# Definitive guide to configuring the Ryzen 3900X/3950X and all other 3000 Series CPUs



## Michael Nager (Mar 12, 2020)

In the months that have passed since I started experimenting with the Ryzen 5 3600X on my X470 motherboard (GigaByte X470 AURUS Gaming 7 WiFi Rev. 1.1 and then helping my friend configure his Ryzen 3900X on his motherboard (ASUS X570 ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi).

I bought the X570 motherboard I wanted (at a price I was willing to pay) the GigaByte X570 AURUS XTREME and experimented with my 3600X in that until I managed to get the CPU I wanted, the Ryzen 9 3950X which I now have.

A YouTube Techie who I respect from a channel called "Actually Hardcore Overclocking" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrwObTfqv8u1KO7Fgk-FXHQ called "Buildzoid" who recently made three videos on the topic of configuring PBO on a the same GigaByte board I have, an ASUS board and then general thoughts on PBO:

1) The easy way to get a bit more performance out of Ryzen 3000 CPUs on Gigabyte X570 motherboards 








2) The easy way to get a bit more performance out of Ryzen 3000 CPUs on Gigabyte X570 motherboards 








3) The easy way to get a bit more performance out of Ryzen 3000 CPUs on Gigabyte X570 motherboards 








In the course of his experimentation he has managed to degrade his Ryzen 7 3700X and I fear that with the way he is configuring his Ryzen 9 3950X he will be doing the same thing there as well.

In the video he has put up some benchmarks where, by configuring PBO in the BIOS he managed to get the results up by some amount, the problem is though, that he is doing so at higher voltages than I consider to be prudent and also at higher temps than I experience with my 3950X.

His maximum CineBench R20 result after configuring his 3950X was at 9,554.

The way I configure my Ryzen 9 3950X I get a CineBench R20 score of 10,170 and still remain within the specification as laid down by TSMC for their 7nm Node. This specifies a far lower voltage than AMD considers safe and personally I am going to go with the recommendations of the creator of the 7nm Node and constrain the voltage of my Ryzen 3000 CPUs to 1.3 Volts *MAXIMUM*

Because of my back problems (I have had two spine operations and have spinal arthritis) I have to keep the room temperature pretty warm.

The ambient temperature in my room is 28 - 29 °C and you should keep that in mind when I show you the following benchmark results of my system:

My R9 3950X with SMT On:

1) CineBench R20 all-core score of 10,170 and a single core score of 500

2) FireStrike EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 28,213, a Physics Score of 33,848 and a Combined Score of 15,488
3) FireStrike Extreme EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 14,130, a Physics Score of 33,821 and a Combined Score of 7,057
4) FireStrike Ultra EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 7,180, a Physics Score of 34,089 and a Combined Score of 3,902

5) TimeSpy EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 10,292 and a CPU Score of 15,390
6) TimeSpy Extreme EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 4,791 and a CPU Score of 9,421

7) Ghost Recon Wildlands benchmark 1080p everything at max FPS 86.33, CPU 14.7% (Min. 9.8% Max. 23.2%) and GPU 96.7%

8) 7zip Compression Average 124.906 MB/s, Decompression 199.303 MB/s

My R9 3950X with SMT Off:

1) CineBench R20 all-core score of 7,817 and a single core score of 513

2) FireStrike EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 28,295, a Physics Score of 30,052 and a Combined Score of 15,833
3) FireStrike Extreme EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 14,170, a Physics Score of 30,168 and a Combined Score of 7,076
4) FireStrike Ultra EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 7,186, a Physics Score of 30,164 and a Combined Score of 3,906

5) TimeSpy EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 10,271 and a CPU Score of 15,340
6) TimeSpy Extreme EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 4,788 and a CPU Score of 7,564

7) Ghost Recon Wildlands benchmark 1080p everything at max FPS 86.51, CPU 23.4% (Min. 17.2% Max. 48.6%) and GPU 97%

8) 7zip Compression Average 103.106 MB/s Decompression 129.844 MB/s

The cooler I am using is the AlphaCool EisBaer 360 LT which as the name suggests has a 360 rad and I am running it with three Noctua NF-A12x25 fans.

In the following I will be giving you a step-by-step guide to configuring your Ryzen 3000 series CPU.

This is based on the BIOS in my GigaByte X570 AURUS XTREME board, but the few values that you need to change can be found in the other BIOS's from ASRock, ASUS or MSI.

The following is the step-by-step guide to configuring the system whereby you will be able to maximise the performance without running the risk of frying your CPU and you don't have to live in a ice-locker to get a result:

I have to preface this with some info that is woefully lacking in the videos or articles you may see or read.

The thing is that as opposed to Intel CPUs that you have been used to (and that I was used to) the BIOS is supplied to the motherboard manufacturers as a binary and is called AGESA.

So what you see displayed as "The BIOS" is in effect just a configuration menu for the AGESA. The problem about editing the AGESA portion found under "Settings" under the headings "AMD CBS" and "AMD Overclocking" directly is that with some of the options, if you enter a wrong value, then your system will not boot. What is worse however is that some of the settings cannot be removed with a "Clear CMOS" and your mobo is effectively bricked.

So now to configuring your BIOS:

1) Go into Easy Mode (F2) and click on "Load Optimized Defaults (F7)

a) Switch to Advanced Mode (F2)

2) Under the heading "Tweaker" do the following:

a) Go down to the bottom of the page and open "CPU/VRM Settings"

i) Set "CPU Vcore Loadline Calibration to "Turbo" (third highest value)
ii) Set "SOC Loadline Calibration" to "High" (third highest value)
iii) Set "PWM Phase Control" to "eXm Perf" (eXtreme Performance)

3) Under the heading "Setting"

a) Go to "AMD CBS"

i) Go to "XFR Enhancement"
ii) Set the FCLK Freqency to the desired value (in the case of 3600 RAM that would be 1800 MHz)
iii) Set the "UCLK DIV1 MODE" to "UCLK ==MEMCLK"

b) Go to "AMD Overclocking" under "Settings"

i) Click on "Accept"
ii) Go to "DDR and Infinity Fabric Frequency/Timings"
iii) Go to "Infinity Fabric Frequency and Dividers"
iv) Set "Infinity Fabric Frequency and Dividers" to the desired value (in the case of 3600 RAM that would be 1800 MHz).

4) Under the heading "Boot" do the following

a) Set "Full Screen LOGO Show" to "Disabled"

Of course setting the boot drive etc. should be obvious and I don't think I need to explain that.

Do NOT set anything else, like "Extreme Memory Profie(X.M.P)" for instance.

There that's you done with the BIOS part of the configuration

Boot into Windows and install "Ryzen Master".

When Ryzen Master has loaded, click on "Creator Mode" on the left hand side.

1) Make sure "Control Mode" is expanded and under that heading click on "Manual"

2) Make sure that the section "Cores Section" is expanded

a) Expand "CCD0" and "CCD1"

b) Click on the red circle on the right hand side so that it changes to what looks like a Green "X"

i) Click in the first field beside "C 01" and change the clockspeed. You should have absolutely no problems setting it to "4250". When you have done the rest of the configuration then test it and increase it (in my case it is set to 4300 and I have no problems). When you set one field, because the Green X is activated, all the other values will change to what you set.

3) Make sure "Voltage Control" is expanded

a) Set "Peak Core(s) Voltage to 1.3 Volts

4) Make sure Memory Control is expanded and that it is "Included"

a) "Coupled Mode" should be "On"

b) Set your memory clock speed (in the case of 3600 RAM it would be 1800) remember this is the data rate. Infinty Fabric runs at the data rate and RAM runs at double data rate.

5) Make sure "Voltage Contols" is expanded

Unless otherwise stated, leave the values on "Auto"

a) MEM VDDIO should be set to 1.35

b) MEM VTT should be set to 0.675

c) VDDCR SOC should be set to 1.05

6) Make sure "DRAM Timing Configuration" is expanded

Now I have found that unless these values are set then every time you change something (like the voltage or the clockspeed) the system will want to reboot. If these are set then the values are just changed and you can continue

a) Change "CAS Latency" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM

b) Change "Row Precharge Delay" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM

c) Change "Read Row-Column Delay" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM

d) Change "Write Row-Column Delay" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM

e) Change "Row Cycle Time" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM

Leave everything else on "Auto" and you can configure those sub-timings at your leisure.

7) Make sure that "DRAM Controller Configuration" is expanded

a) Change "Cmd2T" from "2T" to "1T". If you have good quality RAM then it should run at 1T. If not then change this back to 2T.

Now at the bottom click on "Save Profile" and then click on "Apply & Test" and the system will reboot.

As you will see, the CPU is limited to a maximum of 1.3 Volts and essentially you are just seeing how much clockspeed you can squeeze out of those 1.3 Volts. When the system is not under load then of course the operational voltage will decrease.

Now comes the best part about the 3950X.

If you are mainly gaming, then click on a different profile "Profile 1" for instance and do exactly the same as above EXCEPT:

1) Under the heading "Additional Control" turn "Simultaneous Multithreading" to "OFF". This will run your CPU as a straight 16 Core/16 Thread CPU.

2) Under "Cores Section" make sure the red circle is a green "X" and add 100 MHz to whatever was stable running 16 Cores /32 Threads with SMT ("Simultaneous Multithreading") ON

The one problem with the GigaByte BIOS is that this is not changed and you have to go into the BIOS and

1) In the Advanced Mode go to "Tweaker"

a) Under "Advanced CPU Settings"

i) Go down to "SMT Mode"
ii) Change from "Auto" to "Disabled"

Save and exit.

If you want to go back to using 16 Cores/32 Threads just choose the "Creator Profile" and then change this value back to "Auto" again.

That's it.

I know it looks like a lot, but it really isn't.

*IMPORTANT!!*

Every time you reboot the system you have to load Ryzen Master and apply the profile you want. Unfortunately there is no way as yet to automatically load a default profile, but I hope that option will be forthcoming in the future.

If you are applying the same Profile you had before you shut down then the system will not need a reboot.

After you have applied the profile you can close Ryzen Master.

Have fun.


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## ne6togadno (Mar 12, 2020)

use @ infront of buildzoid


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## Zach_01 (Mar 12, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> In the course of his experimentation he has managed to degrade his Ryzen 7 3700X and I fear that with the way he is configuring his Ryzen 9 3950X he will be doing the same thing there as well.
> 
> In the video he has put up some benchmarks where, by configuring PBO in the BIOS he managed to get the results up by some amount, the problem is though, that he is doing so at higher voltages than I consider to be prudent and also at higher temps than I experience with my 3950X.


In the course of experimentation @buildzoid followed a static OC/voltage for the R7 3700X and that is what allegedly degraded the chip. That is totally different from PBO settings he tested and suggested on his videos. If you did read his own commends on the degrade discussion you would know that. And also he mention a few things in some of his videos.
Please be carefull when anyone is talking for another's course of actions. Do not make assumptions and/or making commends when missing information.














