XPS 15 9570, i9 thermals, throttling and solutions

Hey guys,

since I spent around 20 hours in the last four days with benchmarks, testing and thermal issues, I have now a great setup which I would like to share with you.

Problems I ran into while the machine was under heavy load (e.g. Fortnite, rendering, Cinebench, AIDA64, etc.):

Problem1: After a few minutes, the CPU clock was reduced to the minimum clock speed of 0.78 Ghz. Apart from that, the system didn't use the Nvidia GPU anymore but switched to the Intel GPU. The system was now barely usable. After around 5 Minutes, everything went back to normal.

Solution1: After a long forensic work and forum reading, I managed to identify the "Intel Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework" as the cuplrit. Uninstalling it did not go well (it keeps coming back, no matter what you try...). It seems like some Intel Software updated the Thermal framework to the newest version, which renders your machine unusable. To solve this problem, download the Intel Thermal Framework from here: (edit, new link to DPTF drivers Version 8.3.10207.5567, A09: https://www.dell.com/support/home/de/de/dedhs1/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=d4g6r - just confirm the prompts "the driver will be replaced by an older version" stuff. You can prevent the newer (faulty) drivers from being installed e.g. via a group policy (windows 10 pro): https://www.howtogeek.com/263851/how-to-prevent-windows-from-automatically-updating-specific-drivers/

There are different types of throttling; a) thermal throttling (CPU/GPU/VRMs) are getting too hot and b) power limit throttling (the machine has a power limit which can't be exceeded by a single part or the machine as a whole). The i9 of the XPS has a power limit of 56W permanently (please correct me if I'm wrong), or 78W (short turbo boost period). You cannot do a lot against the power limit throttling (which is good), but thermal throttling can be solved completely with this machine.

Problem2: CPU temps were not too bad out of the box. The problem was that bumping up the speed of the CPU at the beginning of heavy load, lifted up the temperatures of the cores to >95°C and the machine began throttling in an instant. Temperatures recovered after the fans kicked in and it stayed around 85°C to ~91°C with nervous thermal throttling sometimes.

Solution2: I repasted the CPU/GPU with another thermal compound (IC Diamond 24carat). Temps are now going up much slower, even without thermal throttling at all. The cpu frequency of the machine is now solely limited by the power limits of the VRMs. Screenshot:

You can see that the package power is constantly hitting the 56W mark (right top) and the CPU frequency is extremely stable. The small temp spike in the beginning (~78°C) is due to the fans which need around 10 seconds to kick in. GPU stays at ~75°C under heavy load in the package (CPU and GPU at full load). Fans kicking in a lot later and not with such a heavy spin. Fans are completely quiet when browsing/office work. I can even hear the crappy WD15 TB16 dock then...

In addition to that I experimented with undervolting (ThrottleStop and Intel XPU (*edit: use ThrottleStop only)). Undervolting the CPU/CPU Cache at -80mV-100mV brings the CPU temp down even more and you can get a bit more clock frequency at the same power limit (e.g. AIDA CPU only test before: 3.52 Ghz (no temp throttling, power limit 56W), after: 3.82Ghz (no temp throttling, power limit 56W))

Here is a video how to load ThrottleStop on startup in "silent" mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1srWgovdn8

Benchmarks after changes:
Cinebench R15 (only first runs, no loops): 1270-1320 (multicore) / before it was around 1020-1080.
CPUMark (after changes): 15600-15750 / before: not tested

Fortnite settings:

ThrottleStop: Disable CPU turbo (CPU power consumption and its induced high temps only obstruct the GPU from performing well)
In game: cap framerate to 60 fps, I play it with all settings to high and view distance to epic on constant 60 fps (which is enough for me). The machine power intake will never go far beyond 100W which is not a problem for the machine's thermals.

Setup:
Dell XPS 15 (9570),
Intel Core i9-8950HK
Windows 10 (stock)
32GB RAM
1TB SSD
4K Display
WD15 Dock

BIOS version is 1.2.2.

After figuring out all this, I'm now very happy with this machine!

 Disclaimer: You have to know what you're doing! Repasting is not an easy task on a brand new machine! For ThrottleStop, there are many tutorials out there.