Aurora R11, i9-10900KF auto overclocking

5.3 is the turbo boost speed.  It's completely normal for the CPU to boost with turbo boost enabled.

If you want to lock the CPU to the base clock speed, then disable turbo boost.  There's a number of ways to do this; Intel XTU (slide off turbo boost switch), Power Options - set maximum processor state to 99%, Throttle Stock - click box that says disable turbo boost, AWCC - power options. 

As far as the high temps, well it's an air-starved SFF case with a 3090 and unlocked i9, that's totally to be expected under load with those specs. 

The strange thing here is that one of the computers came 'factory capped' at 3.7 GHz . . . aka no TurboBoost   

Yeah, and. .. if it had been me I would have called that one the problem pc lol

uhm I'm not sure. If i buy a pc with a cpu at stock of 3.7 ghz i expect that if i overclock (unlock via Command center) the clock it goes over 3.7, if not should be capped. Am I wrong?

The case are identical, why in one i got 30/35° in idle and 70 max under load and on the other i got more than 20° over these numbers? I reported the strange clock behaviour because is the only thing I'm able to observe when i monitor the 2 computers.

If on the other one (the one with good temperature) i select the OC option 1 or two the cpu Ghz are higher than 3.7 as it should be.

I assume you have liquid cooling on both PC? If not, there was a config or assembly error, 10900kf requires liquid cooling.

Also, if high temps on idle check system resources to see what is hogging cpu resoures. 

Sometimes there isn't a clean connection between the IHS and coldplate you can check that too.

I confirm the liquid cooling on both pc. 

So if turbo boost is normal i wonder why on one pc i got it capped at 3.7 and on the other one no.

 I have a similar setup with the same CPU/GPU..

 After I noticed the cpu clocks stood at 3.7Ghz on all cores, I was po'ed. 

 So I called tech support and the first rep was clueless how to set the ACC and bios together to get the cpu up to its standard frequencies along with enabling xmp to get the ram at the 3400Mhz speed. The cpu was still stuck at 3.7Ghz on all cores even under stress tests. 

 Then I looked into the ACC and bios more deeper. (I'm in the field but unfamiliar with Dell's bios)

 Finally I noticed to duplicate the Overclock 1 setting and enable XMP in bios. (Dell's bios is a joke)

 So now I get up to 5.3Ghz on all cores. I've yet seen a game push all cores to 5.3 as if yet. Normal clocks are 5.0/5.1 on most if not all cores. But heck, if it hits 5.3Ghz on all cores it probably will thermal throttle anyway or blue screen.

 But...you're right. Temps can peak up to  95-100c on all cores while gaming. Do they even test these units?

 It's not an average, but rather peak clock temps for each core. Then again earlier in playing BFV, temps were hitting over 90c on all cores.

 So I earlier called tech support. The rep said it was normal to peak to 100c. As long as it didn't average over 90c it was within the thermal threshold.  

 Honestly, if not for making a huge mistake in selling off Dell's 2080ti I had in an R8, and no way to fit a 3080/3090 inside of that tiny R8 case, I would had returned this R11. But then again with the near impossible way to grab a 3080/3090 anywhere,I'm stuck with this very expensive lemon. 

 The case is too small, it's 2 fans are cheap and loud, it's AIO is too weak to cool off the I9, and it's too loud even in balanced thermals. And in performance it's like a small vacuum cleaner in noise levels.

 Thankfully I wear headphones while gaming on my big screen.  But if I decide to stream while gaming on my monitor, I'll have to blast the speakers...and that won't be enjoyable. Heck I'll be wanting to put my head through the window.

 I'm tempted to switch out the two cheap fans for quiet ones. But that may void a warranty I played $400 extra for. 

 And tech support seems to be of little help. Granted they answer the phone quick and are polite but aside from one of 7 tech agents, they really don't know the Auroda R11 at all.

 And why Dell decided to go with sff cases since the R8 or earlier?, is just baffling and moronic. 

 Heck, I had a R4 in 2013 and I never had an issue with fitting any gpu inside it and the case had far better air flow. 

 Only good thing is I'm financing and that kinda helps. But I'm done with Dell after this...

Hi, 
after some research i found a way to have a nice temperature and nice dolby.
First of all I had (on one PC) the same issue with the core not going over 3.7 Ghz. I installed the Intel XTU software that come with an handy guide and managed to unlock the core speed to 4 Ghz without any temperature problems. The i9 is really powerfull and since i don't have any bottleneck it's pointless to push it to 5.3 at the moment. Plus i did'nt testet to higher frequency. I will in the near future to understand what's the best settings to have.

In the XTU you can unlock the core power as you please and save the profile. To let the cpu choose between the higher and the lower frequency you should select under "power management" of windows the balanced mode, if you have performance mode selected it will use the  100% clock speed all the time. Once you select the balance you'll the the clock moving up and down as requested per power needed.

For the fan i changed with the Corsair ML120Pro that seems are the only one working properly with the command center. They are really less noisy. The front fan is quite easy to change, you don't need any particular skills you can see it here.

