Undervolting and overclocking of Ci9-7980XE with NH-D15

Conclusion

Skylake-X is a significantly more flexible generation of high-end processors than the previous one. Not only because of an unprecedented performance, but also thanks to a more reasonable consumption. Let’s take a look at the impact of different CPU settings on performance and functional features. These tests revealed also how economical can a configuration be with a more efficient cooling.

Conclusion

We can say that with NH-D15 you get to 4.4 GHz without any major problems. However, overheating of the power supply circuit can be a limit with cheaper boards. It was more than 100 °C even in our case. CPU temperatures were quite still optimistic though. With a reduced air flow of the cooler fan (and a total power consumption of 390 W), it was less than 80 °C. It may seem like there is still some reserve, but perhaps only for worse chips. 4.5 GHz already require a big jump in power consumption, giving the twin-tower from Noctua no chance. Even with 1.2 V (and consumption over 440 W), the processor was not stable and temperatures were above 100 °C. This is a challenge for a liquid cooler with a full cover block. And trying to “invent“ some homemade cooling for VRM is not a very elegant solution.

With the increase of consumption, we started to be concerned about the overheating of cables. Well, the outer insulation reached 34.7 °C (with 370 W), which is rather safe (1.291mm cable, 16 AWG). Also in the place under the socket with a higher CPU, where is more intense heating and lower airflow. For comparison, -150 W means – 6 °C. After disconnecting the 4-pin, the temperature rose by 1.5 °C, which is also no tragedy. So, even a cheaper power supply should not be any risk. We do not, of course, recommend it.

The thermocouple between 12-volt cable core and GND. The heating was not alarming, you cannot melt them in normal domestic conditions

The performance increase after overclocking to 4.4 GHz was approximately 25%. Optimally tuned base clock for a maximum efficiency (ie all cores at 3.4 GHz with boost) was more economical by 135 W, a drop of almost 35 percent. But be careful, without manual tuning, the processor can demand even 100 watts more. The MSI board regulates the power with a big reserve, making the playing with Vcore as interesting as overclocking. You can get to the point when the heatsink is cool enough to touch.

This is not the last test of Core i9-7980XE. We have a liquid cooler from EKWB on the way. Monoblock EK-FB and EK-KIT X360 circuit. If you are interested in anything special, let us know. 🙂

 

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Comments (6) Add comment

    1. Sorry, we forgot to mention it in the article. No, we did not because we had to return the sample in its original state.

  1. Tanks for very interesting test. Would you be able to give more details about undervolting? What settings did you change? I tried to go down with Vcore Voltage Additional Offset in UEFI (Asrock X299 Fatal1ty XE with 7960x). I entered -0.05. But just after I logged in to Windows and run Prime95 temperatures were actually higher than before.

    1. Hello, thanks for your comment. What specific details do you have in mind? We think that test procedures are fully described in the article (Vcore settings are listed in the third chapter, above thermal images). If there is any particular thing you’d like to know, we are more than happy to give you more info.

      The situation you described looks really odd. Reducing offset cannot increase temperatures… unless there’s something tricky at work.

      1. After small investigation I think newest version of Prime95 is messing. Older version 26.6 seems to be ok.
        Could you let me know what parameters did you change for undervoltage: core voltage or core voltage offset or anything different? I just started to play around with this subject, this is first so hot processor I have and I hope it will work more quiet with nice stable undervoltage ( for now I have vcore offset 0.07 and seems to be working fine).

        1. Core voltage was reduced to 1.029 V which is the lowest value for a rock stable operation.

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