3090FE low GPU usage?

[RipGroove]

You should start testing one stick of RAM at a time as well. XMP 3200 should be no problem. Might have a bad stick/other memory related issue that BFV is triggering (and the issue when XMP is enabled could point to that as well).

What SA voltage and CPU IO 2 voltage is the BIOS setting by default when you enable XMP? They might be called something else like VCCSA and VCCIO2 in your board's BIOS.

Also, if running CPU at stock, try disabling SpeedStep and enabling SpeedShift (in BIOS). For starters you should see a slight improvement in Cinebench R20, and I think it should help with gaming even though the issue must be something else. If you're running Windows High Performance then it won't make a difference, or shouldn't, as that will/should ignore the BIOS SpeedShift setting.

Stand by, I'll go get that info, if I can find it.

 

[RipGroove]

With XMP enabled:

Speed Shift is Enabled
Speedstep is Auto
DRAM voltage is 1.361

Not sure if I'm looking in the right place for these but:
VCCSA Load Line Cal is set to Auto
VCCIO Mem OC Boot Voltage is Auto
CPU VCCIO Boot Voltage is Auto

Will test each stick of RAM individually a bit later this morning and see if that sheds any light on it as well.

 

[Danny75]

With XMP enabled:

Speed Shift is Enabled
Speedstep is Auto
DRAM voltage is 1.361

Not sure if I'm looking in the right place for these last two:
VCCSA Load Line Cal is set to Auto
VCCIO Mem OC Boot Voltage is Auto
CPU VCCIO Boot Voltage is Auto

Will test each stick of RAM individually a bit later this morning and see if that sheds any light on it as well.

Okay, disable SpeedStep completely and leave SpeedShift enabled for buttery smooth gameplay on Rocket Lake and better Cinebench results at stock.

As for those three VCCs, I wish I was familiar with Asus Z590 BIOS as they sound like they could be something else (I'm using an MSI Z590 currently). VCCSA Load Line Cal(ibration) sounds like an additional setting for the actual VCCSA. And the the other two settings sound like they are for booting voltages, not for later voltages.

So I would explore more, see if you find the actual VCCSA etc tucked away elsewhere, and don't just make note of whether it's on Auto, make a note of the actual voltages which should be displayed alongside.

One thing I don't know if you've mentioned already, and it's important, is whether you have removed the power limits on your board or not? They need removing with Rocket Lake. If unsure you can easily check by seeing how much CPU Package Power is used after a Cinebench R20 run, with HWiNFO64. If it's (quite a lot) more than 125W (as you have an 11900K), then they are removed. Some boards do it by default, I'm not sure if absolutely every Z590 does it. With MSI Z590 it asks you whether you have the boxed cooler or tower style cooler or liquid cooler and removes the power limits accordingly. Your board may have done something similar when you set it up or have them removed by default.

 

[RipGroove]

Okay, disable SpeedStep completely and leave SpeedShift enabled for buttery smooth gameplay on Rocket Lake and better Cinebench results at stock.

As for those three VCCs, I wish I was familiar with Asus Z590 BIOS as they sound like they could be something else (I'm using an MSI Z590 currently). VCCSA Load Line Cal(ibration) sounds like an additional setting for the actual VCCSA. And the the other two settings sound like they are for booting voltages, not for later voltages.

So I would explore more, see if you find the actual VCCSA etc tucked away elsewhere, and don't just make note of whether it's on Auto, make a note of the actual voltages which should be displayed alongside.

One thing I don't know if you've mentioned already, and it's important, is whether you have removed the power limits on your board or not? They need removing with Rocket Lake. If unsure you can easily check by seeing how much CPU Package Power is used after a Cinebench R20 run, with HWiNFO64. If it's (quite a lot) more than 125W (as you have an 11900K), then they are removed. Some boards do it by default, I'm not sure if absolutely every Z590 does it. With MSI Z590 it asks you whether you have the boxed cooler or tower style cooler or liquid cooler and removes the power limits accordingly. Your board may have done something similar when you set it up or have them removed by default.

I did have a good poke around for the actual values but have to be able to find them so I will look again.

During my mobo setup I didn't specify a cooler anywhere and after a Cinebench R20 run my CPU package power max was 205.10W so I assume my board has already removed power limits.

I'll go disable Speedstep now then.

Just to add, I just managed about 20mins BFV gameplay with XMP on (left everything at Auto) but I dropped the RAM frequency to the next one down which was 3,066MHz I beleive, it didnt crash or BSOD but I may have just been lucky.

