Gear 1 can Lead to Performance Loss on Intel "Rocket Lake" 11th Gen Processors

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

The title technically isn't...wrong, per se, but it's kinda obvious given how power limits work on any locked Intel chip or any PPT-limited AMD chip since 2019.

You can probably get the same result on Ryzen by artificially running 1066MHz Infinity Fabric @ 0.9V VSOC where you save like 10W on SVI2 SOC power draw compared to 1866MHz 1:1 IF @ 1.1V VSOC. Like, yeah, you get 10W more to invest into the cores (if not already current, temp or voltage limited) and will probably get slightly better boost performance out of strict CPU benchmarks, but people don't build new 11th gen computers to run CPU benchmarks 24/7 at stock settings and nothing else.

In return, running Gear 2 or low IF speed both get you doodoo performance in 99% of everything else outside of CPU benchmarks, so is it really "performance loss"? It's not even a revelation that's useful to overclockers because 1) 11400F isn't winning any races regardless of what you do 2) power limit is not an issue on anything that isn't locked 3) power limit isn't even an issue on the 11400F as long as you remove them.

So basically, "Gear 1 can lead to performance loss" is about the same as saying "1900MHz+ IF can lead to performance loss". Both technically true to some extent, and both misleading and benefiting precisely nobody.

While I agree with your summary of power budget limitations I don't agree with your conclusions, IF you can run those memory speeds and infinity fabric speeds(on Ryzen) it doesn't affect your core speed significantly.
I can't comment on Intel's thing I couldn't know having not dabbled or read enough yet but doesn't seem like too much of a drama and to me could be more nuanced, what if you have 3200/3600 memory, IE lower speeds than 4000/ , perhaps there's a gain to be had with less core performance loss, I dunno.
After all most go for the sweet spot memory frequency not the ceiling.

 

[W1zzard]

Intel is so against the wall that they can't run the memclock at full speed when using fast memory, due to the ancient manufacturing process they are forced to use, the cores need every Watt they can get their hands on just to offer almost AMD like performance!

Very interesting theory. So maybe that's why Gear 2 exists, so that low-watt SKUs can still use fast memory. Imagine a 35 W -T CPU running with the MC using up 15 W

 

[nguyen]

Very interesting theory. So maybe that's why Gear 2 exists, so that low-watt SKUs can still use fast memory. Imagine a 35 W -T CPU running with the MC using up 15 W

Isn't Ryzen 3's MC located on the IO die which is made on GF 12nm? doesn't make sense that Ryzen MC is more efficient than Intel MC.
Also can you try messing with the Ring Cache ratio? they could improve/degrade efficiency to some degree.

 

[Anymal]

I guess my car has Intel Inside as in Gear 2 its faster than in Gear 1.

 

[Deleted member 205776]

They massacred the IMC in this gen so much it makes my Zen 2 IMC look good

 

[W1zzard]

Isn't Ryzen 3's MC located on the IO die which is made on GF 12nm? doesn't make sense that Ryzen MC is more efficient than Intel MC.

Efficiency is barely a function of the process, what matters is the chip/circuit design and algorithms. Look at Navi 1x vs 2x

 

[Wirko]

I guess my car has Intel Inside as in Gear 2 its faster than in Gear 1.

If it's sometimes, but not always, faster in Gear 2 then it sure has Intel Inside.

 

[Minus Infinity]

I suppose technically it's news, but gee so much time wasted reporting about an utterly crap product that should have never been released. Why delve into the minutia of an evolutionary dead end. Roll on Alder Lake and Zen3+/4.

 

[W1zzard]

Why delve into the minutia of an evolutionary dead end

You think they're designing yet another new memory controller for Alder Lake?

 

[owen10578]

Well just run it at the unlimited TDP mode or whatever raised TDP the motherboard allows. Running these at 65W is really dumb imo.

 

[Why_Me]

Intel Rocket Lake allows for new world record RAM overclock of a staggering 7156MHz

MSI overclocking team works wonders with HyperX DDR4 RAM

www.techradar.com

 

[Deleted member 205776]

Intel Rocket Lake allows for new world record RAM overclock of a staggering 7156MHz

MSI overclocking team works wonders with HyperX DDR4 RAM

www.techradar.com

nice timings lol

 

[Prima.Vera]

Intel Rocket Lake allows for new world record RAM overclock of a staggering 7156MHz

MSI overclocking team works wonders with HyperX DDR4 RAM

www.techradar.com

The completely impractical method that the MSI overclockers used to hit the dizzy heights of 7,156MHz included the obligatory liquid nitrogen cooling, as well as CAS Latency being upped to 58 (from 19 at stock with this RAM).

Note that it was also a single stick of RAM, so single-channel rather than dual-channel (in real world situations, the latter is the way you want to be running system memory for the best performance, meaning two 4GB sticks rather than a single 8GB module as is the case here). The 11900K CPU was also massively underclocked (to just under 1.5GHz) in the record-beating rig.

on topic:

So let me get this straight.
If I buy a 11900K CPU, a top Z590 mobo, and 2 sticks of DDR4-4200 RAM, am I forced to run only in G1 in order to keep the 4200 speed on the RAMs??

 

[W1zzard]

and 2 sticks of DDR4-4200 RAM, am I forced to run only in G1 in order to keep the 4200 speed on the RAMs??

You must run in Gear 2 mode, because the memory controller in Gear 1 won't be able to handle that speed, not even 3800

 

[Prima.Vera]

I'm a little confused. The Nexus guy also teste G1 vs G2 and concluded that G2 is actually the slowest one:

So, which is it??

 

[W1zzard]

that G2 is actually the slowest one

Let me summarize the news post: normally gear 1 is faster than gear 2. but gear 1 uses A LOT more power. this power eats into the CPU math cores' power budget. this causes power throttling much earlier, and thus leads to a loss in performance

That's why we posted this, because everyone tested on high-powered CPUs and came to the conclusion "Gear 1 is best"

All non-K RKL CPUs are affected, no point buying more expensive memory for Gear 1, unless you manually increase the power limit at the same time

 

[Prima.Vera]

Thank you W.
What intel did with this series is a disaster imo, hopefully the new 12th Gen won't have this gear crap anymore.
Or will they...?

 

[Wirko]

Thank you W.
What intel did with this series is a disaster imo, hopefully the new 12th Gen won't have this gear crap anymore.
Or will they...?

Well, what kind of memory speeds do you expect to see on Alder Lake desktop systems? Around 4500 MT/s? Around 5000? Around 5500?

 

[y_zass]

So THIS is why my Cinebench score has gone down! I was able to pull 12800 originally with my i5 12500 but after I "upgraded" my ram my score went down about 300 points. I went from a 32gb (16gb x 2) DDR4 3200 16-18-18-38 dual rank 1.35v kit to a 32gb (16gb x 2) DDR4 3600 16-19-19-39 single rank 1.4v kit. Both kits were Mushkin Redline and I was able to run Gear 1 / Command Rate 1 with both kits.