						Actually Hardcore Overclocking
					






					www.youtube.com


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## Michael Nager (Mar 12, 2020)

Zach_01 said:


> In the course of experimentation @buildzoid followed a static OC/voltage for the R7 3700X and that is what allegedly degraded the chip. That is totally different from PBO settings he tested and suggested on his videos. If you did read his own commends on the degrade discussion you would know that. And also he mention a few things in some of his videos.
> Please be carefull when anyone is talking for another's course of actions. Do not make assumptions and/or making commends when missing information.
> 
> View attachment 147920
> ...


If you listen to his various video narrations, he has said that he has degraded his 3700X in his diverse tests with the CPU and not just with static voltage - I am not just talking about the three videos I referenced, but other videos he has made on the topic of Ryzen 3000 and his tests with the chip.

He also discussed the stupid amount of voltage that is punted into the CPU when single core loads are run which can go anywhere up to the region of 1.5 Volts.

I am going by what he has said in his various videos, *NOT* by what he might have replied to random comments.

If you look closely at my guide then you will notice that I am *NOT* working with a static voltage, I am merely limiting the maximum voltage which can be applied.


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## mtcn77 (Mar 12, 2020)

Does it clock up to 4.25GHz with such a set 1.3V threshold?


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 12, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> If you listen to his various video narrations, he has said that he has degraded his 3700X in his diverse tests with the CPU and not just with static voltage - I am not just talking about the three videos I referenced, but other videos he has made on the topic of Ryzen 3000 and his tests with the chip.
> 
> He also discussed the stupid amount of voltage that is punted into the CPU when single core loads are run which can go anywhere up to the region of 1.5 Volts.
> 
> ...


At no point have you in any of your arguments acknowledged that by overclocking via software you add instability.

That instability could cause random crashes.

Those random crashes destroy OS over time.

Been there.

Done that.

Software clocking is a play tool imho nothing more.


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## thesmokingman (Mar 12, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> *IMPORTANT!!*
> 
> Every time you reboot the system you have to load Ryzen Master and apply the profile you want. Unfortunately there is no way as yet to automatically load a default profile, but I hope that option will be forthcoming in the future.



Yea, no thanks. Ryzen setup doesn't take a massive wall of text and manually loading RM every time!



Michael Nager said:


> *He also discussed the stupid amount of voltage that is punted into the CPU when single core loads are run which can go anywhere up to the region of 1.5 Volts.*
> 
> I am going by what he has said in his various videos, *NOT* by what he might have replied to random comments.
> 
> If you look closely at my guide then you will notice that I am *NOT* working with a static voltage, I am merely limiting the maximum voltage which can be applied.



He has no clue what's going on. This has been explained by Hallock, crap I dunno how many times now and ppl still cannot get it thru their heads. The high voltage at idle isn't real once you understand the two voltage loads! High voltage with little to low loads are harmless, and that's how its freaking designed.


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## mtcn77 (Mar 12, 2020)

thesmokingman said:


> The high voltage at idle isn't real once you understand the two voltage loads! *High voltage with little to low loads are harmless, *and that's how its freaking designed.


That is how buildzoid acted recklessly, without further ado.


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## TheLostSwede (Mar 12, 2020)

thesmokingman said:


> He has no clue what's going on. This has been explained by Hallock, crap I dunno how many times now and ppl still cannot get it thru their heads. The high voltage at idle isn't real once you understand the two voltage loads! High voltage with little to low loads are harmless, and that's how its freaking designed.


The high Voltage is real, but there's no current, so it doesn't do any damage. It's high current that fries things in general, unless we're talking static electricity of an insane magnitude of higher Voltage compared to this.


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## thesmokingman (Mar 12, 2020)

The cpu itself you just slap it in and let it do its thing. Imo, the BIGGEST or *only crucial aspect to setting up a Ryzen cpu is configuring the monitoring correctly.*


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## Michael Nager (Mar 12, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> Does it clock up to 4.25GHz with such a set 1.3V threshold?


My 3600X had a definite limit of 4.25 GHz running 6 Cores/12 Threads at 1.3 Volts (well actually 1.29375 Volts) as a maximum.

If I wanted put just 25 MHz more on per core I had to go up to 1.35 Volts.

My 3950X has a definite limit of 4.3 GHz at 1.3 Volts and the 3900X my friend from the US sent me as a loan had a limit of 4.325 GHz at 1.3 Volts.

When I turn SMT Off and run the 3950X as a straight 16 Core/16 Thread CPU I can clock it to 4.4 GHz at 1.3 Volts but funnily enough the 3900X would not clock over 4.375 GHz with SMT Off running as a 12 Core/12 Thread CPU.

When I ran the 3950X with just one CCD, that is as a virtual 3800X, running it at 8 Cores/16 Threads it ran CineBench on a 20,000 second loop at 4.425 GHz as you can see from the attached picture.

This was on the second 20,000 second run (which lasts 5.55 hours) because of a discussion I was having with someone with regard to running for a longer period under load.

I had forgotten however to take a screenshot, so I kicked it of again and left it running for over three hours just to make sure that the system had reached homeostasis again - so in total the test had been running for almost nine hours by the time I took the screenshot.


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## phanbuey (Mar 12, 2020)

i overclocked my 3600 so that it would boost at 4.2 with 1.29 v instead of the 1.41 and thermal throttle 4.15 - the clocks and voltages still bump down to idle, but I definitely used the static overclock option.

Im not sure how that 4.2 @ 1.29 which is much cooler is more stressful on the cpu than it slamming cores with 1.41v every time there is load.


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## Michael Nager (Mar 12, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> The high Voltage is real, but there's no current, so it doesn't do any damage. It's high current that fries things in general, unless we're talking static electricity of an insane magnitude of higher Voltage compared to this.


To my mind, the stupidly high voltage punted into the Ryzen 3000 series comes from the demands of moronic Marketdroids at AMD for a "Competitive Clockspeed" that they could bung on their advertising garbage.

This myth of "high voltage but low current cannot hurt the CPU" is bogus, because too high a voltage causes Oxide Breakdown in the CPU and too high a current causes Electromigration in the CPU.

AMD doesn't give two shits whether or not the CPU outlasts the warranty by even a day, as long as it is no longer covered by the warranty when it croaks then they are happy.

I want my CPU to have performance but also to last at least five years.


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## thesmokingman (Mar 12, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> To my mind, the stupidly high voltage punted into the Ryzen 3000 series comes from the demands of moronic Marketdroids at AMD for a "Competitive Clockspeed" that they could bung on their advertising garbage.
> 
> This myth of "high voltage but low current cannot hurt the CPU" is bogus, because too high a voltage causes Oxide Breakdown in the CPU and too high a current causes Electromigration in the CPU.
> 
> ...



Seriously? You're going to take this tact??


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## Michael Nager (Mar 12, 2020)

phanbuey said:


> i overclocked my 3600 so that it would boost at 4.2 with 1.29 v instead of the 1.41 and thermal throttle 4.15 - the clocks and voltages still bump down to idle, but I definitely used the static overclock option.
> 
> Im not sure how that 4.2 @ 1.29 which is much cooler is more stressful on the cpu than it slamming cores with 1.41v every time there is load.


The Silicon Lottery is a thing.

Have you tried increasing the LoadLine Calibration on your motherboard?

It might be that the reason why it isn't clocking that little bit higher is because of the voltage droop under load.

I have set the LLC for my motherboard at the third highest setting for both the Vcore LLC and SOC LLC.



thesmokingman said:


> Seriously? You're going to take this tact??


Yes, because whenever I have seen anyone from AMD asked about this they have been very vague in the details.

But I suppose that static electricity which has a high voltage but no current couldn't possibly hurt a CPU.

Is that your contention?


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 12, 2020)

Ask board makers


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## thesmokingman (Mar 12, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> Yes, because whenever I have seen anyone from AMD asked about this they have been very vague in the details.
> 
> But I suppose that static electricity which has a high voltage but no current couldn't possibly hurt a CPU.
> 
> Is that your contention?



Contention huh? You're doing shit wrong and getting bad advice and then you have the audacity to blame AMD.  And ignore what they've (Hallock in this instance) has explained multiple times... I'm going to let you keep digging your own hole.


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## Michael Nager (Mar 12, 2020)

thesmokingman said:


> Contention huh? You're doing shit wrong and getting bad advice and then you have the audacity to blame AMD.  And ignore what they've (Hallock in this instance) has explained multiple times... I'm going to let you keep digging your own hole.


Remember this little nugget from the AMD Marketdroid Robert Hallock?:










It was pure unmitigated bullshit.

AMD has sidelined this guy recently because from the garbage that was coming out of his mouth AMD realised that he was a lawsuit waiting to happen.

But at the end of the day, you do what you want.

I am only showing you, and others, how to maximise the performance of a Ryzen 3000 series CPU within safe limits.

It's up to you if you want to blindly believe the Marketdroids at AMD and find yourself SOL when the performance of your CPU has gone into the toilet and the warranty has run out.


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## mtcn77 (Mar 12, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> It's up to you if you want to blindly believe the Marketdroids at AMD


He is not even a marketer in a sense. They told of an announcement for a community specialist and he got picked from Red Plus candidates. That is how he holds his position in company presentation.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 12, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> Remember this little nugget from the AMD Marketdroid Robert Hallock?:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So we should blindly follow you, over the hundreds of engineers and scientists, interesting.

What are you offering besides one perspective as proof you know better, not much as far as I can see.

Certainly not more than the qualified people who designed and built it IMHO.

You dodge valid questions, then bemoan AMD for being vague, hypocrisy.

And 5.5hrs of cinebench doesn't guarantee 24/7 stability and certainly is not equal in stability terms to the many months of continued perfect stability I can show from using buildzoid method to run a crunching load all of every day while also using the pc for weva at the same time.

No crashes here, if there was a software crash it wouldn't matter, no software is running the clocks on my pc.

If software is controlling clocks and a non connected piece of software crashes The system what happens to the control of your hardware.
that's not a question, I already know.


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## mtcn77 (Mar 12, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Certainly not more than the qualified people who designed and built it IMHO.


He didn't build it. He got polled according to a public reddit display.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 12, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> He didn't build it. He got polled according to a public reddit display.


Am I talking about him( whoever him is to you) or as you quoted "who designed and built it".

In that case I was on about AMD.


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## mtcn77 (Mar 12, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Am I talking about him( whoever him is to you) or as you quoted "who designed and built it".
> 
> In that case I was on about AMD.


Who is conflating the two of them, then? That is putting words in someone's mouth - that is what you are doing - and to me? No, no. I'll pass...


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## thesmokingman (Mar 12, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> He didn't build it. He got polled according to a public reddit display.



Yer talking about how Hallock was picked for the rep position and he's talking about the engineers who designed the cpu to behave the way it behaves.


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## mtcn77 (Mar 12, 2020)

I have no disclaimers to spare AMD, but still fellow members put up a challenge when I have to quote him. That is a problem. No one believes it when it is in his written statement that precision boost overdrive is for threadripper, alone.



thesmokingman said:


> Yer talking about how Hallock was picked for the rep position and he's talking about the engineers who designed the cpu to behave the way it behaves.


Yes, but when all is said and done, his reputation doesn't have a following.


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## thesmokingman (Mar 12, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> I have no disclaimers to spare AMD, but still fellow members put up a challenge when I have to quote him. That is a problem. No one believes it when it is in his written statement that precision boost overdrive is for threadripper, alone.
> 
> 
> Yes, but when all is said and done, his reputation doesn't have a following.



I just ignored the OP's silly rant about marketing. Just shows how this is not anything definitive.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 12, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> I have no disclaimers to spare AMD, but still fellow members put up a challenge when I have to quote him. That is a problem. No one believes it when it is in his written statement that precision boost overdrive is for threadripper, alone.


Your hard er to follow then even me.

Who are you on about and why.

I'm putting words in no mouths.

Quote who you want including me but at least get the context right.

Try and actually understand what you're quoting first too.

I quoted the Op, but relative to this whole thing ,not Robert hallock who is totally irrelevant here imho


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## mtcn77 (Mar 12, 2020)

thesmokingman said:


> I just ignored the OP's silly rant about marketing. Just shows how this is not anything definitive.


Well, you were scolding him(op)/,or me doesn't matter, for not referencing him(robert hallock). You don't get to turn up with a consecutive marketing dissuasion.


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## thesmokingman (Mar 12, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> Well, you were scolding him(op)/,or me doesn't matter, for not referencing him(robert hallock). You don't get to turn up with a consecutive marketing dissuasion.



Huh, what?


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## Michael Nager (Mar 12, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> So we should blindly follow you, over the hundreds of engineers and scientists, interesting.
> 
> What are you offering besides one perspective as proof you know better, not much as far as I can see.
> 
> ...


How many of those "hundreds of engineers and scientists" at AMD have you personally spoken to?

Let me hazard a wild guess, that would be none, zip, zero, nada.

The only thing you have heard at best is from some talking heads, salescritters and marketdroids at AMD.

What I am offering is the result of eight and a half months of intensive trial and error experimentation - because there sure as hell wasn't any good advice coming from either the Tech Media or Tech YouTubers. These guys essentially get their shit for free and don't give a flying one at a rolling doughnut how they configure the system, as long as they get their benchmarks and when overclocking they do it in the laziest possible way, with no regard whatsoever for the longevity of the CPU.

Hardware Unboxed for instance managed to fry their 3900X - confidence inspiring performance there.

Let's just say I have been underwhelmed.

The likes of Buildzoid or Steve from Gamers Nexus have their focus on LN2 overclocking than on 24/7 stable performance (my systems run 24/7 whereby my previous main machine ran 24/7 for 1,900 days or 5.2 years exactly before I decommissioned  it in favour of my current main machine, which has been running 24/7 with a mild overclock for just over 1,750 days or4.8 years).

That being said, Steve from Gamers Nexus has come closest to getting the results I have even though I have a higher ambient temperature (7-8 °C higher depending on which day I run the tests) than he was running his benchmarks at, and even then, he didn't quite manage to get a beat my scores with non LN2 overclocking - whereby I am not overclocking. Buildzoid in his 3950X overclocking videos didn't even come close.

Now admittedly, doing it my way, I take a bit of a hit on the single core score on CineBench as you can see from one of my CineBench R20 runs in the picture.

My focus from the start was not to get the best benchmark scores, but rather to see what performance I could tickle out of first the 3600X and then the 3950X for 24/7 usage. The fact that I have gotten the best benchmark scores outside of LN2 overclocking has been an added bonus.

There are no questions that I have dodged. I might have ignored stupid statements couched as questions, but I do answer sincerely meant inquiries with an answer commensurate with the best of my knowledge - and when I don't know something then I have no problem whatsoever in saying those three words, "I don't know".


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## mtcn77 (Mar 12, 2020)

Don't pay any notice, it is their misfortune that they don't make a personal assessment any more. It is all what he says, she says...


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 13, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> How many of those "hundreds of engineers and scientists" at AMD have you personally spoken to?
> 
> Let me hazard a wild guess, that would be none, zip, zero, nada.
> 
> ...


Let's just say I too am underwhelmed.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 13, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> It might be that the reason why it isn't clocking that little bit higher is because of the voltage droop under load.



I set my LLC from 3 to 5 to lower the the voltage at load and sustain higher boost clocks.



Michael Nager said:


> But I suppose that static electricity which has a high voltage but no current couldn't possibly hurt a CPU.



Static electricity isn't 1.4v


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 13, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> I set my LLC from 3 to 5 to lower the the voltage at load and sustain higher boost clocks.
> 
> 
> 
> Static electricity isn't 1.4v



ESD is real, Ive zapped ICs before, (sucks).

Voltage is EMF/Potential Difference/Pressure that gets electrons flowing in a conductor electrons are already in a conductor but without voltage they remain static, voltage induces dynamic flow lol

I just know that what Buildzoid did with the voltage I wont be doing on any cpu since this arch is way different than AM3+ or older.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 13, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> I set my LLC from 3 to 5 to lower the the voltage at load and sustain higher boost clocks.
> 
> 
> 
> Static electricity isn't 1.4v


I know that static electricity isn't 1.4 Volts, it was a reducto ad absurdum on the premise that it is current that causes damage to CPUs and not voltage.

The term "Boost Clock" is a bit of a sick joke as far as the Ryzen 3000 series is concerned.

Sure you have the feelgood experience when you look at something like HWMonitor and you see the maximum clockspeed at 4.55 or 4.6, but those maximums are only achieved when the system is *NOT* under load, and just as it is true that RGB adds at least 35 FPS to gaming, the real time when you need the system boosting clockspeed is when it is doing absolutely naff-all.

When you then put the system under load, such as with a CineBench R20 all core run, you are lucky if you get the CPU clocking at over 4.0 GHz, with a little dustcloud on the horizon with your "Boost" right in front of it, that is how far removed "Boost" is from actually doing anything.


----------



## ratirt (Mar 13, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> I know that static electricity isn't 1.4 Volts, it was a reducto ad absurdum on the premise that it is current that causes damage to CPUs and not voltage.
> 
> The term "Boost Clock" is a bit of a sick joke as far as the Ryzen 3000 series is concerned.
> 
> ...


I need to chip in a bit. You have referenced that HWmonitor shows 4.55 or 4.6 and that is to please somebody's eyes but when running Cinebench R20 full load on all cores (despite if it is 3900x or 3950x or even 3700x ) it doesn't boost that high. Well there is a simple explanation for this and it does't not matter how much volts you apply to the processor. The advertised boost clock for All RYZENS works with a single core only which means it does not apply for all cores. It is obvious that when you have 3950x and you utilize all cores and threads (like Cinebench R20) it will not go 4.6Ghz all cores. Even if you OC the CPU and add voltage, the all core frequency will not be the boost speed, EVER. You may get a bit more when you optimize configuration of your set up but it wont be the advertised boost clock speed. That is not how Ryzen works. Blaming AMD for this is not fair.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 13, 2020)

ratirt said:


> I need to chip in a bit. You have referenced that HWmonitor shows 4.55 or 4.6 and that is to please somebody's eyes but when running Cinebench R20 full load on all cores (despite if it is 3900x or 3950x or even 3700x ) it doesn't boost that high. Well there is a simple explanation for this and it does't not matter how much volts you apply to the processor. The advertised boost clock for All RYZENS works with a single core only which means it does not apply for all cores. It is obvious that when you have 3950x and you utilize all cores and threads (like Cinebench R20) it will not go 4.6Ghz all cores. Even if you OC the CPU and add voltage, the all core frequency will not be the boost speed, EVER. You may get a bit more when you optimize configuration of your set up but it wont be the advertised boost clock speed. That is not how Ryzen works. Blaming AMD for this is not fair.


There are three columns in HWMonitor "Value", "Min" and "Max" where "Value" is the current state, "Min" and "Max" should be self explanatory.

When looking at the columns you will see entries for "Max" under "Clocks" that the CPU core has boosted to at some point, no matter how short the duration or how infrequently and of course at a point where it was under bugger-all load. That "Max" entry is what a number of people have spoken to me about and said, "My system runs at 4.6 GHz", in the case of a 3900X for instance.

Configuring my 3950X my way, when running with SMT On (16 Cores/32 Threads) the CPU will run at 4.3 GHz on all cores *at a lower temperature* than running the system with PBO On (or even Off) and the clockspeed being somewhere between 4.0 and 4.1 GHz. The fact of the matter is that I don't really see much of a change in performance with PBO On or Off, except that with PBO on the temps are higher for just about the same result.

So that would be *well over* *200 MHz less performance per Core/Thread*  at a higher temp, a higher voltage and a higher power draw. So the voltage is higher, the current is higher and the temperature is higher for far less performance.

What I am blaming a portion of AMD for and that portion would be the the cognitively redacted MarketDroids and SalesCritters who have misled people about the performance of 3rd Gen Ryzen.

I would point to this video from AMD featuring Robert Hallock, which I mentioned before as a prime example:










Damn straight that I imagine the Techs at AMD not only would be, but were, completely pissed at this bald faced liar and what he is saying. Unfortunately the Techs don't get to talk to the public - not if they want to keep their jobs that is.

However what people don't realise is that my 3950X running at an all-core of 4.3 GHz is the equivalent of about 4.86 GHz all core of an Intel CPU due to the 13% higher IPC of the Ryzen 3000 series compared to Intel CPUs.

I think you were misunderstanding what I meant when I mentioned "4.55 or 4.6" and I hope this clears it up.


----------



## ratirt (Mar 13, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> There are three columns in HWMonitor "Value", "Min" and "Max" where "Value" is the current state, "Min" and "Max" should be self explanatory.
> 
> When looking at the columns you will see entries for "Max" under "Clocks" that the CPU core has boosted to at some point, no matter how short the duration or how infrequently and of course at a point where it was under bugger-all load. That "Max" entry is what a number of people have spoken to me about and said, "My system runs at 4.6 GHz", in the case of a 3900X for instance.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the lecture btw. 
Well as a matter of fact you didn't get what i said regarding your previous post. I was referring about the "boost is a sick joke". 
(that is wrong) I don't think it is. It works perfectly fine and as intended. What I get from your post is that you are claiming the boost is shit and AMD scammed people off with it because it is not boosting as it should.   When you tweak your settings you can achieve more and I've mentioned it in my post but I guess you have missed it. 
BTW I have two 3970x threadrippers and of course they are boosting to 4.5 when not heavy taxed (single core utilization). With Cinebench on the other hand the boost is going up to 3.8-3.9 but I didn't tweak anything and my cooling is an air cooler Noctua noctua nh-u9 tr4-sp3 crap. If I had liquid the situation would have been way different. Your tweaks, btw, are software and that is not as it should have been (unless I read your earlier posts incorrectly). Does this mean if you boost 200Mhz more, that means the boost is shit? Of course not. Nobody misled anything. Go to the AMD webpage https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-9-3950x and go to the boost section. It says single core boost 4.7Ghz. The default is rather 
So if you claim that you have 4.3 instead of 4 on all cores that is tweaking. Getting better cooling instead of stock cooler. You don't have a stock cooler do you? 

Sometimes I don't understand you people. You get some performance boost through OC/tweaks like you Mr. and you claim AMD boost is shit because you can get more out of the CPU
When AMD maxes out the CPU it is still shit because there is no OC headroom. The default settings are for all the processors released like 3950x. The silicon may vary one from the other ( you mentioned that too "silicon lottery) remember? The specs are for all 3950x's not individual. All processors released will work that way (safe default way not harming the hardware) if you get a chance to get more out of your CPU then be happy you can't blame something that ain't there.