For the top fan is a bit harder. I found that the faster way is to detach also the liquid heatsink and put the thermal paste back on. If you are comfortable with this manouvre you can do as follow:

- remove the graphic card
- unscrew the heatsink
- remove the front fan pin
- remove the motherboard pin in the top left corner of the mb
- remove the pump fan and the top fan pin
- unscrew all the 8 screw of the motherboard
- detach the motherboard from the case uplifting the top right and the bottom left corner
- move a bit the motherboard to the lower part of the case
- remove the top plastic cover of the case
- unscrew the 4 screw of the liquid radiator
- remove the radiator and the fan from the bottom
- change the fan
- put all back as it was

if you want you can also do pretty much the same without detaching the heatsink and putting back the thermal paste.

With these fans and the new thermal paste i reach under stress around 70° at 4 Ghz clock speed, and it's pretty silent with the balanced profile even when playing.

For the warranty it's enough to put back the original fans before you ask for the tech support.

Bottom line I do agree with you that the case is not well studied for nice dissipation. Considering the money I'll let customer decide to choose more quieter and faster fans in the buying process and mostly they should have tested better the temperature overall. Spike of 95/100° are sick and not safe for the cpu.

My previous one was an old area51 and the built material was waaaaaaaay better in every aspect

Hey Philips a little update.

Since the last Command center update the intel xtu software doesn't work properly. So if you wanna have full control you should not update command center or uninstal.

On the other hand I found another way to lock the cpu speed how i want. On the bios you should select under performance the customization option and select the top clock you want. For me the perfect clock speed is 4.3 Ghz.

This way the cpu doesn't overheat to much, i got top 70/75° temp under heavy load and everything works like a charm. Plus if you still want the cpu to adjust automatically the core speed (adjusting at max your selected overclock speed) you should select the power option as balanced (or change the performance one) that have in the processor section the min and max processor use 5% 100%. The cpu will go up and down (saving energy when not needed) and will not overheat.

Hi and thank you so much for that advise!
I actually got Dell to send a tech to my place and he replaced both the CPU and motherboard.
And it still was stuck at 3.7Ghz.
Then after going back to oc #1, the pc bricked. Now the power supply must be replaced.
I have a rma still good until tomorrow, and if Dell does not resolve this today, I'm sending this expensive excuse for a pc back.
But I will use that program you mentioned to help fix this cpu issue. Heck you're more help then Dell's techs.
I'm so frustrated..

Thanks again! Heck, Dell should hire you, as you know more about their biisxand awcc then they seem to know. 

 I'll try what you said and update you how that worked out.

 My only dilemma is that is paid near 4K for this pc...(with the 2yr premium support) and it's as high end as it gets from Dell. 

 If I get only say 4.3Ghz on all cores because both the fans and aio are low quality(causing 100c thermal throttling and insane noise), then what's the purpose of the 10900k?

 If I can get say 4.5-4.7 on all cores(intel specs are 4.8 afterall)...with low noise and sub 90c thermals I'm all good 

 But if not,  then I'm looking elsewhere.  

 Anyway,  thank again! I hope what you mentioned works out well. I really appreciate the help! Thanks!

You can try for sure. I'm on 4.3 but if you are not worried about 90° i guess you can push it to 4.7 or 4.9 ghz.

Once you are in the bios try to raise up a bit the oc and check under heavy load. If temp are good go a little bit higher and so on till you reach your sweet spot.

Forgot to tell you an important thing. Since you are in the bios select the XMP 2 for the ram that will work at 3200.

It's an expensive pc, that's true (i got mine for 3500 with 15% discount) and I'm a bit disappointed aswell. But I'll enjoy it anyway

Well, when I'm gaming from my recliner and big screen with headphones, that oc #1 will hover from 4.8GHz-5,2Ghz on all cores. Of course once any core hits its thermal limit of 100c then it drops in frequency. 

 And yeah I have the xmp2 set to 3400Mhz, with an added +150 on the gpu clock.(it can hit 220/110 on the clock/mem but it will crash at times, so to be safe I leave it at just the +150)

 Before the warranty and tax it was $3500 or so. For a 10900k,  3090, 32GB, 2TB m.2...that's not too bad. But it has too many problems...so far.

 I don't mind the fan noise when gaming 6 feet away with headphones...as I can't hear it.

 But when I work with blender or non gaming programs that tax the cpu, I need more then 3.7Ghz and I need it to not sound like a vacuum next to my head...lol

 I'll try 4.3Ghz-4.5Ghz later and see what the max frequency I can get while keeping the fans low. As that's a good enough balance for me.

 Thanks once again for all the advise! I appreciate this alot. 

I want to really thank you!

Indeed setting 4.3GHz is an ideal noise level with decent temps. 

 I tried 4.4 and 4.5 and it's tolerable but not for extended periods of time 

 4.6 it starts to reach 90c+ on a few cores 

 4.7-4.9 its like a jet engine (that's balance mode)

 Running Aida64 the overclock profile 1 is not stable. And Dell should be embarrassed by putting in a cheap AIO cooler. (and cheap fans)

 Also in oc profile 1, for cpu heavy games like FS2020, Cyberpunk,  and BF5 , when the cpu is being taxed hard, frequencies drop to 4.8 or 4.9. 

 This is being returned as Dell had no business putting in a AIO that can't handle the cpu heat, at Intel's recommendations of 4.8 on all cores 

 I actually am shocked the engineers at Dell put a 10900k/3090 combo inside a sff case with a cheap/terrible AIO cooler and cheap fans. 

 Once again thank you so much for that bios advise! Heck I'm A+ certified but overlooked what was going on. 

 Thanks again!!