MSI talks about Intel 11th Gen Rocket Lake desktop processor overclocking, Adaptive Boost technology, speed modes, power and package temperatures

In its latest Insider livestream, MSI detailed several aspects of the 11th Gen Rocket Lake desktop processors recently released by Intel. Key points MSI spoke about included overclocking, adaptive boost technology, gear modes for overclocking and memory support, package power, and temperature during stock and overclocking. . MSI also invited Alex Hoyos from Intel, who provided detailed information on each specific aspect of the 11th Gen desktop processor family.

MSI details Intel 11th Gen Rocket Lake Adaptive Boost technology, speed modes, overclocking, also displays power and temperature figures

The Livestream started with MSI setting up its test setup for overclocking the Intel Core i9-11900K which includes the MSI Z590 Gaming Carbon motherboard and an MSI MPG K360 liquid cooler. The MSI pushed the voltages to 1.36V and the processor was set to overclock of around 5.2 GHz. We’ll talk about the benchmark results obtained by MSI separately, but first, let’s talk about the key aspects that MSI has detailed starting with some of the packet power numbers and overall temperatures.

Here’s where you can buy an 11th Gen Intel Rocket Lake desktop processor for your gaming PC

Intel Rocket Lake 11th Gen CPU Overclocking Package Power and Temperatures

MSI begins by displaying a graph of Intel Core i9-11900K overclocking behavior. The graph shows how the voltages affect the overall power and temperatures of the case. The Intel Core i9-11900K is based on a 14nm process node, so it should get really hot. MSI shows that to achieve full overclocking of 5 GHz, you need around 1.33 V, which pushes the power of the package to 291 W and the processor temperatures to 92 ° C.

Anything above 5 GHz would result in over 300W of power and a temperature of over 100 ° C. MSI used a DIY water cooling kit to achieve these results. It was stated that although they did not know the exact specs of the custom cooling kit, it was far superior to a 420mm AIO liquid cooler and this was just to show off the extremely hot and power hungry chip. that Rocket Lake processors are in general. .

Intel Rocket Lake Core i9-11900K 8 Core Ft Desktop Processor Review. MSI MEG Z590 ACE, ASRock Z590 Steel Legend, AORUS Z590 PRO AX Motherboards

To achieve 5.1GHz on the Intel Core i9-11900K, MSI recommends a voltage of 1.37V which translates to a packet power of 325W and 102C times. For 5.2 GHz, a voltage of 1.42 V was supplied to the processor, resulting in a power of 378 W and a temperature of 113 ° C. MSI also provides its own processor cooler tuning configurations which you can use. allow you to select from a predetermined list of power profiles based on the capabilities of your CPU cooler.

Intel Rocket Lake 11th Gen CPU Adaptive-Boost Package Power and Temperatures

MSI also provides a detailed graph showing Intel Adaptive Boost technology running on the Intel Core i9-11900K processor. We’ve already provided a detailed look at how the technology works in our review which you can read here. When enabled, Adaptive Boost technology pushes the power of the package above 300W (in stock / without AVX) and above 350W (in stock / with AVX). That’s almost a 100W difference in case power compared to the default Thermal Velocity Boost technology.

Temperatures and voltages also see a dramatic increase with the processor running at 85 ° C and sipping 1.452V when running in stock and with non-AVX workloads. In AVX workloads, the chip draws 1.48V and operates over 114.5 ° C. This is a 25 ° C increase in temperatures over the TVB 3.0 technology by default.

Intel Rocket Lake 11th Gen CPU AVX-512 FPU Processor Power and Temperatures

For AVX-512 workloads, the Intel Core i7-11700K and Core i9-11900K processors averaged around 394W (PRIME95 Small FFT AVX) and 339.96 (AIDA64 FPU AVX). The Core i5-11600K averaged 282.36W in the PRIME95 and 242.88W in the AIDA64 tests. All of these tests were performed with the processor operating at stock conditions. The AVX-512 has been stated to cause a drop in frequency if used by an application.

Therefore, there are setting options on Z590 motherboards which can allow you to disable AVX (or just AVX-512) and also configure the range / ratio / offset voltages and the volume of the band scale. tension guard.

Intel Rocket Lake IMC gear modes for DDR4 memory support and overclocking

Another feature of Intel’s Rocket Lake K series desktop processor is the on-board memory controller gear mode which is similar to AMD’s Infinity Fabric and determines a 1: 1 or 1/2: 1 mode for DDR4 memory. What happens is that when running high frequency memory, the IMC on Intel processors can get very stressed to keep up with the higher frequencies of DDR4 memory itself, Gear 2 mode. kicks in to help relieve some of that BMI stress.

Gear 1 mode works up to DDR4-3600 (same as AMD) with Gear 2 mode starting with DDR4-3733 and going up to DDR4-5333. The only sacrifice you’ll make by switching to Gear 2 mode will be higher latencies, but you’ll keep higher bandwidth. In Gear 2 mode, you can push your memory overclockings further, but only by using an even multiplier, as odd numbers won’t work in this specific model. You can also set two base clocks for memory, either 100 MHz or 133 MHz. So the maximum you can achieve with Rocket Lake is 8266 MHz with a 62x multiplier and a 100×1.33 memory clock.

Here are the Gear modes that MSI says will work on their motherboards using XMP:

MSI B560 motherboards support both base clock and DDR4 memory overclocking

Finally, MSI has confirmed that its B560 class motherboards will support both base clock overclocking on unlocked and non-K processors, while also offering DDR4 memory overclocking. In the slides, MSI shows that its B560 motherboards can support memory speeds of up to 5200-5066 MHz, which can provide a decent performance boost in applications requiring higher system bandwidth.

As for overclocking, although the B560 does not offer the same tuning options as the Z590 series, it does have the basic clock overclocking feature that was also present on its B460 motherboards. The feature essentially increases the power limit PL1 and puts it on the same level as PL2, which allows much faster performance on Intel Desktop processors. MSI shows that it has been successful in getting the Core i9-11900F to have better CPU performance than the Core i9-11900K with a base clock overclocking from 100 MHz to 102.8 MHz.