9800X3D runs hot at 100% cpu usage
My 9800X3D runs very hot in certain games.

CPU (Tctl/Tdie) 94.0C
CPU Die (Average) 92.6C
CPU CCD1 (Tdie) 96.1C
Core Temperatures 91.3C
CPU TDC 95.1A
CPU EDC 113.5A
CPU PTT 143W

These are peak values recorded by HWInfo 64 v8.28-5770 with 500ms interval.

The CPU usage in these games was about 89-100% (In games like CS2, Witcher 3, Starfield, the temperatures rarely go above 85C).

The CPU heats up my room pretty quickly so i wanted to do something to cool it down.

I investigated a bit and found out a couple of ways to cool it down. One of them includes doing these things.

Setting TDC Limit from default 120Amps to 90Amps
Setting EDC Limit from default 180Amps to 105Amps
Setting PTT Limit from default 162Watts to 120Watts
Setting curve optimizer to negative (10-15), according to internet, these have a lot higher chance to work than 20-30.

The CPU is cooler with Dark Rock Pro 5 and the case (Shadow Base 800FX) has 4 intakes and 3 exhaust fans. The room temperature is around 29-34C (depends from the time of the day). Yes, very hot but the AC is directly behind me so i cannot run it 24/7.

I want to know if these changes are safe and if they void warranty? Can i damage the cpu or reduce its lifespan by doing these chagnes. Is there any other way of lowering the temps (cannot buy new cooler ATM).

The CPU cooler is mounted fine, during the winter, the temps are good. Also this is the case for only 2,3 games i play, the rest dont heat up the cpu.

PS, ALl Thermal Throttling values in HWInfo 64 show NO.
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Showing 1-15 of 21 comments
i highly doubt that there is any game who is able to max this cpu like that... what is your idle temp and did you run benchmark software "userbenchmark or passmark" to check if it runs properly?
Last edited by Wichtelman; 17 hours ago
If you have a GAME making it run thT hot then something is configured wrong in BIOS or terrible cooling. Even modern games won't push that CPU past 50-70% tops.

Stress tests that push 100% will achieve hotter cpu temps then basically anything else. However your average apps and games, even demanding ones will not and should not have your CPU hitting near or over the max like that
The temps the CPU hit in my post were from heavily modified Minecraft running distant horizons with heavy CPU preset. The CPU was over 90% most of the time. There are also couple of places in Starfield that make my CPU work constantly over 90% (usually interiors when looking at a specific angle). Cities Skylines 2 with high population also makes it run hot but not that much. I only ran timespy but in the CPU test, temps didn't go over 87C
*idle temps are

CPU (Tctl/Tdie) 47.0C
CPU Die (Average) 46.0C
CPU CCD1 (Tdie) 37.2C
Core Temperatures 34.0C

Edit: Room Temperature is 30C
Last edited by Wraithsiege; 17 hours ago
_I_ 17 hours ago 
are the fan curves set to 100% at 90c?
Originally posted by _I_:
are the fan curves set to 100% at 90c?

It is set at 100% from 70C (i didn't change the fan curve)
Fan Curve is stock (Top Row Is Temperature and bottom is fan percentage)

20 30 40 50 60 67 70 100

20 26 34 45 60 80 100 100

Edit: Same is for case fans
Last edited by Wraithsiege; 17 hours ago
Originally posted by Wraithsiege:
The CPU cooler is mounted fine, during the winter, the temps are good. Also this is the case for only 2,3 games i play, the rest dont heat up the cpu.
Your temps don’t look right to me. 86C while gaming only seems way too high. 95C shouldn’t be possible even during stress test.
High CPU utilisation while gaming also look wrong and suggest thermal throttling considering hitting thermal limit of 95C for this CPU.

It’s hot outside now but normal operating temperatures for this CPU are below 70C while gaming and below 80C during stress test if you have a decent cooler. And your cooler is decent enough. 85C should be the max temp during all core Cinebench test with an aircooler and 30C room temp in my opinion.

Bios changes and fans settings will only deal with symptoms but won’t solve the real problem.

My bet goes to cooling not working properly for some reason.
Last edited by C1REX; 16 hours ago
Originally posted by Wraithsiege:
Originally posted by _I_:
are the fan curves set to 100% at 90c?

It is set at 100% from 70C (i didn't change the fan curve)


Buy quieter case fans and cpu cooler that all have good statuc pressure fans under 36db or so and run them all at full speed at all times. If you use an air cooler with 9800X3D it needs to be beefy and needs to bave specs that saying they can guarantee it being able to cool CPUs upwards of around 200W or so
Last edited by Bad 💀 Motha; 16 hours ago
Originally posted by Wraithsiege:
The CPU heats up my room pretty quickly so i wanted to do something to cool it down.
Keep in mind that the amount of heat added to your room has nothing to do with operating temperature of the CPU and everything to do with the amount of power it is consuming.

Amount of power pulled from the wall = amount of power converted to heat.

Operating temperature of a device != amount of heat being added to the room.

The operating temperature of the chip is merely a reflection of how fast its cooling is able to pull that heat it is creating away from it and into the surrounding environment (read as, the room).

PCs are effectively space heaters and the amount of heat they create depends on the wattage pulled.