That is about it  At least that is how I get your issue with the AMD boost.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 13, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> When you then put the system under load, such as with a CineBench R20 all core run, you are lucky if you get the CPU clocking at over 4.0 GHz, with a little dustcloud on the horizon with your "Boost" right in front of it, that is how far removed "Boost" is from actually doing anything.



I boost to about 4.15 all-core m


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 13, 2020)

Blame Jim Keller for having the initial design too sensitive


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## bug (Mar 13, 2020)

@Michael Nager How much more performance did you squeeze out of the CPU? Because it seems like a lot of steps to go through and the need for Ryzen Master means you're out of luck if not running Windows...


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 13, 2020)

eidairaman1 said:


> Blame Jim Keller for having the initial design too sensitive


Why Jim, no one here actually spoke to ANY of the engineering team that built zen or zen2.

So by the Op's count they don't exist? and are irrelevant , time and again he's inflated his opinion because ,man does he like spilling it in pages, and he's here to talk so by default he's the man and right and because we can't speak to AMD staff they and their decisions are irrelevant and untrusted.

Zens the product of a unicorn and a Smirth mating ,it wasn't designed ,fools.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 13, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Why Jim, no one here actually spoke to ANY of the engineering team that built zen or zen2.
> 
> So by the Op's count they don't exist? and are irrelevant , time and again he's inflated his opinion because ,man does he like spilling it in pages, and he's here to talk so by default he's the man and right and because we can't speak to AMD staff they and their decisions are irrelevant and untrusted.
> 
> Zens the product of a unicorn and a Smirth mating ,it wasn't designed ,fools.


(It's sarcasm I posted lol)


----------



## Fry178 (Mar 13, 2020)

@mtcn77
1. The article stating that PBO is for TR only, IS FROM 2018,
BEFORE ryzen 3xxx series was even out.
2. Have you read the small print on the bottom?
He clearly states that everything is his own OPINION, and NOT Amds.

Find an OFFICIAL info/statement from amd, where *AMD* says, pbo is TR only.

Personal view: ONE guy on the whole planet, and you believe him over everyone else/amd info? Ok.


----------



## mtcn77 (Mar 13, 2020)

Fry178 said:


> Personal view: ONE guy on the whole planet, and you believe him over everyone else/amd info? Ok.


I don't feel this is getting enough due credit, but we aren't the ones playing to the tune of this overhyped redteam plus member. You want to feel responsibly accurate in your attributions? Let me show you who brought him on this message board and see for yourself who felt the same way clicking the message directory;


thesmokingman said:


> He has no clue what's going on. This has been explained by Hallock, crap I dunno how many times now and ppl still cannot get it thru their heads.


Stop mispresenting the issue and pestering Michael Nager and myself please if you have nothing other than derailing the thread into mindless banter.
Clearly, this is between people who know better vs. who don't.

PS: before you make any more oversimplifications, putting this dude at a pedestal and looking down on Michael Nager and myself, if you would actually consider this - I actually wanted to apply for the same position at that public query when I noticed he got elected, so there is that...

PS2: eventhough we come forward in saying enthusiasts aren't backing up the claims of this well-groomed mr. nice guy(no use hiding i'm jelly), we are being picked apart. Not nice gentlemen, not nice at all...


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 13, 2020)

ratirt said:


> Thanks for the lecture btw.
> Well as a matter of fact you didn't get what i said regarding your previous post. I was referring about the "boost is a sick joke".
> (that is wrong) I don't think it is. It works perfectly fine and as intended. What I get from your post is that you are claiming the boost is shit and AMD scammed people off with it because it is not boosting as it should.   When you tweak your settings you can achieve more and I've mentioned it in my post but I guess you have missed it.
> BTW I have two 3970x threadrippers and of course they are boosting to 4.5 when not heavy taxed (single core utilization). With Cinebench on the other hand the boost is going up to 3.8-3.9 but I didn't tweak anything and my cooling is an air cooler Noctua noctua nh-u9 tr4-sp3 crap. If I had liquid the situation would have been way different. Your tweaks, btw, are software and that is not as it should have been (unless I read your earlier posts incorrectly). Does this mean if you boost 200Mhz more, that means the boost is shit? Of course not. Nobody misled anything. Go to the AMD webpage https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-9-3950x and go to the boost section. It says single core boost 4.7Ghz. The default is rather
> ...



You point me in the direction of the 3950X stock cooler and I will tell you if I have it or not.

I will save you the trouble, *there's no stock cooler that comes with the 3950X*.

OK so now we have that out of the way I can continue with the "Lecture".

When I replied to you I gave you the benefit of the doubt that I was not clear enough in my post and that a misunderstanding had ensued. Now I realise from this reply that you are just being obtuse.

I have to say that when you said about the boost that, "It works perfectly fine and as intended", I had a LOL moment. 

What you are basically saying is that boost is great because it is there when you need it least.

You do not get my "issues" with AMD boost at all. 

When speaking of "Boost" with regard to AMD CPUs we are talking about two completely different things:

1) PB2 or "Precision Boost" 2
2) PBO or "Precision Boost Overdrive"

PB2 kinda sorta works as long as you are doing next to nothing with your system (as you say light loads or single threaded loads), or as I like to say, "It does naff-all quicker".

PBO aside from punting in noticeably more voltage and current ends up not being of much use when under load and basically does naff-all even quicker in conjunction with PB2.

With regard to cooling I have tested a single chiplet Ryzen 5 3600X, a double chiplet Ryzen 9 3900X which I have on loan from a friend and my own Ryzen 9 3950X with both air cooling and water cooling (for the air cooling I have a Noctua NH-U12A and for the water cooling I have an AlphaCool Eisbaer 360 AIO with three 120mm Noctua NF-A12x25 fans).

On the single chiplet CPU, the 3600X, the air cooler was noticeably better than the AIO, which is not surprising when you consider that less than 25% of the business part of the AIO cooler, the part of the waterblock which has the heat exchanging fins, covers the hotspot; whereas with the NH-U12A half of the seven heatpipes cover and transfer heat away from that hotspot.

When it comes to the dual chiplet CPUs I have tested (3900X and 3950X) the water cooler is better at cooling the CPU than the air cooler. There's not as much in it as there would be if the CPU was located in the centre of the PCB as opposed to being off-centre, because again the AIO cannot bring its full cooling potential to bear on the CPU hotspots.

There is another component which is temperature sensitive which plays a bit role in performance and that would be Infinity Fabric. With the air cooler on the dual chiplet CPUs the temp, when running CineBench R20 all core went beyond 85 °C and had a tendency to hard crash the system when the IF was cranked up to 1867 MHz (3733 RAM speed) but would be stable at 1800 MHz (3600 RAM speed) whereas the AIO keeps the temp below that threshold and causes no problems.

When you speak of my tweaks being "Software" you do realise that the BIOS is also a piece of software don't you?

The fact of the matter is that because AMD supplies the actual BIOS as a binary (AGESA), what one would normally consider to be "The BIOS" is in fact just a configuration utility for the AGESA. For this reason, if you look at the guide I wrote, I stick to configuring the motherboard parameters (LLC for instance) to the motherboard BIOS and went with Ryzen Master to configure the CPU and RAM because from my extensive testing I have found that Ryzen Master works a lot better in conjunction with AGESA than the BIOS of my mother board.

I have no idea why you thought that linking to the AMD 3950X page when you obviously didn't read it yourself - otherwise you would have known that the 3950X does not come with a cooler i.e. the part where it states, "Thermal Solution (PIB): Cooler Not Included, Liquid Cooling Recommended".

I am however gratified to note that you recognise that what I have done, and what I suggest in the guide is, in your words a "Tweaking" of my system and not an "OverClock". I prefer the term "Configuration".

I notice you make no mention of what voltage your Threadrippers are running on "stock". It would also be nice to know what the specs are other than the cooler.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 13, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> I know that static electricity isn't 1.4 Volts, it was a reducto ad absurdum on the premise that it is current that causes damage to CPUs and not voltage.



Well, running a marathon in 100 degree heat and 100% humidity will give you heatstroke at best and kill you at worst.  Does that mean that sitting at the beach in 100 degree heat and 100% humidity will do the same?  No.  Your comparison wasn't a good one.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 13, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> You point me in the direction of the 3950X stock cooler and I will tell you if I have it or not.
> 
> I will save you the trouble, *there's no stock cooler that comes with the 3950X*.
> 
> ...


In all your testing it should have become clear to you that at default the bios doesn't control the CPU, using bios settings you can prime the processors environment so as to assist it's boost behaviour, the ageesa may set control values but the board, and ageesa bios hand off control of the CPU to the CPU.
Software clocking overides that and puts AMDS software stack in control.
An avenue for any instability to corrupt if any software crashes not specifically Os or system level.

Software clocking is not the same I assure you of one thing, I wouldn't use it again long term.

For bench runs it's very good and useful as you see.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 13, 2020)

I just found something interesting that addresses the problem I spoke of above with regard to the hotspot(s) of the Ryzen 3000 series of CPUs no longer being in the centre of the PCB.

You can check it out here:


----------



## Zach_01 (Mar 13, 2020)

I would like OP's or anyone else's commends on the following screenshots from my 3600 during different workloads
FYI, PBO settings are not just auto or enabled

1. Idle/browsing/watching videos


2. CB-R20 single thread


3. CB-R20 multi thread


4. FarCry NewDawn gameplay


----------



## mtcn77 (Mar 13, 2020)

Zach_01 said:


> I would like OP's or anyone else's commends on the following screenshots from my 3600 during different workloads
> FYI, PBO settings are not just auto or enabled
> 
> 1. Idle/browsing/watching videos
> ...


You can see the thread counts on differentiating which loads execute on each cpu core.
For instance,

Cinebench Multi is the heaviest load, hence C6 is the least and C1 is also the least,
Far Cry is in second, C6 inactivity is only minutely present for core 6 and all cores are achieving their Pb state at 100% C1,
Cinebench single - 2 cores are off/C6 and 4 are fully active/C1,
Browsing/videos - 3 active, 5 boosting time to time and 3 at part sleep.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 13, 2020)

Zach_01 said:


> I would like OP's or anyone else's commends on the following screenshots from my 3600 during different workloads
> FYI, PBO settings are not just auto or enabled



What are you looking for?  Maybe ask for specific comments?


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 13, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> You can see the thread counts on differentiating which loads execute on each cpu core.
> For instance,
> 
> Cinebench Multi is the heaviest load, hence C6 is the least and C1 is also the least,
> ...


Perfect then.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 13, 2020)

Zach_01 said:


> I would like OP's or anyone else's commends on the following screenshots from my 3600 during different workloads
> FYI, PBO settings are not just auto or enabled
> 
> 1. Idle/browsing/watching videos
> ...


