjusts to the current operating conditions of the engine. For example, the lack of air is compensated when driving at high altitude.
The disadvantages of this device primarily include:
- Long-term operation at high temperatures. The temperature can reach 1000 degrees Celsius. In addition, the number of revolutions increases sharply — 100,000 rpm. All this creates a huge load on the turbine. nine0020
- The high price of a car with a turbine is mainly due to the price of the materials from which the components are made.
- Turbocharger repair requires high precision due to the complex structure of its design.
- Therefore, vehicles equipped with a turbocharger are more expensive than those without it.
Power figures
After the first models of cars with installed turbochargers appeared on the market, there was a debate among car owners about the advisability of using turbocharging. The main advantage of the turbine is an undoubted advantage in power and, as a result, real financial savings. nine0003
Based on statistics, the most powerful engines are turbocharged in Formula 1 cars. For each liter of engine capacity, you can get up to 300 horsepower (l / s). When the pressure in the device reaches more than 5 atmospheres, the engine calmly reaches values of 900 l / s from one liter of engine volume. In principle, modern American sports cars with an engine capacity of 8.2 liters are capable of reaching values of 7,000 l / s.
nine0053
Among car enthusiasts, the question arises about the origin of such power, because an ordinary car without a turbine can produce an average of 60 l / s.
The problem is that production cars are designed to move around the city at low torque. The design of the motor does not allow to develop maximum power or speed. But the cylinders have a much greater potential, which allows the implementation of an additional device. At the same time, there is no need to increase the volume of the engine. nine0003
When choosing a turbocharger, car owners are wondering how much real engine power will increase when installing a turbine. Practice shows that with an increase in boost by 1 atmosphere, one can expect an increase in power by 2 times or by 100%. When the engine parameters are set at 100 l / s, buying a 4 atmosphere turbocharger will give power figures of about 400 l / s. An important point is the preparedness of the car for the increased load. New requirements are being made for thermal conditions, oil quality, and reliability of engine elements. nine0003
As for the choice of a specific manufacturer, it is worth paying attention to the efficiency of the turbine.
Various manufacturers of Russian products, as well as their counterparts in the CIS, supply the market with turbochargers with efficiency in the range from 45 to 75%. At the same time, foreign analogues are more reliable and have better indicators of power increase, but their cost is much higher.
If you decide to buy a car with a turbocharger, despite the higher price, you need to be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of using such a solution in your car. Therefore, it is very important to follow the rules of competent operation while driving. nine0003
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Maximum power — turbine o from their rated power with a corresponding decrease in the amount of selections compared to the nominal values.
[1]The maximum power of turbines with variable steam extraction must be 120% of their rated power. The maximum power of a turbine without controlled steam extraction is its rated power.
[2]
Variation of total D and specific d of steam consumption by a condensing unit depending on the load.
[3]The maximum power of the variable steam extraction turbines must be 120% of their rated power.
[4]The maximum power of the turbine without variable steam extraction is its rated power.
[5]Maximum turbine power with adjustable steam extractions is called wai-bolimya — the power that the turbine must develop for a long time at the generator clamps with a corresponding decrease in the extraction values \u200b\u200bin comparison with their nominal values. The maximum power of variable steam extraction turbines shall be 120% of their rated power. The maximum power of a turbine without controlled steam extraction is its rated power.
[6]Determining the maximum power of the turbine can be limited to 15 min.
[7]The values of the maximum power of turbines K-300-240 , K-500-240 and K-800-240 are established during their long-term operation.
[8]The maximum permissible loads on the transmission devices limited the maximum power of the Jonval turbines .
[9]The most important parameter of the turbodrill characteristic is the calculated shaft rotation speed, usually taken in the maximum turbine power mode .
[10]
Dependence of additional costs for the auxiliary system in schemes 1, 4 to 5, related to one unit, on the capacity of the unit with pressure NO ata compared to the costs in scheme 2.
[11]For units with a steam pressure of 315 atm, the auxiliary power is equal to 8 35% of the maximum turbine power . The power of nutrient on-zhvzao 350 oo SOS01V is 59% soum — Night of the aeregate pcs.
[12]The selection and calculation of the idle exhaust and fist profile under program control is carried out for the case of resetting the maximum power of the turbine .