 

[RipGroove]

OK XMP on, back to max frequency of 3200MHz

DRAM Voltage = 1.361V
CPU VCCIO = 1.072V
VCCIO Mem OC Voltage = 1.176V

Temporarily I've gone back to the lower frequency of 3,066Mhz with XMP on just to see if it is actually stable. I definitely want to get to the bottom of it not running at 3200MHz though.

 

[Danny75]

During my mobo setup I didn't specify a cooler anywhere and after a Cinebench R20 run my CPU package power max was 205.10W so I assume my board has already removed power limits.

Yep.

DRAM Voltage = 1.361V
CPU VCCIO = 1.072V
VCCIO Mem OC Voltage = 1.176V

Good find. Just missing the VCSSA now.

Are you using two or four sticks?

 

[RipGroove]

Yep.



Good find. Just missing the VCSSA now.

Are you using two or four sticks?

Ah yeah, sorry, BRB lol

And yeah just two sticks, it was way cheaper than 4

 

[RipGroove]

Is VCCSA likely to be called CPU System Agent Voltage on my mobo? If so it's at 1.136V with XMP set to 3200MHz

 

[Danny75]

Is VCCSA likely to be called CPU System Agent Voltage on my mobo? If so it's at 1.136V with XMP set to 3200MHz

Bingo.

So here's the thing, apparently on Rocket Lake you need more VCCIO Mem OC and System Agent than usual. In fact some boards combined with some RAM (when XMP is enabled) set those voltages to:

1.4v each with 2 sticks.
1.4v - 1.6v with 4 sticks.

It was something Der8auer pointed out in a video and others have mentioned with some Gigabyte/MSI/Asus boards and certain RAM types (like Crucial Ballistix) and I also noticed it myself with MSI Z590 Pro Wifi and Crucial Ballistix. What's up in the air right now is whether 1.4v-1.6v is too high for even Rocket Lake as neither Intel nor any board manufacturer has commented on this. What I think is indisputable is that 1.176v and 1.136v is low for 3200 on Rocket Lake. You already know the CPU pulls more power than others, and the CPU memory controller needs to as well.

So now you have two voltages* to play with to see if you get better results (with XMP enabled + tuning those two voltages). Can tell you that I lowered both those voltages on mine to 1.25v for XMP 3600MHz but after a day of gaming and running benchmarks fine, suddenly the next day there was a memory overclocking error during post, so I bumped them up to 1.3v and currently testing. Given my board says the max is up to 1.7v, and it sets 1.6v for 4 sticks... up to 1.3v seems real safe compared to what can be the default in other cases.

* VCCIO Mem Oc and System Agent. The other one, VCCIO, from my brief research, is not as important to touch with Rocket Lake, and the value you stated looks fine.

 

[RipGroove]

Bingo.

So here's the thing, apparently on Rocket Lake you need more VCCIO Mem OC and System Agent than usual. In fact some boards combined with some RAM (when XMP is enabled) set those voltages to:

1.4v each with 2 sticks.
1.4v - 1.6v with 4 sticks.

It was something Der8auer pointed out in a video and others have mentioned with some Gigabyte/MSI/Asus boards and certain RAM types (like Crucial Ballistix) and I also noticed it myself with MSI Z590 Pro Wifi and Crucial Ballistix. What's up in the air right now is whether 1.4v-1.6v is too high for even Rocket Lake as neither Intel nor any board manufacturer has commented on this. What I think is indisputable is that 1.176v and 1.136v is low for 3200 on Rocket Lake. You already know the CPU pulls more power than others, and the CPU memory controller needs to as well.

So now you have two voltages* to play with to see if you get better results (with XMP enabled + tuning those two voltages). Can tell you that I lowered both those voltages on mine to 1.25v for XMP 3600MHz but after a day of gaming and running benchmarks fine, suddenly the next day there was a memory overclocking error during post, so I bumped them up to 1.3v and currently testing. Given my board says the max is up to 1.7v, and it sets 1.6v for 4 sticks... up to 1.3v seems real safe compared to what can be the default in other cases.

* VCCIO Mem Oc and System Agent. The other one, VCCIO, from my brief research, is not as important to touch with Rocket Lake, and the value you stated looks fine.

Awesome thanks for the detailed info, so any preference on which I should bump up first or should they bumped up together? And are we talking bumping up by like 0.05v at a time and testing?

 

[Danny75]

Awesome thanks for the detailed info, so any preference on which I should bump up first or should they bumped up together? And are we talking bumping up by like 0.05v at a time and testing?

Give them both an initial solid bump to 1.2v and test. After that I would go to 1.225v, 1.25v, 1.275v, 1.3v as required, after testing.