This would be my 3600X running prime95 small FFTs after over three hours:





The 3600X running CineBench R20 just running "Stock":




The 3600X running CineBench R20 after configuring it according to the guide I posted:





I did run CineBench with my 3600X at 1.275 Volts, but that wasn't stable, and eventually I found the sweet-spot was at 1.29375 Volts, but here are the temps during a CineBench R20 run at 1.275 and below that the CineBench R20 result:









For S&G here is what the 3600X clocked to with PBO and Auto Overclock (notice the voltages):

First PBO:






The CineBench R20 result:





With Auto Overclocking:









Here is the 3600X running CineBench R20 in Default mode:





And now the Cinebench R20 result:





Yes I do take a hit on the single core score, but that being said, when do you actually ever run single core workloads on your system where you generally have a shed-load more going on than just running CineBench.

The cooler on the CPU was the Noctua NH-U12A.


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## mtcn77 (Mar 13, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Perfect then.


Well, not all is.
In Far Cry Dawn, Core 4-5 are not at sleep, but they sure aren't in full boost either(c1 is restricted). Maybe it is a mid boost state, half the core count is at max while the rest is at base clocks. FarCry seems to be such a medium load. I sure would try my chances at affinity load preferencing to those cores.


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## Michael Nager (Mar 13, 2020)

I


mtcn77 said:


> Well, not all is.
> In Far Cry Dawn, Core 4-5 are not at sleep, but they sure aren't in full boost either(c1 is restricted). Maybe it is a mid boost state, half the core count is at max while the rest is at base clocks. FarCry seems to be such a medium load. I sure would try my chances at affinity load preferencing to those cores.


If you want the easiest way to set the Affinity of your CPU to configure it for games then I would suggest the free software "Process Lasso":









						Bitsum. Real-time CPU Optimization and Automation
					

Real-Time CPU Optimization and Automation. Keep your PC responsive during high CPU loads and automate process settings with rules. Apps run YOUR WAY!




					bitsum.com


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## moproblems99 (Mar 13, 2020)

@Michael Nager , curious question, why didn't you put these values in the UEFI and make them permanent?


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 13, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> @Michael Nager , curious question, why didn't you put these values in the UEFI and make them permanent?


It might be a GigaByte BIOS thing, but one of the first things I tried to do was enter the values from Ryzen Master into the BIOS in different combinations (BIOS, the AGESA portion, various combinations) and every time I did so the system went to shit.

It would reboot a number of times, do the memory training, and then, when I went into the BIOS again invariably the CMOS had been cleared.

I also couldn't find a way of limiting the voltage (but keeping the voltage dynamic and not static) without the system behaving very erratically.

I started calling my BIOS "GigaByte Master" as opposed to "Ryzen Master" 

I had a good (well actually bad) few months, always with high hopes for either the newest AGESA version or the newest BIOS version, where the games would start all over again.

It's not that the way I described in the original post is the best, it's just that all other ways I tried ended up sucking in one way or another.

As I say I have been experimenting with the system for about eight months now.

I have found the path of least suck


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 13, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> It might be a GigaByte BIOS thing, but one of the first things I tried to do was enter the values from Ryzen Master into the BIOS in different combinations (BIOS, the AGESA portion, various combinations) and every time I did so the system went to shit.
> 
> It would reboot a number of times, do the memory training, and then, when I went into the BIOS again invariably the CMOS had been cleared.
> 
> ...


Ahhh, I see where the bios phobia comes from now, please believe not all board bios and chip combos work out like that.


----------



## bug (Mar 13, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> This would be my 3600X running prime95 small FFTs after over three hours:
> View attachment 148062
> 
> The 3600X running CineBench R20 just running "Stock":
> ...


So basically, differences within the margin of error?  
But at least it seems you managed to lower the voltage a bit.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 13, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Ahhh, I see where the bios phobia comes from now, please believe not all board bios and chip combos work out like that.


Well I spent so much time kissing frogs that, although I may not have met my prince, at least it is no longer a frog.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 13, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> It might be a GigaByte BIOS thing, but one of the first things I tried to do was enter the values from Ryzen Master into the BIOS in different combinations (BIOS, the AGESA portion, various combinations) and every time I did so the system went to shit.
> 
> It would reboot a number of times, do the memory training, and then, when I went into the BIOS again invariably the CMOS had been cleared.
> 
> ...



Interesting.  Sorry to hear that.


----------



## mtcn77 (Mar 13, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> I
> 
> If you want the easiest way to set the Affinity of your CPU to configure it for games then I would suggest the free software "Process Lasso":
> 
> ...


I wonder if assigning 'real-time' access to individual processes gives them private access to specific cores because that would help in other ways, mostly on security.
One alternative reason is data latency is kept private and not shuffled between threads.
I haven't concocted my recipe, but assimilating from the previous far cry dawn example, I'd wager delimiting a few less threads than active(say, 84.6% per 5-6 cores ~ 9/10 full threads - 5 threads are idling on average) to see if frafs bench viewer logs would improve.


----------



## Zach_01 (Mar 13, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> This would be my 3600X running prime95 small FFTs after over three hours:
> View attachment 148062
> 
> The 3600X running CineBench R20 just running "Stock":
> ...


Well, this is not commending but ok! I expected at least some boost related commends on the 3600, because I read a lot about it in previous posts that its not entirely true. The 3600X is not for direct comparison as there's a big difference in binning and rated limits.
Anyway, I dont like in-windows settings and I only do that from UEFI. And for me single thread clock is most important. I dont do any real life all core workloads other than benches.

What i've done with it is to increase clock through the entire boost clock curve and not only for all-core loads. It all comes down to preference I guess.


----------



## Fry178 (Mar 14, 2020)

@Michael Nager
GB seems to have issues with not clearing any values when you update bios, no matter if cleared it by loading defaults or even removed cmos battery.

if you have flash back on ur board:
copy latest bios file to a usb stick like u do for update, rename the same file in different locatio n into gigabyte.bin (all caps?!) and copy to the same stick.
turn off pc, 
flash back the the gigabyte file, turn pc on and update bios again thru qflash in bios.
reboot and load defaults.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 14, 2020)

Fry178 said:


> @Michael Nager
> GB seems to have issues with not clearing any values when you update bios, no matter if cleared it by loading defaults or even removed cmos battery.
> 
> if you have flash back on ur board:
> ...


A new BIOS for the GigaByte board I have came out yesterday (F12e) and I was back to doing what I have done many times before and that is to try to achieve what I am now doing with a combination of the BIOS and Ryzen Master.

Changing the values to what I know they should be and getting the usual pushback from the "Save&Exit, Reboot, Three Beeps, Reboot, Memory Retraining, Cleared CMOS, Rinse&Repeat, finally getting a clean boot, Windows loading with garbage on the screen, Reboot, Windows goes into Repair Mode, Reboot, Windows again in Repair Mode, finally booting into Windows and things not running correctly, grabbing my backup, kicking off Acronis and doing a complete restore, going back into the BIOS, setting it back to what I know works there, loading Windows and going back to using Ryzen Master.

That was six effing hours of my life I am never going to get back.


----------



## Fry178 (Mar 14, 2020)

then why not try it, as it prevents that cycle,
and the reason i posted it, as it fixed the mem/rettain/boot cycle (cause of old bios values).


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 14, 2020)

The problem


Fry178 said:


> then why not try it, as it prevents that cycle,
> and the reason i posted it, as it fixed the mem/rettain/boot cycle (cause of old bios values).


I have found that the incompatibility appears to be between the GigaByte part of the BIOS and the AGESA binary from AMD.

I should tell you that I am autistic (Asperger's) and that has advantages and disadvantages for me.

The advantage is that I can really focus on a problem and stick to it until I get a solution - or find that no solution exists.

The disadvantage is that I want it the way I want it, and I will not compromise that result.

I could sorta get to where I want to go, but would have to suck some lemons to get there which I am just not willing to do.

I have the advantage of having a dual BIOS on the motherboard which I can address individually, so when doing what I do, I make changes to one BIOS and if that works, switch to the other BIOS to go further etc.

There are points where it falls down and I can replicate those points time and again - including Windows needing to go into Repair Mode.


----------



## Fry178 (Mar 14, 2020)

if u do flash-back when pc off, and Qflash update for BOTH (incl backup bios) after that, it fixes it.
at least give it a try


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## Michael Nager (Mar 14, 2020)

There is nothing to fix in the BIOS.

The problem is that what I want to do is not achievable in the BIOS and requires the use of Ryzen Master.

I wrote in my original post:



> So what you see displayed as "The BIOS" is in effect just a configuration menu for the AGESA. The problem about editing the AGESA portion found under "Settings" under the headings "AMD CBS" and "AMD Overclocking" directly is that with some of the options, if you enter a wrong value, then your system will not boot. What is worse however is that some of the settings cannot be removed with a "Clear CMOS" and your mobo is effectively bricked.



I am aware of what you are saying, and I just wish that were the problem and the solution.


----------



## Zach_01 (Mar 14, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> So what you see displayed as "The BIOS" is in effect just a configuration menu for the AGESA. The problem about editing the AGESA portion found under "Settings" under the headings "AMD CBS" and "AMD Overclocking" directly is that with some of the options,* if you enter a wrong value*, then your system will not boot. What is worse however is that *some of the settings cannot be removed with a "Clear CMOS" and your mobo is effectively bricked.*


This is where BIOS Flashback is worth having... other than initially having an unsupported CPU.


----------



## Fry178 (Mar 14, 2020)

unless the bios uses/applied settings from previous version.
i could not even get it to post after i flashed update, even that the update was for better ram compatibility.
after flash back, then qflashed it (reg update) the same bios, and then it worked, without it having anything to with "wrong" settings. 

not saying it WILL fix it, but not trying means ZERO chance it will. ;-)


----------



## BrainMuncher (Mar 15, 2020)

You said you did a lot of experimenting, I'm curious as to if you tried a negative voltage offset but with everything else at stock. I haven't played with zen 2 yet but I will be doing so soon, with zen 1 a negative offset results in higher sustained boost since it is already running into internal power limits at stock settings. So benchmark scores (both single & multi) improved without touching the clocks at all, everything at stock except 1 voltage setting in the BIOS.

If you did try it how did it compare to your current method?


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 15, 2020)

Fry178 said:


> unless the bios uses/applied settings from previous version.
> i could not even get it to post after i flashed update, even that the update was for better ram compatibility.
> after flash back, then qflashed it (reg update) the same bios, and then it worked, without it having anything to with "wrong" settings.
> 
> not saying it WILL fix it, but not trying means ZERO chance it will. ;-)


The thing is that I have been experimenting with this motherboard for four months or so now.

The other thing is, that when I revert the settings and just do it the way that I know WORKS then there are absolutely no problems or anomalous behaviour.

It has gotten to the stage now that I can take one look at the temp the CPU is reaching when running  CineBench and I can tell you what score is going to result, and I won't me more than one or two points off.



BrainMuncher said:


> You said you did a lot of experimenting, I'm curious as to if you tried a negative voltage offset but with everything else at stock. I haven't played with zen 2 yet but I will be doing so soon, with zen 1 a negative offset results in higher sustained boost since it is already running into internal power limits at stock settings. So benchmark scores (both single & multi) improved without touching the clocks at all, everything at stock except 1 voltage setting in the BIOS.
> 
> If you did try it how did it compare to your current method?


