ASUS B85M-G issues

[NikosD]

Hello guys.

I have an ASUS B85M-G motherboard with Core i7-4790, latest BIOS and Win 8.1 x64 Pro


I have 3 issues regarding that mobo:


1) No ASUS Multicore Enhancement in BIOS settings.

I tried both non-XMP and XMP memory but I can't see the multicore option with my Core i7-4790 using ALL latest BIOS (since January 2014)

I put the XMP memory to XMP profile, with no luck.

Anyone has ever achieved that ?

It clearly says in motherboard's manual that it supports it.



2) By enabling XMP profile in BIOS settings, I lost ~180MB of available RAM in Win 8.1 x64!

Is it normal ?

If I put "Auto" and don't select a XMP profile, the available memory is unaffected.



3) Turbo mode using various demanding apps, stressing the CPU seems very weak.

In less than 1 minute, it drops my CPU frequency from 3.8GHz to 3.6GHz.

I have no temp issue, CPU temp is below 70° C using the app.

I think is a TDP issue, but I'm not sure.


Any help in any of the above questions is appreciated.

 

[Cerb]

1) No ASUS Multicore Enhancement in BIOS settings.

Seems reasonable, with a B85 board and non-K CPU.

It clearly says in motherboard's manual that it supports it.

The manual mentions the setting, but only mentions it applying to the XMP RAM profiles, which is expected for the chipset and CPU. AFAIK, "multi-core enhancement," as it applies to CPU cores, is auto-overclocking.

I put the XMP memory to XMP profile, with no luck.

Did your RAM go from using JEDEC specs to advertised XMP specs?

2) By enabling XMP profile in BIOS settings, I lost ~180MB of available RAM in Win 8.1 x64!

Is it normal ?

No idea.

3) Turbo mode using various demanding apps, stressing the CPU seems very weak.

In less than 1 minute, it drops my CPU frequency from 3.8GHz to 3.6GHz.

It's likely either (a) turning another core on, for more processes than your one pig of one, or (b) slightly slowing down due to not keeping it at 100% (I'm guessing the former, though).

I think is a TDP issue, but I'm not sure.

Doubtful, if temps are good. Using 4-8 threads at 100% might get you into TDP issues, depending on cooling, but you'd need really bad case air flow for single-threaded to do that, I think.

 

[NikosD]

Thanks for the replies.

Seems reasonable, with a B85 board and non-K CPU.
The manual mentions the setting, but only mentions it applying to the XMP RAM profiles, which is expected for the chipset and CPU. AFAIK, "multi-core enhancement," as it applies to CPU cores, is auto-overclocking.
Did your RAM go from using JEDEC specs to advertised XMP specs?

About XMP, I meant that I selected XMP profile to enable Multicore enhancement, but I had no luck with that - multicore.
The XMP profiled worked OK.

Yes, multicore enhancement is a turbo enhanced setting like over clocking which put 4 core/8 threads CPU in maximum turbo frequency raising one, two or even more bins of the multiplier, e.g my Core i7-4790 should go from 3.8GHz to 4.0GHz even when using all 4 cores.

B85 nowadays after many BIOS updates supports limited over clocking even of K processors like 4770K, 4790K and Pentium G3258.

It shouldn't be a problem of a minor overclock of non-K CPUs through multicore enhancement.

No idea.

I've never installed XMP memory to any other mobo, so I would like to know if XMP profile needs more memory from OS to handle it in general or it's just me.

It's likely either (a) turning another core on, for more processes than your one pig of one, or (b) slightly slowing down due to not keeping it at 100% (I'm guessing the former, though).

Doubtful, if temps are good. Using 4-8 threads at 100% might get you into TDP issues, depending on cooling, but you'd need really bad case air flow for single-threaded to do that, I think.

The CPU is working at full 100% all the time because I'm talking about apps like Prime95 and Lynx which are designed to do that.

Cooling is not a problem, my air flow is good.

It's just that power consumption during runtime goes over TDP.

My TDP is 84 W and actual power consumption is about 100 W.

But I think that Turbo mode could last longer than just a few seconds ~30s before throttling to nominal frequency.

 

[Cerb]

B85 nowadays after many BIOS updates supports limited over clocking even of K processors like 4770K, 4790K and Pentium G3258.

It shouldn't be a problem of a minor overclock of non-K CPUs through multicore enhancement.

Ivy bridge CPUs supported running at higher bins, even if non-K. Haswell don't, and I'm sure Intel can find ways to influence mobo makers to only support such features with the right chipsets and CPUs...