I'm waiting on word from an OcUK technician to see if up to 1.6v is actually safe or not. Or if that can be confirmed elsewhere. Till then I'm not going to go over 1.3v.

 

[RipGroove]

Give them both an initial solid bump to 1.2v and test. After that I would go to 1.225v, 1.25v, 1.275v, 1.3v as required, after testing.

I'm waiting on word from an OcUK technician to see if up to 1.6v is actually safe or not. Or if that can be confirmed elsewhere. Till then I'm not going to go over 1.3v.

Will do, thanks. I'll let you know how it goes.

So ideally to get the best out my CPU I need to get some faster RAM at some point?

 

[Danny75]

Will do, thanks. I'll let you know how it goes.

So ideally to get the best out my CPU I need to get some faster RAM at some point?

I believe the limits of Gear 1 are 3733/3866 so it's really no big deal. Gear 2 which allows for higher frequencies doesn't sound too good to me going from what I've read, other than for very cheap motherboards that don't allow power limit unlocking or make it difficult because of bad VRM cooling. In such cases, using Gear 2 can free up more power to the CPU to get slightly better overall performance within the 65W limit.

 

[RipGroove]

I believe the limits of Gear 1 are 3733/3866 so it's really no big deal. Gear 2 which allows for higher frequencies doesn't sound too good to me going from what I've read, other than for very cheap motherboards that don't allow power limit unlocking or make it difficult because of bad VRM cooling. In such cases, using Gear 2 can free up more power to the CPU to get slightly better overall performance within the 65W limit.

Got ya, just realized I have a choice of XMP 1 or 2, I guess that's a whole other can of worms so I'll probably leave that for now.

 

[Danny75]

Got ya, just realized I have a choice of XMP 1 or 2, I guess that's a whole other can of worms so I'll probably leave that for now.

When you click Save and Exit, your BIOS should pop up a list of the changes and ask you to confirm? The list may or may not specify which XMP speeds/timings will be employed with XMP 1 and 2, if you'd like to check that way. Sometimes it's the exact same, other times different. That said, if your current XMP settings accurately reflect the Dominator's specs, then you're fine already.

 

[RipGroove]

Also, slight hiccup with upping those voltages, I can't find the OC jumper switch on my board which needs to be switched to allow me to change the voltage values. It's not where the manual says it should be lol.

It;s supposed to be number 14 but all that's there is what looks like a capacitor, It's probably staring me in the face somewhere so hopefully I'll find it in a min:

When you click Save and Exit, your BIOS should pop up a list of the changes and ask you to confirm? The list may or may not specify which XMP speeds/timings will be employed with XMP 1 and 2, if you'd like to check that way. Sometimes it's the exact same, other times different. That said, if your current XMP settings accurately reflect the Dominator's specs, then you're fine already.

Cool, I'll leave it on 1 for now so as not to confuse things too much.

 

[RipGroove]

Apparantly they moved it since writing the manual, any idea how I use that? Gut instinct is either to move the cap over to the right so it covers the middle and left pin or just remove it?

 

[Dave2150]

OK XMP on, back to max frequency of 3200MHz

DRAM Voltage = 1.361V
CPU VCCIO = 1.072V
VCCIO Mem OC Voltage = 1.176V

Temporarily I've gone back to the lower frequency of 3,066Mhz with XMP on just to see if it is actually stable. I definitely want to get to the bottom of it not running at 3200MHz though.

When XMP is on, are you still in gear1? Check mem controller speed matches RAM speed in CPUZ again.

Also, if you're just running stock, you shouldn't have to manually adjust any voltages, as XMP automatically sets your DRAM voltage according to XMP spec. Something is very wrong if not stable at stock - remember the 11900k supports 3200Mhz RAM as standard, so this is not overclocking, and requires no additional voltage beyond auto/stock.

I'd highly recommend trying another known working memory kit - I'd suggest a 32GB Crucial Ballistix C16 kit - that's what I'm running, they overclock well and aren't too expensive.

 

[RipGroove]

Found out how to use the jumper, move it over one pin.

It won't actually boot with XMP on 3200MHz but with it lowered to 3066MHz CPU-Z shows Mem Controller at 1533MHz and DRAM and 1533MHz

 

[RipGroove]

With the PC jumper enabled I still can't change the voltages, nothing changes for VCCIO Mem Voltage but I now get a drop down menu for System Agent Voltage that says Auto, Manual and Offset and when the latter two are selected I get a sub menu item called CPU SYSTEM AGENT VOLTAGE OFFSET yet none of the options allow me to change voltage.