Hell yeah I tried that.

It was a shitshow.

Utilities like Ryzen Master or HWMonitor or HWInfo or AIDA were showing me that I was using 0 (Zero) Volts going into the CPU. The temps were higher to the point where I had to stop CineBench runs and Windows would hard crash.

From some of the replies to my original post I get the feeling that people think that I *WANT* to do it the way I documented and that I am too much of a wimp to do the "Manly man" thing and configure it in the BIOS.

The thing is that the CPU is listening to the AGESA portion of the BIOS and *NOT* the GigaByte portion of the BIOS.

The other problem I suspect lies in the fact that this time around AMD itself is producing the chipset - which as far as I know will change with the next chipset where it will be manufactured by ASMedia again.

I will be testing out the 3900X my friend loaned me on the GigaByte X470 Gaming 7 WiFi motherboard I have to see what, if any, differences there are, because the chipset for that board was manufactured by ASMedia.

I am watching the Gamers Nexus factory tour video and Steve said something that really made me laugh, he said:



> ... supply from China has experience slowdowns and limitations due to something that starts with "C" and rhymes with "Demonetized"


----------



## Zach_01 (Mar 15, 2020)

BrainMuncher said:


> You said you did a lot of experimenting, I'm curious as to if you tried a negative voltage offset but with everything else at stock. I haven't played with zen 2 yet but I will be doing so soon, with zen 1 a negative offset results in higher sustained boost since it is already running into internal power limits at stock settings. So benchmark scores (both single & multi) improved without touching the clocks at all, everything at stock except 1 voltage setting in the BIOS.
> 
> If you did try it how did it compare to your current method?


Negative voltage offset is not working with ZEN2 as it does with ZEN+. Not in the same manner anyway. ZEN2 is a whole new story and I've been saying it for months now that it needs to be treated from almost zero point, from scratch. Pretty match forget what we know about past CPUs. Just like static OC/voltage.

@Michael Nager has done a lot of testing, and found a way to setup these chips that suit his needs. Feel free to test it as I dont see anything that can compromise silicon longevity. Is it the best way? Is Buildzoid's best way? Probably not and that depends on what everyone is seeking for. There is no best way IMHO. I'm actually peaking a different approach from both of them.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 15, 2020)

Zach_01 said:


> Negative voltage offset is not working with ZEN2 as it does with ZEN+. Not in the same manner anyway. ZEN2 is a whole new story and I've been saying it for months now that it needs to be treated from almost zero point, from scratch. Pretty match forget what we know about past CPUs. Just like static OC/voltage.
> 
> @Michael Nager has done a lot of testing, and found a way to setup these chips that suit his needs. Feel free to test it as I dont see anything that can compromise silicon longevity. Is it the best way? Is Buildzoid's best way? Probably not and that depends on what everyone is seeking for. There is no best way IMHO. I'm actually peeking a different approach from both of them.


It took me two months of utter frustration with the 3600X and my attempts to configure it, "the right way", that I realised that I pretty much had to toss out my 37 years of prior experience with computers (I am 60 years old) and start again from scratch.

The unlearning part was harder than the learning part 

But this old dog can still learn new tricks.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 15, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> The thing is that I have been experimenting with this motherboard for four months or so now.
> 
> The other thing is, that when I revert the settings and just do it the way that I know WORKS then there are absolutely no problems or anomalous behaviour.
> 
> ...



This just simplified my board Picks, Either Asus Crosshair or AsRock Taichi (w/e their top end is)

And Ryzen/Core I are way different than AM3+/775 or older.


----------



## BrainMuncher (Mar 15, 2020)

I'm going to try the negative offset with a 3600 in a few days, hopefully I have better luck than you had Michael. The stock voltages seem like massive overkill, but I don't want to lose single thread performance.


----------



## Zach_01 (Mar 15, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> The thing is that the CPU is listening to the AGESA portion of the BIOS and *NOT* the GigaByte portion of the BIOS.
> 
> The other problem I suspect lies in the fact that this time around AMD itself is producing the chipset - which as far as I know will change with the next chipset where it will be manufactured by ASMedia again.
> 
> I will be testing out the 3900X my friend loaned me on the GigaByte X470 Gaming 7 WiFi motherboard I have to see what, if any, differences there are, because the chipset for that board was manufactured by ASMedia.





eidairaman1 said:


> This just simplified my board Picks, Either Asus Crosshair or AsRock Taichi (w/e their top end is)
> 
> And Ryzen/Core I are way different than AM3+/775 or older.


I think that this is for every board. No UEFI can by pass or ignore AGESA microcode. Its the core function and behaviour of the CPU that needs to listen. Unless static OC is intoduced. That is a different story.



BrainMuncher said:


> I'm going to try the negative offset with a 3600 in a few days, hopefully I have better luck than you had Michael. The stock voltages seem like massive overkill, but I don't want to lose single thread performance.


You can try but 99% you wont see any clock increase, and from point after you will see clock reducing. I tried it a lot with my 3600...


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 15, 2020)

Zach_01 said:


> I think that this is for every board. No UEFI can by pass or ignore AGESA microcode. Its the core function and behaviour of the CPU that needs to listen. Unless static OC is intoduced. That is a different story.
> 
> 
> You can try but 99% you wont see any clock increase, and from point after you will see clock reducing. I tried it a lot with my 3600...



I'm not worried about that just from the amount of trouble he had with the ga board just to do a bios flash, no thanks.

Also I research before i start any overclocking adventure.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 15, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> It was a shitshow.
> 
> Utilities like Ryzen Master or HWMonitor or HWInfo or AIDA were showing me that I was using 0 (Zero) Volts going into the CPU. The temps were higher to the point where I had to stop CineBench runs and Windows would hard crash.



So, I don't care how you setup your system, I won't lose sleep over it.  However, what you are describing is something I have read no where else.  From reading this, I believe you have additional problems.



BrainMuncher said:


> I'm going to try the negative offset with a 3600 in a few days, hopefully I have better luck than you had Michael. The stock voltages seem like massive overkill, but I don't want to lose single thread performance.



I lost clocks with an underclock.


----------



## thesmokingman (Mar 15, 2020)

Ways to run your Zen2...

Stock w/ PBO disabled - as default as it gets
Stock with PBO - as random as it gets
All core - single thread perf limited to all core frequency
Ratio overclock - best all around  perf combining all core perf with higher single thread perf close to stock boost


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 15, 2020)

thesmokingman said:


> Ways to run your Zen2...
> 
> Stock w/ PBO disabled - as default as it gets
> Stock with PBO - as random as it gets
> ...


This would be true *EXCEPT* in my original post I said:



> Because of my back problems (I have had two spine operations and have spinal arthritis) I have to keep the room temperature pretty warm.
> 
> The ambient temperature in my room is 28 - 29 °C and you should keep that in mind when I show you the following benchmark results of my system:



The comfortable room temperature for normies like yourselves is around 20 °C (or 68 °F for those of you who have not quite made it into the 20th Century yet )

When Buildzoid was doing his testing it was at a far colder ambient temperature than I have (he was doing the tests in a non heated room in the middle of Winter) and how temperature affects attainable clockspeed can be seen here in the tests that Gamers Nexus did with the 3950X and cold scaling:






The Infinity Fabric does not only become unstable at very low temperatures, but also at temperatures above 85 °C

Another thing to consider is that for every 10 °C rise in temperature the CPU requires 4% more energy to achieve the same performance.

The testing that Gamers Nexus did was only with PB2 *and not* with PBO.

In my circumstance it means that I am fighting for every degree of temperature I can shave off the CPU temp to get a result given the ambient temperature of my environment. It is for this reason that I have ordered the cooling kit from Der8auer which I linked to before and will be testing it out and if you guys are interested I can share the results of that with you.

Running CineBench R20 on a loop with an ambient temperature of 28 °C at 4.3 GHz on all cores with SMT On at 1.3 Volts I was getting a maximum CPU temp of 84 °C gives me the following score:





This score is not as high as what I previously had; however I upgraded the BIOS to version F12e the day before yesterday and I have recently upgraded Ryzen Master but have not tweaked the RAM settings as much as I had before.

These are the current settings for Ryzen Master and the temp you see is my idle temp, which is quite high as you will notice due the the ambient temperature being 28 °C





I am measuring the ambient temperature with a temperature sensor located just in front of the intake fans of my AIO radiator.


----------



## Fry178 (Mar 15, 2020)

Sorry, but thats kind of a waste in my view. unless i missed something, your gpu isnt under water, biggest gain after WC cpu (with rad set as exhaust)
to lower cpu/case/vrm/ram temps, if gpu rad is setup as exhaust.
Not looking at it from a thermal transfer point, which is the biggest problem cooling zen 2, and where you would need to swap for a different block to see any improvement.
Going thru reviews for basically every corsair/arctic/alphacool 240/280 AIO and major brands for blocks,
the XPC raystorm pro seems to be the best to see any gains over stock/other aio/blocks.

XPC Raystorm Pro water block


----------



## RealNeil (Mar 15, 2020)

eidairaman1 said:


> ESD is real, Ive zapped ICs before,


It's a lot like a lightning strike for a chip.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 15, 2020)

> Sorry, but thats kind of a waste in my view. unless i missed something, your gpu isnt under water, biggest gain after WC cpu (with rad set as exhaust)
> to lower cpu/case/vrm/ram temps, if gpu rad is setup as exhaust.



I don't have water cooling on my EVGA 1080 Ti SC2.

There is a good reason for this. I had modded my original 1080 Ti SC2 and under full load for a number of hours a VRM went BANG! and that was end of the card. And no I was not running Furmark

I managed to put 100 MHz OC on the GPU and 250 MHz OC onto the RAM. I was testing out the card for stability with an eye to further pushing the OC, because the temps were pretty good.

EVGA replaced the card under warranty, but the lesson has been learned.

Sure you can get better thermals on the GPU with water cooling, but I would certainly NOT recommend running the graphics card on full load for many hours on end as I did.

Now if you take a look at my current main machine:





The case itself is a Phanteks Evolv X case.

Unlike others who are stupid enough to think that a normal case fan is enough to punt air into the case, I have replaced the case fans with static pressure fans, in fact all the fans you see are the Noctua NF-A12x25.

Why on earth people think that normal case fans are good enough to draw in air through mesh which is a higher impediment to airflow than a radiator than static pressure optimised fans is beyond me.

The rear fan is moved down right above the back of the graphics card and the backplate of that graphics card is connected to the hotspots by thermal pads. It is drawing air over the back of the graphics card and at the same time drawing exhaust air away from graphics card as well.

Effectively I am isolating the GPU from the CPU and as the load on the system increases, the fans at the front spinning up will actually push air into the case instead of just being normal case fans which are spinning up and because they cannot pull the air through the mesh are just making a noise for next to no positive effect beyond a certain RPM.

The thing is, that I have been a techie for 38 years now and I have had a lot of experience with various computer systems over the years.

From the way you are talking it is as if you think that you are speaking with a n00b who is cerebrally challenged by the power switch of his computer and who doesn't know that the way to save a file on an Etch-A-Sketch is to super-glue it to a desk.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 15, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> I don't have water cooling on my EVGA 1080 Ti SC2.
> 
> There is a good reason for this. I had modded my original 1080 Ti SC2 and under full load for a number of hours a VRM went BANG! and that was end of the card. And no I was not running Furmark
> 
> ...


