Uncontrollably High Temps Using Intel I9 12900KS

Good day all,

TLDR: My CPU runs so hot you can fry an egg on it and I can't do anything to cool it down. Help me do so and you get a free very lightly used IceGiant Prosiphon Elite Cooler.

I recently built my first PC and I love everything about it except the fact that the CPU runs super hot. Now I know that the Alder Lake 12900KS has a reputation for this but I have tried everything I can to cool it down even a little bit and nothing works. Here's a video of the temperatures at idle. The average is somewhere around 65 degrees C I would say.
Here is the H150i showing the CPU temp which is of course the highest core temperature so it looks even worse than it is.
Here's a video of the PC so you can see the radiator fans.
Before the usual suggestions come in let me tell you what I have done to try to fix the problem.

• Reapplied my thermal paste more times than I can count using every different method you will find on the internet
• Tried every quality of thermal paste you can imagine. Currently applied is Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Extreme
• Installed the Thermalright CPU contact frame https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B9RYLBMQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 And before anybody says I should have bought the more expensive Thermal Grizzly one in this video Gamers Nexus proves the cheaper one is just as good
• Redid my cable management to allow for more airflow.
• Upgraded my cooler twice. Went from a Dark Rock BeQuiet 4 to an Ice Giant ProSiphon Elite and now have the iCue H150i Elite AIO.
• Undervolted through BIOS to a stable voltage but machine became a potato
• Undervolted through Intel XTU using adaptive and static methods as well as undervolted on a core by core basis
• Tried to undervolt using Throttlestop but that UI is just painful

I am sure I am missing something but you get the idea.
My first Cinebench score was over 26,000 and the command line Redshift Benchmark in 2 minutes and 31 seconds so I know what this machine is capable of. That lasted all of a day and now this machine thermal throttles ALL THE TIME so I get between 5000 and 10000 on Cinebench and almost 6 minutes on the Redshift Benchmark. I need someone to help me figure this out. I want to get on a video call and have someone walk me through a process that will tame this beast of a CPU.


As an incentive to help me I will GIVE YOU FREE OF CHARGE my IceGiant ProSiphon Elite cooler that I only used for 2 months. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08VHB8YPZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1


You don't get it for simply trying to help me. Your guidance has to work. If you help me get these temps under control the cooler is yours.

Please reply in this thread for visibility and then we can decide how to proceed.

Thanks in advance for any help offered.

Have you tried a Cinebench run with your front panel off (fans bare)? What temps do you get?

Also, try a Cinebench single-core run and check your Core voltage (I think it's labeled Core VID on HWinfo) for your loaded core.

PS. What are your ambient room temps, atm?

Hi Jerry. Thanks for replying. With my front panel off and default voltage settings when I run Cinebench there is no change in temperatures. Still out of control. My ambient room temp ranges from 72-76 C.
The good news is that after creating my initial post I decided to do a deep dive into ThrottleStop. Watched a bunch of videos and read a few articles and actually made some head way. The temps are under control and the system is stable but unfortunately it's no faster than it was before even though I am not thermal throttling anymore. The temps under load are in the low 50's so I have a lot of room to work with. I think I simply need to play around with the voltage settings and get my temps to stay in the 80's and hopefully I will get the power I need.
I will post again with my results but for now I am hopeful that after several months I may have figured this out!

After several months of trying to undervolt my PC I realized how little I really know. The issue was a simple one to solve. The date of the bios on my MSI motherboard was sometime in 2021. I updated the bios and now I am doing the most CPU intensive things with no thermal throttling. My multi core Cinebench score was 16042 which is pretty good seeing as how it is only a few hundred less than the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X. Temps never broke 80. Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees.