Turbo tweaks on Z390 Aorus Ultra

[Hikari]

Hello everybody!

I just bought a Z390 Aorus Ultra and next month I'm gonna mount it with a 9900KS!

I've been reading about current Intel CPUs and settings, to better understand how it works now. My PC is still using a i5 Haswell so I'm a bit outdated!

I've read this awesome interview https://www.anandtech.com/show/14582/talking-tdp-turbo-and-overclocking-an-interview-with-intel-fellow-guy-therien where Guy Therien from Intel explains how exactly TDP and Turbo (PL2 and Tau) work.

In his description, on the last decade I've fit myself as an enthusiast and not an overclocker. I had avoided overclocking my 2 last CPUs, and I felt it wasn't worthy given the increase in power consumption.

9900KS is awesome for, among many other points, consuming less power than 9900K on the same clock. And Turbo is also awesome for my needs, as it will let me have higher clock when needed and less consumption when not needed.

Reading that interview made me believe that, staying on Intel specs, I'd rather setup UEFI to have a Tau of around 5-10 minutes and PL2 to 150W, than increasing PL2 and Tau to maximum values. That would allow me to have 5GHz during Turbo when needed, while keeping consumption "under control" in case of some longer demanding use case.

Reading manual, I see there's:

- "Intel Turbo Boost Technology", which seems to be a bool setting for enabling it
- Power Limit TDP, which seems to be PL2, max limited power consumption while Turbo is active

Is that correct? I can't find in manual where Tau is set. I also can't find anywhere to set base clock. Could anybody help me find them?

What do you guys think? Is my idea plausible? Or should I just leave everything in auto and let mobo and CPU handle Turbo themselves?

[shadowsports]

Greetings,
9900KS - You'll have 8 cores running nominally at 4Ghz, with 5Ghz possible.  Native 4k graphics and support for up to 128GB RAM.

I am not a proponent of OC, and place myself in the enthusiast camp as well.  The IPM tool is still new.  Since it was developed by intel it probably works decently well with their CPU's.  However, I don't feel any compulsion myself to use such a tool.  Fine if you want to.

I'm kind of old school in this regard and would use the BIOS for any OC.  Since TDP is a factor, I would be overly cautious and use a good oversized hydro series cooler.

The Z390 in my sig was built primarily for photo editing.  I loaded some extra RAM in case I want to do any video, or to run a VM.  The only gaming I do now is on Xbox one S.  I am past needing to squeeze every last amount of performance from my system.  But just because I am doesn't mean you have to be. 

Regarding implementation, I haven't seen anything concrete on how or what is best.  I believe however there is going to be variance based on BIOS rev, type of memory and cooling.  This includes CPU and airflow through the case.  When I say variance, I am referring to max / idle speeds as well as performance which will be affected by the systems overall thermal dissipation ability.  There isn't a lot of data out there yet, so I can't really tell you what to expect, as each system will be a little different. 

Your base CLK is not entirely up to you.  Its dictated by what the BIOS detects, and what memory you are using (related to the variance) I mentioned above.  MIT (in BIOS) is where you will find most of these parameters.  PL1 and PL2 (if your BIOS supports this) is where you would set TDP and TAU values.  Do keep in mind however, that changing your BIOS rev could work for or against you.

[Hikari]

Hello!

As I understood, this IPM sets CPU in overclock mode. I'd like to use its stability test if possible, but not use it for making overclock. After Turbo I indeed don't see any practical need to overclock at all. And, in 9900KS specifically, it seems that very few reach 5.1GHz and almost none reach 5.2GHz, so there's no use in the end of it.

For cooler I'm gonna use Noctual D15S. Their specs show it as cappable of dissipating full Turbo power and also some HEDT CPUs, so I think I'll be fine here.

As I said, I was reading the printed manual that came with it. Store already updated to latest firmware. I wonder if it has more setting than what's described on manual!