But I think that Turbo mode could last longer than just a few seconds ~30s before throttling to nominal frequency.

If it's going over TDP, that's the behavior it's going to have. My CPU does the same thing in Prime95. It quickly goes to 87W, then gradually backs down to 80.0 (TDP), and hangs there, going up and down 100-200MHz.

 

[NikosD]

Ivy bridge CPUs supported running at higher bins, even if non-K. Haswell don't, and I'm sure Intel can find ways to influence mobo makers to only support such features with the right chipsets and CPUs...

I can clearly see what you 're talking about, but on the other hand I'm pretty sure that other B85 mobo can still do it.

If it's going over TDP, that's the behavior it's going to have. My CPU does the same thing in Prime95. It quickly goes to 87W, then gradually backs down to 80.0 (TDP), and hangs there, going up and down 100-200MHz.

Exactly that.
Going up and down every few secs.

What's your CPU and chipset ?

 

[Cerb]

I can clearly see what you 're talking about, but on the other hand I'm pretty sure that other B85 mobo can still do it.



Exactly that.
Going up and down every few secs.

What's your CPU and chipset ?

Xeon E3-1230V3, B85.

P.S. ASRock B85M Pro4, release BIOS.

I have the option for Multi-core Enhancement, but it does not seem to do anything. Turning it on, and setting a x37 multi, changes no scores, but seems to cause CPU-Z to not detect speed changes (it always shows it close to Turbo, while the ASRock tuning util shows normal speed changes from load changes, ranging from 800MHz to 3.7GHz or 3.3GHz). I wouldn't be surprised if a newer BIOS might work nicer with CPU-Z's reporting.

I also can change the TDP limit duration from 60s down to 1s. Not tested. The latest version of Prime95 must be using AVX2, because when I upgraded, it would not temp throttle, and now I get temp throttling from Prime95, so and it seems to be not staying over TDP for more than 5-10s, due to that (because of that, I don't know of a program that can TDP-throttle my CPU w/o temp-throttling it, too, at stock TDP). It's kind of amazing how much power the last few MHz use, as it can stay at or under 89C (BIOS set temp? I didn't check) without ever dropping below 3GHz across 4 cores.

One possibly useful setting, if yours has it, is a setting for custom TDP. Due to the above, I can't verify a much higher higher TDP, without cooling changes (which I am going to do, soon, just because I can't leave it alone), but lowering TDP to 60 makes it read not much higher than 60W, and lowers my Cinebench score from ~740 to ~700. At stock TDP, Cinebench was using 63-64W, as reported by CoreTemp.

 

[NikosD]

Xeon E3-1230V3, B85.

P.S. B85M Pro4, release BIOS.

I have the option for Multi-core Enhancement, but it does not seem to do anything. Turning it on, and setting a x37 multi, changes no scores, but seems to cause CPU-Z to not detect speed changes (it always shows it close to Turbo, while the ASRock tuning util shows normal speed changes from load changes, ranging from 800MHz to 3.7GHz or 3.3GHz). I wouldn't be surprised if a newer BIOS might work nicer with CPU-Z's reporting.

Well, using very old BIOS of 2013 I can see Multi-core enhancement too, but without "Enabled" choice.
Only "Auto" and "Disabled"

Using "Auto" it doesn't do anything like yours.
The CPU speed using Core temp is reported correctly and never passes 3.8GHz in any multicore test - it should go 4.0GHz.

I also can change the TDP limit duration from 60s down to 1s. Not tested. The latest version of Prime95 must be using AVX2, because when I upgraded, it would not temp throttle, and now I get temp throttling from Prime95, so and it seems to be not staying over TDP for more than 5-10s, due to that (because of that, I don't know of a program that can TDP-throttle my CPU w/o temp-throttling it, too, at stock TDP). It's kind of amazing how much power the last few MHz use, as it can stay at or under 89C (BIOS set temp? I didn't check) without ever dropping below 3GHz across 4 cores.

I had same temp problems with Prime95 28.5 because it's using AVX2 and specifically FMA3 which is very demanding.

I solved my temp issues going from stock cooler to Cooler Master 212 EVO and by putting two silent 120mm fans (one pushing air and the other pulling air) in my case.

It never passes ~70° C - 73° C using Prime95 28.5 x64 Small FFTs option, with ambient temp of 24° C.

