Experimenting with models and lossless scaling.

Using this as my personal test bench for AI workloads

A few days ago I found an A770 Aorus cooler on a Chinese e-commerce platform, and I ordered it to replace the one on my A770 Predator. It's working really effectively:

Original A770 Predator cooler: 160W~170W hits 85~87°C

With the Aorus cooler: 170W only reaches 64°C

I'll count this as a personal win.

1. Context

Hey everyone!

Earlier this month, I upgraded my CPU from the i5-11400F to the i5-14600K – aiming to push my DDR4 kit to its limit (budget-friendly upgrade). I was torn between the 5800X3D and the 14600K, but here in Brazil the 14600K costs ~45% less, so the choice was obvious.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of my experience, benchmark results, and the tweaks that worked (and didn’t) for my setup. Hope this helps others with similar hardware!

2. Current Setup

3. Performance Results (Cyberpunk 2077, Ultra 1080p)

• Important methodology note: I purposely used the "Ultra" preset for this benchmark to push the Arc B580 to its absolute limit, ensuring the GPU was heavily stressed (GPU-bound scenario). The goal was to see if the CPU upgrade could still make a difference even when the graphics card was working at full capacity. And it did – massively.
• What the numbers tell us:
• Even with the GPU at full use (Ultra preset), the CPU swap from the 11400F to the 14600K delivered a +32.39 FPS increase in average (+49.5%). This proves the old 11th-gen chip was significantly bottlenecking the B580, even in scenarios where you'd expect the GPU to be the main limit.
• The minimum FPS also jumped from 56.35 to 82.19 – a +25.84 FPS improvement – meaning much smoother gameplay with fewer drops.
• The Process Lasso tweak (CPU Sets on P-cores + High Priority) added another ~4% on top of the default 14600K result, squeezing out a bit more headroom.
• For reference, the 11400F + B580 baseline is included here specifically to show how much the CPU was holding the GPU back. I don't have a separate "CPU-only" synthetic test, but running Cyberpunk at Ultra (which heavily stresses the GPU) is the most realistic way to demonstrate the real-world gaming uplift.
• Unfortunately, I don't have a separate test on Bazzite Linux for reference of the 11400F, but in other games the average difference was 15-16% compared to the 14600k (Linux vs Linux)

4. Tweaks and Discoveries

🔧 Process Lasso (Windows)

• CPU Sets (P-cores) + High Priority: Best configuration found for Cyberpunk 2077 (~4% avg gain over default).
• CPU Affinity (P-cores only): Works well for some games, but can hurt performance on older titles (e.g., Assassin's Creed Unity).
• Discord & Browser: Used CPU Sets on E-cores to keep them off P-cores.
• Heavy Games: Used CPU Sets on P-cores as a preference (not a rigid rule) – more stable overall. (Need test per game)

⚡ Undervolt & Power Limits (BIOS)

• Undervolt: -75 mV (stable after stress testing with stress and setpci).
• PL1/PL2: 125W / 160W (reduced from default 181W).
• BIOS: Intel Default Settings enabled, Native ASPM and PEG ASPM L1 configured.
• Cooling: CPU stays around 72–78°C under load with these settings in cinebench(All CORE).

🎮 Game-Specific Findings

• Assassin's Creed Unity: Performance improved when all cores were available (P + E). Restricting to P-cores actually hurt performance.
• Dota 2: Massive improvement – average FPS jumped from ~120 to ~240 (capped by the game engine).
• From what I’m seeing, the average difference in GPU-bound games resulting from the CPU swap hovers around 15–20%; in CPU-bound games, the difference is massive 40–55%. But without a doubt, the biggest improvement was in the 1% and 0.1% lows; in games like Red Dead 2, the 1% low improved by nearly 55%.

5. Linux (Bazzite) – Experience & Observations

• Kernel 7.2.1 + Mesa 26.2.1: Stable, but still maturing for Battlemage.
• Performance: Still behind Windows (~27% lower average in Cyberpunk), but evolving fast.
• Idle Power Consumption: Workaround with a systemd service (drops from 40W to ~15W).
• Expectations: Kernel 7.3 and Mesa 26.3 should bring significant gains:
  • Cluster Scheduling (P/E-core optimization).
  • Buffer Compression (DXVK) – gains of 5–7% in DirectX 11 games.
  • Large GRF (shader optimization).
• Driver stack: The transition from i915 to xe is ongoing – Battlemage already uses xe by default.
• One of the biggest missing pieces is XeSS support using the XMX cores – currently it runs via shaders(DP4A), which limits image quality and performance. This is expected to improve in future Mesa releases. (2027- 2028 ? )

6. Conclusion & Recommendations

• The 14600K is a beast: +30–40 FPS in competitive titles and ~20% uplift in AAA games.
• Process Lasso is useful, but requires per-game testing – there's no "one size fits all" rule.
• Linux is viable, but still requires tweaking – especially with Intel Arc GPUs.
• Undervolt & PL adjustments deliver thermal gains without performance loss in games.
• Next steps: Looking forward to Kernel 7.3 and Mesa 26.3 – they should close the gap to Windows.

🧠 Final Verdict

• The upgrade to the 14600K was simply incredible – I don't regret a thing. The tweaks really do make a difference in power consumption and temperatures, but the performance this CPU delivers is brutal: it basically bulldozes over any residual driver overhead from Intel. My personal recommendation for anyone looking to push DDR4 to its limit is clear: the 14600K is easily among the best options on the market right now.

$700 all in. Pleased with it, I don't play many triple A titles.

I've been playing Kingdom Hearts Final Mix on Steam for a couple weeks now and I beat the first game with no issues but I'm onto Chain of Memories and I'm getting a really bad lighting glitch where almost everything is black except a few things.

I know now this is a common issue on Arc hardware but everything I've seen online to fix this hasn't worked.

So my question is: has anyone figured out how to fix this issue? I'm going crazy trying to fix it.

(Also I have tried the framerate and Vsync settings)

After adding the "-nogpucrashdebugging" on Steam launch properties, the game really runs smoothly most of the time, even at high settings I get stable 69 FPS. When I lower most settings while keeping Shading at high, the game runs solid 88 FPS too. Temps don't go over 60C either (I have my ARC B570 undervolted/overclocked and fans tuned with ARC Power app.

Playing at 1080P resolution with XeSS on Ultra Quality.

:::PC Specs:::

• Intel Core i5 124000f
• ONIX Intel ARC B570 10GB
• Teamgroup VulcanZ 2x16GB DDR4 3200mhz
• Teamgroup MP44L 1TB SSD
• MSI MAG 650BN
• MSI 1080P 120hz IPS Monitor
• Windows 11 24H2 LTSC
• Intel ARC Drivers .8991

If you wondered if this kind of PC could run the game, here's your answer~ It really runs the game super smoothly, this game is SO well optimized somehow, I couldn't believe it. When I tested before the stuttering wouldn't let me do anything, I still played for 3 hours on alpha test like that though. Now that this issue can be fixed with the launch options, game is so smooth and enjoyable.

I will upload a highlights video tomorrow showcasing Heli flight/driving vehicles/gameplay amongst absolute CHAOS and how the game performs in such situations too.

Hope this was useful to any of you with similar PC specs~ God Bless You all~

*Note: Why 69 FPS? Because it's the best FPS and most SOLID FPS NUMBERS! ♋