While gaming, your GPU is likely using more power. The CPU is certainly contributing, but I'm saying this so that you don't expect a large room temperature reduction by simply cooling the CPU down.

If the real problem is the temperature of the room, these are your options.

1. Lower the amount of power the PC is using.

2. improve airflow in your room just as you would a PC. An example would be to open the door, open a window in the room, and have an open window on the opposite side of the house. Fans in/near windows help airflow. Think of your home as the PC case and your PC itself as a CPU or GPU generating heat. You need to remove this heat generation from the home and have replacement cool air coming in too.

3. Directly cool the temperature of the room (read as, air conditioning).
Some games are trash and just run AVX loads 24/7 because they are unoptimised messes. What you can do is create a power plan in Windows and temporarily disable turbo mode using Windows' CPU governor

How to do I have posted before, but it's annoying to quote it so here is a quote from where I did this. This trick is usally used to disable turbo modes on laptops, but you should also use this method for games that run poorly and overheat your CPU:


If your CPU temp is 98 degrees, then just disable turbo mode when playing the game.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/create-a-custom-power-plan-technicalreference?view=windows-11

1. Create power plan using instructions at the link above, below if the one above is too difficult to understand. It's got pictures:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-create-and-manage-power-plans-windows-11

2. Change the power plan settings and change CPU maximum to "99%" (will disable CPU turbo mode in Windows). Link directly above you literally shows you how to open the advanced options on a power plan. For desktop you need to set it on plug and battery to 99% This will limit overclocking on your PC until you change the power plan back and cut heat down.

If your PC still overheats after turning off turbo mode then you have a cooling issue that needs to be addressed. You will lose performance, but most of the time games aren't limited by overall clock speed anyway which is why overclocking is next to useless in 2025 besides inflating benchmarks and egos.

Oh and creating a space heater.

You should notice little to no difference in performance because the workloads that generate heat in the first place aren't actually helped much by overclocking. And if the game is programmed in a way that it's just using 100% CPU just to do it, with no real purpose, then it should also have little to no effect on your performance.
Nobody has said it yet so i feel i need to tell you that a case can restrict the amount of air that goes in and out and all of that.

I struggled with higher temps because i had an older case i just keep using and some beefy hardware.

———-take your side panel off and stress test.

I’d also be worried about your psu exploding if you have this consistent of temps
100% cpu usage for those games is not normal.

I suggest you to run your antivirus and scan your pc for malwares
Last edited by Tiberius; 13 hours ago
Originally posted by AmaiAmai:
Some games are trash and just run AVX loads 24/7 because they are unoptimised messes. What you can do is create a power plan in Windows and temporarily disable turbo mode using Windows' CPU governor

How to do I have posted before, but it's annoying to quote it so here is a quote from where I did this. This trick is usally used to disable turbo modes on laptops, but you should also use this method for games that run poorly and overheat your CPU:


If your CPU temp is 98 degrees, then just disable turbo mode when playing the game.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/create-a-custom-power-plan-technicalreference?view=windows-11

1. Create power plan using instructions at the link above, below if the one above is too difficult to understand. It's got pictures:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-create-and-manage-power-plans-windows-11

2. Change the power plan settings and change CPU maximum to "99%" (will disable CPU turbo mode in Windows). Link directly above you literally shows you how to open the advanced options on a power plan. For desktop you need to set it on plug and battery to 99% This will limit overclocking on your PC until you change the power plan back and cut heat down.

If your PC still overheats after turning off turbo mode then you have a cooling issue that needs to be addressed. You will lose performance, but most of the time games aren't limited by overall clock speed anyway which is why overclocking is next to useless in 2025 besides inflating benchmarks and egos.

Oh and creating a space heater.

You should notice little to no difference in performance because the workloads that generate heat in the first place aren't actually helped much by overclocking. And if the game is programmed in a way that it's just using 100% CPU just to do it, with no real purpose, then it should also have little to no effect on your performance.

Thanks, i did this and at first it didnt work because i had to change one value in registry to access hidden options. Under processor performance boost mode, i set it from aggressive to disabled. After i did this, i ran 3DMark Time Spy and the CPU peaked at 69.8C. The score was fairly good too (13600) given that i turn off boost mode completely (EXPO was also turned off so the memory is working @4800MT/s). I run the same mod that made CPU work constantly at around 90% and over 90C and this time, it peaked at 74C (the CPU cooler was also barely audible). I then reenabled boost mode at it hit 94C as soon as i loaded in. The CPU also immediately hit 5.21GHz and stayed there dropping to around 5.20GHz when the temps hit 95C and then back to 5.21GHz as soon as temperature dropped below 93C while the fans inside PC screamed at full speed. Is there any negative side to keeping the CPU boost off except minor performance drops?
Originally posted by Wraithsiege:
The CPU also immediately hit 5.21GHz and stayed there dropping to around 5.20GHz when the temps hit 95C and then back to 5.21GHz as soon as temperature dropped below 93C while the fans inside PC screamed at full speed. Is there any negative side to keeping the CPU boost off except minor performance drops?

Was it on by default? I wasn't aware x3D has that option available.
No, there is no downside to keeping it off and many people prefer this off. If you turn it on the CPU will try to reach its thermal limit for a minor performance gain but at a cost of higher power consumption and more heat. I personally would keep it off.
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