One possibly useful setting, if yours has it, is a setting for custom TDP. Due to the above, I can't verify a much higher higher TDP, without cooling changes (which I am going to do, soon, just because I can't leave it alone), but lowering TDP to 60 makes it read not much higher than 60W, and lowers my Cinebench score from ~740 to ~700. At stock TDP, Cinebench was using 63-64W, as reported by CoreTemp.

I don't have custom TDP but I have put everything to extreme and maximum for TDP limits and Turbo duration and nothing really changes.

It seems that it can't hold turbo frequencies more than a very limited time, if power consumption is a lot higher than TDP.

My Cinebench R15 score is 760 with 57° C max temp and ~66W

 

[Cerb]

If power use stays higher than TDP, it should slow down. But, there's usually ways to override/change that, and unless you got a barely-there bin, I wouldn't think it should be so aggressive about it.

Have you tried programs that you know don't use AVX(2)? The 100W might only happen when that's in use.

Have you checked outside of the tweaking section? This got me poking around, and I found I can completely turn off TDP throttling, but it's not in the OC settings section of the interface, but advanced CPU options (intuitive place, right?).

P.S. Not being that brave, and w/ my curiosity piqued, I set my GPU fan and case fans to 100% (kill me now!), and long duration TDP limit to 100W, but did not disable throttling completely. Prime95 still gets to 89C and sits there, within 10-20s (it aught to be 99C, I thought, and I cannot find where that's set, if anywhere). But, OCCT stays in the low 80s, this way, but still greedily uses 95-98W, after running for a minute or two. I suspect that, if run for a long duration, either OCCT would also reach throttling temps, or Prime95 would go below them.

If you can find either a way to disable TDP throttling, or change it higher, that might take care of things. If you can't find it in the BIOS, see if it's an option is Asus' mobo settings utility.

My CPU cooler runs w/o its own fan, but after changing my GTX 460's HSF back to factory (to gift or sell it soon), and moving to a semi-passive PSU, temps aren't what they used to be. It only seemed to be problem w/ OCCT, though now Prime95 (which I haven't tried to run in forever), so I'm waiting until I have to change other parts to do anything about it. Other programs, including multithreaded games, cause no throttling.

P.P.S. Changing from NF-S12A PWM intakes to NF-P12 PWM intakes fixed the temp throttling completely, and caused temps to quickly rise to ~75C, instead of 89C, and gradually settled in to the mid 80s (due to the fan speed curve, which could have been made more aggressive), with <=2C mobo temp change, even if I set a higher package power limit. The PS07 does not like the NF-S12A so well, I guess, and really likes some extra pressure (makes sense, being one of those weirdo Silverstone cases ).

 

[NikosD]

Have you checked outside of the tweaking section? This got me poking around, and I found I can completely turn off TDP throttling, but it's not in the OC settings section of the interface, but advanced CPU options (intuitive place, right?).

If you can find either a way to disable TDP throttling, or change it higher, that might take care of things. If you can't find it in the BIOS, see if it's an option is Asus' mobo settings utility.

Which are the names of the settings in your BIOS, regarding custom TDP (changing it higher) and switching off TDP throttling ( or changing it higher ) ?

 

[Cerb]

In OC Tweaker:
Long Duration Power Limit, AKA CPU Package Power Limit 1 (Watts) - TDP setting.
Long Duration Maintained (seconds) - how long it is allowed to be over TDP (max 60s).
Short Duration Power Limit, AKA CPU Package Power Limit 2 (Watts)- immediately throttles on reaching this one.
Primary Plane Current Limit (Ampere) - max current before throttling. I would think this would only need changing if OCing. Not sure what it should be for any given model, but it will be close to the Wattage rating, given how close everything is to 1.0V.

In Advanced\CPU Configuration:
CPU Thermal Throttling - Intuitively (not), it's right above NX bit and virtualization settings.

 

[NikosD]

Yes, I have such settings and have put them all to max as I wrote before.

4096 Watt TDP, 127 sec and a huge number for current.

Nothing really changes.

Nevermind, it's obvious that we don't have overclocking friendly chipset and motherboards!

 

[Cerb]

True, but with OCCT ramping its load up slowly, it will go over stock TDP on mine, even if not over stock speeds, and stay (I'll bet the PSU fan is starting to spin up, after awhile, and giving it just enough air circulation that the stock GPU cooler isn't). I would think that setting should stick on yours, as well, then. Have you set the current limit? Maybe at 4GHz/3.6GHz, it could actually be going over that...

 

[NikosD]

I always test with Prime95 28.5

All the other tests are easier, except maybe Linx 0.65.

I put the current limit to 100 A