Question DEGRADING Raptor lake CPUs

[Kocicak]

I noticed some reports about degrading i9 13900K and KF processors.

I experienced this problem myself, when I ran it at 6 GHz, light load (3 threads of Cinebench), at acceptable temperature and non extreme voltage. After only few minutes it crashed, and then it could not run even at stock setting without bumping the voltage a bit.

I was thinking about the cause for this and I believe the problem is, that people do not appreciate, how high these frequencies are and that the real comfortable frequency limit of these CPUs is probably at something like 5500 or 5600 MHz. These CPUs are made on a same process (possibly improved somehow) on which Alder lake CPUs were made. See the frequencies 12900KS runs at. The frequency improvement of the new process tweak may not be so high as some people presume.

Those 13900K CPUs are probably highly binned to be able to find those which contain some cores which can reliably run at 5800 MHz. Some of the 13900K probably have little/no OC reserve left and pushing them will cause them to degrade/break.

The conclusion for me is that the best you can do to your 13900K or 13900KF is to disable the 5800 MHz peak, which will allow you to offset the voltage lower, and then set all core maximal frequency to some comfortable level, I guess the maximum level could be 5600 MHz. With lowered voltage this frequency should be gentler to the processor than running it at original 5500 MHz at higher voltage. You can also run it at lower frequencies, allowing for even higher voltage drop, but then the CPU is slowly loosing its sense (unless you want some high efficiency CPU intended for heavy multithread loads).

Running it with some power consumption limit dependent on your cooling solution to keep the CPU at sensible temperature will help too for sure.

 

[alcoholbob]

I found this 5 years old interview, in which Guy Therien from Intel talks about degradation, or as he calls it "wearing out":

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1458...ng-an-interview-with-intel-fellow-guy-therien


What I got from this:

The degradation is a process that can affect the CPUs even in the shorter few year long time span, as it is evident from the discussion with the customers.

The idea many people apparently still hold that CPUs should last decades is simply WRONG.

Second takeaway is that the life of the CPU really depends a lot on a frequency the CPUs runs at.

What surprised me it that when they wanted to get accurate predictions, they needed to make the measurement outside of the OS, as it alone could affect life of the CPU.


So no, please do not undervolt or set the CPU in a way that could lower the "wear-out voltage margin".

Intel insisting to run the CPUs at those extreme frequencies PREVENTS SOLVING the degradation problem.

As Intel apparently knows a lot about the CPUs, they know at what frequencies they should be running at to ENSURE LONG TERM STABILITY and they should publish these frequencies for people who voluntarilly want to decrease the performance of their CPUs in order to ensure their long term reliable operation.

I am really pissed off that they are leaving people to grope in the dark and guess if they should limit their CPUs to 5400, 5000 or even 4600 MHz.

You realize modern Intel CPUs already auto-undervolt with TVB on default when temperatures are lower? That’s like saying don’t use more robust cooling like large heatsinks or water cooling because it will lower CPU voltages which reduces the the long-term margin that Intel already built in by over-volting. This is just ridiculous mental gymnastics.