My GPU and CPU have been on full load their whole lives ,Vega bought day one, a full coverage waterblock covers the Vrm's too , I wouldn't say you can't blow them but it shouldn't be because of overheating if cooled right.


----------



## bug (Mar 15, 2020)

eidairaman1 said:


> This just simplified my board Picks, Either Asus Crosshair or AsRock Taichi (w/e their top end is)
> 
> And Ryzen/Core I are way different than AM3+/775 or older.


Having just acquired the X470 Taichi, I'm not too impressed with Asrock either. No more dual-BIOS and the BIOS is soldered to the motherboard (no easy replacement if your CPU is unsupported). God knows where else they cheaped out. Asus doesn't have diagnostic leds, but a lot of good those did when on the Asrock mobo they showed an undocumented code...
It's a really lousy time to be buying a mobo


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 15, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> My GPU and CPU have been on full load their whole lives ,Vega bought day one, a full coverage waterblock covers the Vrm's too , I wouldn't say you can't blow them but it shouldn't be because of overheating if cooled right.


Are you saying that your CPU and GPU are running at 100% load all the time??

When I sit down for a gaming session it lasts 12-16 hours with pauses only to make fresh coffee or go for a pee.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 15, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> The comfortable room temperature for normies like yourselves is around 20 °C (or 68 °F for those of you who have not quite made it into the 20th Century yet )



I feel your pain there.  My ambient is usually 26-28C.



Fry178 said:


> the XPC raystorm pro seems to be the best to see any gains over stock/other aio/blocks.



I have the Raystorm Pro.  Overall, it does it pretty well.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 15, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> Are you saying that your CPU and GPU are running at 100% load all the time??
> 
> When I sit down for a gaming session it lasts 12-16 hours with pauses only to make fresh coffee or go for a pee.


Yes in effect, though obviously 100% is never possible but as close to that as possible.
Folding@home.
World community grid.

Rare, very rare now I have a laptop, gaming sessions but I do most office work on the main rig while it's still working.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 16, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Yes in effect, though obviously 100% is never possible but as close to that as possible.
> Folding@home.
> World community grid.
> 
> Rare, very rare now I have a laptop, gaming sessions but I do most office work on the main rig while it's still working.


I have been a member of SETI@Home since 1999 (although I have slacked off over the past three or four years).


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 16, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> I have been a member of SETI@Home since 1999 (although I have slacked off over the past three or four years).


Not me I'm pondering putting the laptop to work, definitely for compos.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 16, 2020)

RealNeil said:


> It's a lot like a lightning strike for a chip.



Considering they are super sensitive and only powered by millivolts or microvolts sometimes...


----------



## Fry178 (Mar 16, 2020)

@Michael Nager
sorry, but LOL.
1. the gpu air doesnt come out of the card like let's say like on a cpu cooler tower
that has the fan at its rear blowing air straight to the rear case fan and out the case. but blowing it into the case.

2. this will make your gpu re-breathing warmer (than needed) air.

3. unless your running a blower type card (which you dont according to pic), or the rear fan is a turbine,
it wont produce enough airflow to suck out all the gpu heat, this will make the cpu fans pull warmer air thru the rad, increasing cpu temps.

going from air cooled to water on a 2080S dropped cpu temps under full load (rig) from 85 to 75C,
not sure what else could cause that ase nothing else was changed (hw/sw/settings).

and not even talking about the fact that the 2080 (non S) i had first, was faster than the aircooled 2080S i had after,
and the main reason i swapped it for a LC card.
Boost clocks go down once you pass 40C on Nv cards, so having the card max out at about 50ish C keeps boost past 2Ghz on full load,
when the aircooled card would peak almost 100 mhz less, and drop another 50-100 mhz depending on load/temps for sustained boost.
and all that with the cpu being LC and mounted on the right side, leaving top/rear case with three 140mm fans just to exhaust board/gpu heat.
So even if i ignore the cpu temp increase, you will definitely have lower clocks on the ti, than if the card was LC.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 16, 2020)

> @Michael Nager
> sorry, but LOL.
> 1. the gpu air doesnt come out of the card like let's say like on a cpu cooler tower
> that has the fan at its rear blowing air straight to the rear case fan and out the case. but blowing it into the case.
> ...



First of all, do you know what kind of fans they are? No, obviously not.

The fans are balanced with regard to their RPM and I put a *LOT* of thought into it. All of the fans are the exact same make and model, they all come from the same batch of fans, and they all within ten or so RPM spinning at the same rate as each other.

I spent a hell of a lot of time balancing the fan profiles of the radiator fans, the fans that act as intake and the fan that acts as exhaust and the GPU fans.

I also gave a lot of thought to the case I was putting the system into.

The fans are all linked to the package temp of the CPU and the rear fan and middle fan of the radiator spin at a higher rate than the left and right fans on the radiator which spin with the same profile.

The front fans are all linked and run on one single profile.

What this looks like when my current main system (i7-4790K running at 4.4 GHz on all cores which is pictured above) is running AIDA64 Extreme is the following

First the CPU temp




This is how the fans are running during the stress test you see above:





Fan#1 Are the three front fans
Fan#2 Is the fan on the radiator at the top nearest the front of the case
Fan#3 Is the middle fan of the radiator
Fan#4 Is the fan on the radiator nearest the rear of the case
Fan#5 Is the fan on the rear of the case blowing air out.

What you can't see is that I have put mesh above the rear fan thus lessening the amount of air that the rear fan might recycle but I didn't want to block it off entirely.

The maximum RPM of the fans is 2,000 RPM.

Running Furmark with the normal fan profile set for the CPU:





Now the same test with the case fans ramped up:





In the first test the 1080 Ti GPU was running at 1974 MHz the temp was 74 °C and the GPU fans ran at 64% after ten minutes

In the second test the 1080 Ti GPU was running at 1987 MHz the temp was 69 °C and the GPU fans ran at 50% after ten minutes

At the start of the test the GPU was running at 2008 MHz so I lost 34 MHz on the first run and 21 MHz on the second run.

I really don't have anything to complain about and looking at this, you don't have anything to complain about either.

I have plenty of headroom for cooling the GPU because, as you can see, the GPU fans still have a lot of potential left in them if I wanted to create a sharper profile for them.

As you can see I gave the configuration of my system a *HELL* of a lot of thought and Furmark is about as bad a load on the GPU as I am *EVER* going to get.

I could get even better temps if I took the plant out of the system, but nah, I like it there. I put it in there originally (likewise with the RGB) just for shits and giggles, and it has kinda grown on me 

I don't know what all this has to do with configuring a Ryzen 3000 series CPU, but whatever.


----------



## Fry178 (Mar 19, 2020)

Never said your rig is crap, but all "tweaks" to improve performance, will be less than what you gain by having the gpu LC.
that to me means, its not the "best possible" setup.

Because any gpu that is air-cooled WILL dump heat inside the case, and most will go thru your cpu rad, 
leading to higher temps ergo lower clocks.
This has nothing to do with type/size/brand of fans your using. 

just the fact that any Nv gpu will throttle clocks once you go past 50C, which yours clearly does, means you're also loosing gpu performance, not just on the cpu.

you gain about 100-200 mhz switching from air to water (gpu). you know how much you need to increase cpu clocks to make up for that?


----------



## Johnno (Mar 19, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> In the months that have passed since I started experimenting with the Ryzen 5 3600X on my X470 motherboard (GigaByte X470 AURUS Gaming 7 WiFi Rev. 1.1 and then helping my friend configure his Ryzen 3900X on his motherboard (ASUS X570 ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi).
> 
> I bought the X570 motherboard I wanted (at a price I was willing to pay) the GigaByte X570 AURUS XTREME and experimented with my 3600X in that until I managed to get the CPU I wanted, the Ryzen 9 3950X which I now have.
> 
> ...



Hi 

I joined specifically to thank you for your terrific post.

I cannot believe all of the negative reaction to your post.  It's disappointing and there is absolutely no need for it.

People should be offering additional information - not attacking a post that was fantastic and intended to help people.

Regards

Johnno


----------



## mtcn77 (Mar 19, 2020)

I concur. I hope we will see more of his example being spread around because techpowerup should be the intersection of expert opinion holders in contrast to marketing product placements.

I think that is the worst possible example if shills take the place of actual users in sharing their anonymous generalities. Nothing kills a forum debate quite like a false member.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 19, 2020)

Can we just be humble and not arrogant and just help each other?

I mean there is a Zen Garden here too


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 20, 2020)

Johnno said:


> Hi
> 
> I joined specifically to thank you for your terrific post.
> 
> ...



I agree it is a good post and offers a step by step of how to make it happen.  HOWEVER, calling it The definitive guide was a poor choice of words.  I can't even call it the best method.  It worked for HIM and that is great.  But he seems to have issues that no one else seems to have and begs the question if this could be done more permanently through the UEFI.  Not to mention you lose about 5% of single core performance which according to everyone with an Intel CPU is all that matters.  Single does matter, specifically with gaming.  It will be less of a thing in the future but it is important still.

I agree with you that his post and process getting shit all over was unwarranted and should have been avoided but the blame is spread on that.

Edit: On a side note, you can get 98% of his multicore performance and keep all single thread performance simply by adjusting a few simple UEFI settings.


----------



## mtcn77 (Mar 20, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> Edit: On a side note, you can get 98% of his multicore performance and keep all single thread performance *simply* by adjusting a few simple UEFI settings.


As an observational study which would they be?


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 20, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> As an observational study which would they be?



The biggest ones for me have been LLC and limiting EDC.


----------



## mtcn77 (Mar 20, 2020)

I didn't even know TDC worked.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 20, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> I didn't even know TDC worked.



 My mistake.  EDC.


----------



## mtcn77 (Mar 20, 2020)

Ah, the rancorous debate about EDC. Time to abandon this thread...
Other best practices that I am aware of, but too intricate to fulfill;

IHS lapping,
Liquid metal paste,
Tighter mounting pressure,
Processor affinity,
Undervolt balance.
There is a way to register the same multicore taper target using edc alone, but that level of manual control - 4.1-4.3 ghz all core - is not yet achieved by anybody.
This person be the judge - setting 'off' manually the stock settings make the 3600 run at its base clock - so with that in mind, losing a couple points for a set voltage threshold that makes the biggest impact in operating temperature is acceptable in my book.


> My findings:
> 
> Everything at stock: Cinebench score 3437, temps around 75
> Ryzen Master manual, no changes:
> ...


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 20, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> I agree it is a good post and offers a step by step of how to make it happen.  HOWEVER, calling it The definitive guide was a poor choice of words.  I can't even call it the best method.  It worked for HIM and that is great.  But he seems to have issues that no one else seems to have and begs the question if this could be done more permanently through the UEFI.  Not to mention you lose about 5% of single core performance which according to everyone with an Intel CPU is all that matters.  Single does matter, specifically with gaming.  It will be less of a thing in the future but it is important still.
> 
> I agree with you that his post and process getting shit all over was unwarranted and should have been avoided but the blame is spread on that.
> 
> Edit: On a side note, you can get 98% of his multicore performance and keep all single thread performance simply by adjusting a few simple UEFI settings.


