The Issue

I have an i5-13600k running in an MSI PRO Z790-A WIFI (MS-7E07) motherboard, BIOS A07, with a Deep Cool LT360 Cooler.
I originally used the following guide to easily obtain a stable overclock of 5.5Mhz on the P-Cores and 4.2Ghz on the E-Cores, running 1.2 volts as per the article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE_vmGCq_E8&t=461s

Scores on Cinebench R23 around 25250 +/- 250 points, and temps maxing out at around 78 on the P-Cores and 66 on the E-Cores
So today I flashed my bios to A.E0, and using the same settings as the article and I could not get the overclock to apply?

What is going on?

Investigating?

When booted and looking at HWiNFO, I could see this before the bios update:

Turbo Ratio Limits (P-cores) - IA/SSE:    55x (1-8c)
Turbo Ratio Limits (E-cores):             42x (1-8c)
Turbo Ratio Limits - AVX2, Resolved:      55x (1-8c)
Maximum Per-core Ratio Limits (Fused):    51, 51, 51, 51, 51, 51, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39
Maximum Per-core Ratio Limits (Current):  55, 55, 55, 55, 55, 55, 42, 42, 42, 42, 42, 42, 42, 42
CPU Current:                              5486.6 MHz = 55 x 99.8 MHz @ 1.2396 V

After the BIOS update and applying the settings exactly as per the video (and was working previously) I could not get the settings to apply and HWiNFO showed this:

Turbo Ratio Limits (P-cores) - IA/SSE:    55x (1-8c)
Turbo Ratio Limits (E-cores):             42x (1-8c)
Turbo Ratio Limits - AVX2, Resolved:      55x (1-8c)
Maximum Per-core Ratio Limits (Fused):    51, 51, 51, 51, 51, 51, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39
Maximum Per-core Ratio Limits (Current):  51, 51, 51, 51, 51, 51, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39
CPU Current:                              5087.6 MHz = 51 x 99.8 MHz @ 1.2397 V

See that the CPU Current is saying 5087. It benched at stock 5Ghz and I was not seeing the Cores spike in Turbo mode to the higher core speed.

Next I fired up the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility and saw this:

So, although the Performance Active-CoreTuning section seemed to pick up the bios settings, the Performance Per-Core Tuning was still saying 51 P-Core and 39 E-Core.

I adjusted these values upwards via the IETU and applied the changes.

This seemed to fix the issue and the 5.5Ghz overclock was now running.

When I returned to the BIOS I was able to see what the IETU had actually done and now I know how to successfully apply the overclock from the BIOS

How to apply the Overclock on BIOS A.E0

So below is how the video originally applied the overclock which used to work:

These are the settings that actually allowed the overclock to be visible at the OS Level

The changes that were made over and above the instructions in the video are:

1. Set the “Per P-Core Ratio Limit” to “Manual”
2. Leave all the Cores set as AUTO

If you want to overclock your E-Cores, you do the same:

1. Set the “Per E-Core Ratio Limit” to “Manual”
2. Leave all the Cores set as AUTO

When saved and you go back into the OS you see in HWiNFO:

CPU LFM (Minimum):                       800.0 MHz = 8 x 100.0 MHz
CPU HFM (Base):                          3500.0 MHz = 35 x 100.0 MHz
CPU Turbo Max:                           5500.0 MHz = 55 x 100.0 MHz [Unlocked]
Turbo Ratio Limits (P-cores) - IA/SSE:   55x (1-8c)
Turbo Ratio Limits (E-cores):            44x (1-8c)
Turbo Ratio Limits - AVX2, Resolved:     55x (1-8c)
Maximum Per-core Ratio Limits (Fused):   51, 51, 51, 51, 51, 51, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39, 39
Maximum Per-core Ratio Limits (Current): 55, 55, 55, 55, 55, 55, 44, 44, 44, 44, 44, 44, 44, 44
CPU Current:                             5486.6 MHz = 55 x 99.8 MHz @ 1.2399 V

Here are my temps P-Core/E-Core and scores on CineBench R23 and 2024, running at 1.200v for a few runs. Stable 🙂

- CPU Multicore - Max Temp 76/64  - 25919 pts  - Cinebench R23
- CPU Multicore - Max Temp 76/66  - 25936 pts  - Cinebench R23
- CPU Multicore - Max Temp 76/65  - 26070 pts  - Cinebench R23
- CPU Multicore - Max Temp 76/66  - 26052 pts  - Cinebench R23
- CPU Multicore - Max Temp 75/65  - 1467 pts   - Cinebench 2024
- CPU Multicore - Max Temp 76/66  - 1469 pts   - Cinebench 2024

Hopefully this will help you get your overclock back