PCGHX instructions describe ways to combat high temperatures

Intel’s current Raptor Lake processors and their previous models of the Alder Lake family have brought significant increases in performance, but also in higher consumption. For example, the Core i9-12900K can continuously consume 125W and 241W for 56 seconds respectively. With the Core i9-13900K, the peak value is slightly higher at 253W.

UEFI tricks against high temperatures

This high power consumption doesn’t make it quite easy to cool particularly high-end chips of both generations. Appropriately, threads where users complained about high CPU temperatures recently appeared on the PCGHX forum. Because of this, the user of PCGHX Icarus A guide has now been published there offering a total of four possible remedies. Hardware veterans shouldn’t be surprised by this, but the forum thread gives a good overview, especially for beginners.

In its report, IICARUS only mentions the available motherboard UEFI options for Alder Lake and Raptor Lake processors. However, possible solutions through hardware – that is, through better cooling – are not mentioned. However, in almost all cases, significant additional costs are likely to be associated with it, while UEFI solutions are free.

As concrete suggestions against high CPU temperatures, IICARUS limits power consumption, maximum CPU temperature, and finally a reduction in combination with a lower clock. In theory at least, lowering the core voltage is the best solution: this could reduce CPU consumption without reducing performance.

According to IICARUS, this isn’t possible, at least with its Raptor Lake CPU — a Core i9-13900K — since the motherboard is already using optimized voltage values. With a slightly reduced clock from 4.9 to 4.7 GHz, a reduction from 1.27V to 1.16V would have been possible, making cooling significantly easier with little performance loss. Of course, these values ​​are not set: each CPU has different voltage values, and if it is set too low, unexpected consequences such as crashes may occur.

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According to IICARUS, the other two methods offer a less error-prone solution: the maximum CPU temperature and permanent and short-term power consumption can be set in UEFI. The main board then takes over the rest of the work and limits the CPU so that it does not exceed the respective values.

How logical this is is a matter of interpretation: in principle, the processor can also be permanently run at its maximum temperature, which means that the maximum performance is available. On the other hand, reducing TDP in particular does not only lower the temperature. Instead, it can – with a loss in performance – increase the overall efficiency of the system, as a disproportionate amount of energy is used for the last few percentage points.

Source: PCGHX Forum (IICARUS)