Asrock Phantom Gaming itx/ac z390 VRM temps too high?

[biggitybakes]

So I have a 9900k and have been overclocking with this board for a couple of months. I updated hwinfo a couple of weeks ago to the latest version and they have a sensor called "VR VCC Temperature (SVID)." Supposedly this is the VRM temperature for the motherboard. Running stock CPU speeds and Prime95 small fft with avx I can get the VR VCC Temperature (SVID) temp to hit 110F. While overclocking, i can get it to thermally throttle at around 125F.

I have read a lot of reviews stating that the VRM is great on this motherboard, but I am running into problems with temps. I have not taken the VRM heatsink off to inspect if the thermal pads are making good contact, but I may do that if other people report that this temperature is out of the ordinary. I understand that Prime95 small fft with AVX is the worst case benchmark, but I have pretty good airflow in my case (a 120mm and 140mm in the top left corner right by the VRM).

Also, maybe this hwinfo sensor is not reliable or calibrated properly for my motherboard? Even if that is the case, I can still get it to thermal throttle when I have 1.33v at the highest LLC (the cpu drops to 3600mhz, but temps are still in check).

 

[Johan45]

There's an easy way to tell if that reading is from the VRM. You can situate a fan over them and see if the temp drops or even use some compressed air for PC cleaning and see if it drops. I just checked one review tweak town where they checked the thermals and said they were good but they also have a 140MM fan blowing on the VRM heatsink.
Are you using an AIO, those reduce the airflow around the VRM and we quite often recommend a fan for additional cooling in cases where heat is an issue

 

[bigtallanddopey]

Maybe I am wrong here as I don’t know the board at all.

When you look at the 9900k it is a power hungry chip, especially when you overclock. That motherboard has a 7 phase VRM when many of the full atx z390 boards will have a 12 phase vrm.

The more phases you have the more the power and heat is shared between them all. It could be that you simply don’t have as good as cooling as you think, or a worse situation for you is that they are getting too hot when you overclock the 9900k.

 

[Woomack]

I had no problems at all on the same motherboard and 9900K. The same as every motherboard at auto/stock settings, it will meet Intel specs and will power throttle 9900K above some point. VRM are not causing throttling, board will simply shut down once it reaches ~120-125°C (if overheating protection is enabled). 125°F is like ~51°C ... there is no way it would cause throttling.

On this motherboard some guys set 6GHz+ using 9900K (on LN2) so I doubt there are any issues with power design. I recommend to check additional options in BIOS as they're a bit confusing at first. When you set manual OC mode (simply when you set anything above specs) then motherboard should automatically unlock higher power limit. If it doesn't then on the first page are settings for higher power limits.

I will only add that 1.35V under full load is already above standard power limit. Also if you didn't set all cores at max CPU ratio then CPU ratio will drop when PC is under lower load. Another thing ... set power plan in Windows to high performance to be sure that CPU clock is always at max (at least for tests).

 

[biggitybakes]

I had no problems at all on the same motherboard and 9900K. The same as every motherboard at auto/stock settings, it will meet Intel specs and will power throttle 9900K above some point. VRM are not causing throttling, board will simply shut down once it reaches ~120-125°C (if overheating protection is enabled). 125°F is like ~51°C ... there is no way it would cause throttling.

On this motherboard some guys set 6GHz+ using 9900K (on LN2) so I doubt there are any issues with power design. I recommend to check additional options in BIOS as they're a bit confusing at first. When you set manual OC mode (simply when you set anything above specs) then motherboard should automatically unlock higher power limit. If it doesn't then on the first page are settings for higher power limits.

I will only add that 1.35V under full load is already above standard power limit. Also if you didn't set all cores at max CPU ratio then CPU ratio will drop when PC is under lower load. Another thing ... set power plan in Windows to high performance to be sure that CPU clock is always at max (at least for tests).

Wow, I lost track of this. Its been almost a year.. but for posterity, I'll reply.

So, I meant to say C not F. Rookie mistake, I know.

It turned out that i was throttling at 125C. I ended up changing out the thermal pad and it dropped me about 15-20C. I realize now that Prime FFT with AVX is pretty brutal and is not a realistic benchmark for the 9900k. I ended up at 5.1 with a -2 avx offset at 1.32 volts.

Thanks for your replies guys! Sorry I didn't respond!