Moved from a 2500K to 9400F system - what tweaks are possible with z370?

[ChefJoe]

There's been nearly a decade of changes in how intel does clock speed/boost performance and I'm trying to catch up quick. I bought a 9400F CPU on FS/FT and have been very happy with the performance boost. The z370 board is overkill, but I had it long before the CPU. I expect a 41x multiplier maximum, but how does z370 and turbo boost interact with that?

Does a z370 chipset permit a 41x all-core speed or should I only expect the boost-stepladder of 39-41x depending on how many cores are engaged and hope for MCE keeping boost active continuously/ignoring tau boost duration limits?

I don't exactly expect HWinfo/HWMonitor output to be accurate, but the values reported on my old 2500k system looked plausable and this new system reports a 42 watt CPU package power in those programs with prime95 running 6 threads of small ffts, which seems wildly inaccurate compared to wall draws reported in 9400 cpu reviews. Is that just highlighting the issues with sensors vs something like a kill-a-watt or is there something I should check into?

What program do you use to accurately read processor speed? I fire up RealTemp and it'll show me a 4100 MHz single reading/41x multiplier but when I fire up something like HWInfo/HWMonitor it shows me a core ratio of 39x and the maximum core clock reported matches that at 39xx mhz (and it doesn't matter if I launch a thread or two of prime95 to stress test, it doesn't jump up).

 

[E4g1e]

Unfortunately, it's the CPU that dictates which multipliers that you'll be getting. In order to enable a maximum clock speed on all cores, you will need a K processor. Period.

The i5-9400F is still multiplier locked. The "F" in the model number indicates that the integrated iGPU has been disabled at the factory due to issues. Thus, you'll only get the boost-stepladder of 39-41x with that CPU.

 

[chameleoneel]

You can still buy fast RAM and benefit from that. 3600mhz is often on sale recently. And that will in many cases give you as much extra performance as a reasonable overclock of the CPU.

 

[ChefJoe]

OK. Yeah, I knew I was giving up the majority of overclocking with this CPU choice (it was still half what a 9600k would run) but figured I'd still kick the tires a little/make sure I've got things configured as best I can. I made a bit of a throwback choice and bought Mushkin 2666 ram back in March (for 9th gen bios updates) and will just see what I can get out of the memory I've got.

On the plus side, I don't see it dropping to a 29x multiplier after running prime, etc for a while so I think boost duration isn't a problem.

 

[chameleoneel]

I have no idea if it works for non K processors (probably not). But, if its an Asus board, try setting the Asus multi-core enhancement (syncs the speed of all cores). and then use monitoring software to see if all of your cores boost at the same speed or not.

You can use MSI afterburner to see the clock speed of each core.