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XPS 8960, 13900K, low benchmarks and current EDP/Throttling
I recently purchased a Dell XPS 8960 with an i9-13900k, 1TB, SSD, 32GB ram, RTX 4060 Ti. For the most part I've been happy with my new computer and that it runs dramatically faster than my old XPS 8910 it's replacing. That said, my old 8910 was getting pretty ancient at this point so any computer would probably feel faster by a significant margin.
So out of curiosity, I wanted to see what the benchmarks were for my new computer and see more about how it was running. I tried Novabench 5, and found that my CPU was dramatically under performing according to it's benchmark. The application said my i9K was performing in the 9th percentile for this same processor in other systems. My CPU score was 3469, while the median for this processor was 4246.
I then installed Intel's Extreme tuning utility just to see what more that could tell me about my system. I haven't changed any of the settings and honestly wouldn't trust myself to do so since I'm not really knowledgeable about these things and I don't want to mess it up. That said, it's interesting to see what's on the info readout in the tuning utility. In the utility I noticed that Current/EDP throttling is frequently kicking in even under very low load. Is that normal?
Between the really low Novabench score for my CPU, and this Current/EDP throttling I'm wondering if maybe something is wrong with my system and I should be reaching out to Dell tech support/warranty etc. I haven't been having any stability issues though, nothing is crashing or feeling slow. So maybe this is all normal?
Any input would be great, thanks!!
ProfessorW00d
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April 22nd, 2024 01:23
@S.Tech9 side panels are overrated
That is a very large air cooler!
S.Tech9
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April 22nd, 2024 02:37
@ProfessorW00d
Unfortunately, the NH-D15 is about 1/4” taller than what we need. Can’t shut the side cover :)
The Noctua NH-U12A is somewhat shorter,
That should fit but we will run into the same issue just like with this one. The original Noctua dual fans are not recognized by the motherboard, so we have no speed adjustment.
Running benchmarks as is with all the side cover off and with the original fans, the performance is the same and the Dell advanced tower cooler or Dell 125w liquid cooler.
This party is over.
The Noctua cooler is like $120. We need two big Dell fans, that would be another $40 plus I needed so hardware to mount the third-party cooler which was $11.
Spending $175 just to get a bigger fan might not make much sense.
(edited)
ProfessorW00d
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April 22nd, 2024 04:17
@S.Tech9 this party is just getting started!!
Alphacool Core Ocean T38 240mm AIO CPU Cooler
Look at the specs for dimensions . . . this is a 38mm thick radiator, so 63mm total with fans. Check to see it this AIO will fit in your XPS 8960.
Element115s4
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May 4th, 2024 15:12
Re-engineering a Dell is not for the faint of heart but it can be done :)
I did install a VetrooV5 into an 8940 and it did the trick.
It might be worth it to find something like the Alphacool Professor mentions as a replacement/enhancement.
Note that the Aurora R16 uses 240mm water cooling.