In one sense of the word, "Definitive", as in "The absolute last word" I could agree with you, and that was not the definition which I had in mind when I wrote that.

By "Definitive" I was thinking of the universality of my solution which takes the vagaries of which brand of motherboard and the quality - or lack thereof - of the motherboard BIOS and of course if you are dealing with an X370, X470 or X570 or the eqivalent B chipset. What I wrote is valid and relevant to everybody.

Also the way I wrote it, I defined exactly which steps to take to get to the result and it is complete from start to finish.

There is nothing vague or wishy-washy about what I wrote.

The only thing that I have found is that with an ASUS X570 board you have to set the D.O.C.P if you want to change anything on the fly in Ryzen Master (like the Vcore voltage or clockspeed etc) in Ryzen Master without having to reboot.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 20, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> In one sense of the word, "Definitive", as in "The absolute last word" I could agree with you, and that was not the definition which I had in mind when I wrote that.
> 
> By "Definitive" I was thinking of the universality of my solution which takes the vagaries of which brand of motherboard and the quality - or lack thereof - of the motherboard BIOS and of course if you are dealing with an X370, X470 or X570 or the eqivalent B chipset. What I wrote is valid and relevant to everybody.
> 
> ...



I think most of the friction stemmed from the fact no one understood your definition definitive.  Certainly not what I thought it was but then, again, I don't feel like coughing up the low-thread performance for just a little bit more all-core.  But to their own.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 20, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> Ah, the rancorous debate about EDC. Time to abandon this thread...
> Other best practices that I am aware of, but too intricate to fulfill;
> 
> IHS lapping,
> ...


In my experimentation with the Ryzen R5 3600X I had the following result running Prime95 with small FFTs for over three hours using the Noctua NH-U12A air cooler:






Running CineBench at 4.225 GHz:





The CineBench result was:







moproblems99 said:


> I think most of the friction stemmed from the fact no one understood your definition definitive.  Certainly not what I thought it was but then, again, I don't feel like coughing up the low-thread performance for just a little bit more all-core.  But to their own.


The other thing is that English (although I am a native speaker of it) is my second language, German being my first.

In German we use the word "Definitiv" to mean "without ambiguity" or "straightforward".

Which is another reason why that word naturally occurred to me when I was creating a title for the thread.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 21, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> I think most of the friction stemmed from the fact no one understood your definition definitive.  Certainly not what I thought it was but then, again, I don't feel like coughing up the low-thread performance for just a little bit more all-core.  But to their own.



Not to put too fine a point on it, but I really am getting sick and tired of the "Single Core Performance" bullshit.

When does your system ever run on a single core outside of artificially constraining CineBench R20 or some other benchmark to one core?

As soon as you get more cores involved the performance of the Ryzen 3rd Gen CPUs tanks.

Ryzen 3000 CPUs will boost when there is fuck all to do, and you know, that's really when I would want my CPU to boost to the maximum, when it is doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Have you taken a look at how much voltage and wattage is punted into the CPU when it is doing a single core workload?

The first time I saw it, I thought to myself, "You have to be fucking kidding me".

Because of the Tech Media and Tech YouTubers - professional shills in other words - bringing up this bogus long outdated measurement metric that people like you parrot it as if it is supposed to have any meaning. It is an Intel talking point; however, that being said, when you run something like CineBench R20 all core with a Ryzen 3rd Gen CPU the clockspeed of the individual cores goes down, even though a disproportionate amount of voltage is being applied.

But let's just see what "Single Core advantage" we actually get when I run the system constrained to say two cores (with SMT Off) and run CineBench R20 with the single core benchmark - it should then be able to boost gangbusters don't you think?





WOW I am getting a clockspeed of 4.725 MHz on Core 0 (which you can see from the voltage it is drawing is doing fuck all) and Core 1 did manage a maximum of 4.7 GHz, but is at the time the snapshot was taken running at 3.4 GHz, but using 1.425 volts to get there.

At 4.7 GHz the CineBench single core Benchmark must have been phenomenal:





Yeah, not so much.

So what about two Cores with four Threads (i.e. two Cores with SMT On):





Still hitting that magical 4.725 GHz maximum clockspeed on on of the Cores and 4.675 on the other. This time you can see that both Cores are doing something and managing a dizzying 3.4 GHz at 1.44 Volts - what a staggering return on investment.

But surely this time, with CineBench R20 getting a clear shot at one Core on its single Core benchmark with all MUST be killing it right?





Yeah, still a bit underwhelming for 4.725 GHz dontcha think?

But surely if we run the system with all Cores and Threads enabled the results will make me and my guide look foolish:





Well the average voltage has certainly gone up and the Cores were still hitting 4.5 GHz so this score has to be stellar:





Are you impressed? I certainly am not.

All the above tests were conducted with the system at stock, with no input from Ryzen Master whatsoever.

So now we will see how much I lose on the single core performance compared to what I gain on the all core performance if I configure the system my way, but first the voltages:





The voltages are looking a hell of a lot healthier, but at only 4.3 GHz maximum the CineBench R20 and especially - according to you - the single Core score must be abysmal. Let's just see shall we?





*WHAT A CATASTROPHE!! I LOST 2.53% ON SINGLE CORE PERFORMANCE, NOTHING CAN MAKE UP FOR THAT!!!*

That can barely be ameliorated by the fact that the all Core result is 12.35% higher.

I am obviously a delusional person and need to find the nearest bottle of bleach to drink to rid humanity of my foolishness.

You will be want to say, "Surely you can't be satisfied with that?".

To which I reply, "You are correct, and stop calling me Shirley".

I don't really need the 32 Threads except when I am editing a video for instance, for games and most other things 32 Threads are either of no use, or can be detrimental. So why not run the CPU with SMT Off as a straight 16 Core CPU?

First let's look at the voltages and the clockspeeds





I upgraded to the newest version of HWInfo since doing the previous screenshots and it isn't doing a great job of reading the voltages not that it was doing a brilliant job before where you see a maximum of 1.306 as a maximum where the maximum was set for 1.3 (as it was this time as well).

But let's get to the meat and potatoes, the benchmark result:





The advantage, aside from the insignificance of the single core score, is that it runs a lot cooler in this mode.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 21, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> Not to put too fine a point on it, but I really am getting sick and tired of the "Single Core Performance" bullshit.



So single thread is a little bit a misnomer.  You'll see later on I relabeled it as low thread.  3900x and 3950x spend a lot of time in low thread.  That is why low thread is important.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 21, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> So single thread is a little bit a misnomer.  You'll see later on I relabeled it as low thread.  3900x and 3950x spend a lot of time in low thread.  That is why low thread is important.


Which is also the reason why I run my 3950X mostly with SMT disabled as a straight 16 Core 16 Thread CPU.

The thing is that when I saw "single Core (Thread) performance" I was pretty sure that you could not be stupid enough to believe that and that you must be trying to wind me up.

The thing is that I have put a lot of thought and a lot of work into my new rig and how it is configured.

The CPU (and the rest of the system) is rewarding me for my efforts and I decided to share my experience with people; which the other "Subscribe", "Donate to my PayPal", "Join my Patreon", "Bitch about Ad revenue", motherloving lazy (or stupid) bastards who get their shit for free on top of anything else have not seen fit to do.

I am not counting the likes of Buildzoid, Der8auer or Gamers Nexus to that crowd. Their focus is more on extreme overclocking and my methodology would probably be unworkable for them, they also work hard at what they do, and don't indulge in "Access Journalism" or outright Shilling the way that the aforementioned above do.

For instance a site called "Hardware Unboxed" got a 3900X and managed to fry it when they put it in an unnamed motherboard (I am going to bet on ASUS) and yet this didn't prompt them to look more closely.

All they did make it so that this didn't happen in future - the immediate frying that is - but they have done nothing with regard to looking into the degradation of the 3rd Gen chips they have over time.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 21, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> Which is also the reason why I run my 3950X mostly with SMT disabled as a straight 16 Core 16 Thread CPU.
> 
> The thing is that when I saw "single core (Thread) performance" I was pretty sure that you could not be stupid enough to believe that and that you must be trying to wind me up.
> 
> ...



To each their own.  I'm not particularly worried about the high voltage.  Only time will tell.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 21, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> To each their own.  I'm not particularly worried about the high voltage.  Only time will tell.


$750 is a lot of money to just piss away.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 21, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> $750 is a lot of money to just piss away.



You are assuming there is actually something wrong.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 21, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> You are assuming there is actually something wrong.


I don't make assumptions.

I do however tend to err on the side of caution, if I err at all.

I did a lot of reading about the 7nm Node before AMD brought out the 3rd Gen, and I also know AMD's track record with voltage and clockspeed - GCN comes to mind for instance.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 21, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> I don't make assumptions.
> 
> I do however tend to err on the side of caution, if I err at all.
> 
> I did a lot of reading about the 7nm Node before AMD brought out the 3rd Gen, and I also know AMD's track record with voltage and clockspeed - GCN comes to mind for instance.



I apologize if my previous comments in the beginning of the thread came off as condescending as they weren't meant to be.  I am glad you found a way that works you.  Different strokes for different folks.  I am mostly fine letting Ryzen do its thing.  When I get more time to really play around with it, I may.  If I could get a constant 4.5+ all-core, I would be tempted to try.


----------



## lorry (Mar 21, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> I apologize if my previous comments in the beginning of the thread came off as condescending as they weren't meant to be.  I am glad you found a way that works you.  Different strokes for different folks.  I am mostly fine letting Ryzen do its thing.  When I get more time to really play around with it, I may.  If I could get a constant 4.5+ all-core, I would be tempted to try.



Who wouldn't though


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 22, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> I apologize if my previous comments in the beginning of the thread came off as condescending as they weren't meant to be.  I am glad you found a way that works you.  Different strokes for different folks.  I am mostly fine letting Ryzen do its thing.  When I get more time to really play around with it, I may.  If I could get a constant 4.5+ all-core, I would be tempted to try.


I won't deny that the way I achieve my goal is a bit of a kludge - it could be worse though - and an improvement would be if Ryzen Master would implement a feature to automatically load the last used profile on the next boot.

Truth be told I was a bit surprised at the hostility that confronted me here, because from what I have seen there has been *no* suggestion or advice that I have been able to find that kills as many birds with one stone for me, and others, as the one I developed for myself.

Buildzoid's videos did set me off a bit. When watching them I was thinking, "That's all well and good, but you are just bunging a band-aid on a gaping wound".

What I find most unfair about the whole situation is that someone looking for advice on how to configure their systems are getting all kinds of shit told to them, and if they are inexperienced they will be in a world of pain if someone who sees advice for one motherboard manufacturer and tries to apply that advice to a motherboard from another manufacturer.

You have the situation, where BIOS options (for instance with ASRock) don't even work if you set them.

The other thing is that monitoring software just doesn't work properly when some motherboard options - particularly voltage options - are set in the BIOS.

So the guide I wrote is not a solution looking for a problem, the problem is real and it exists.

I help a lot of people who are building their own systems (because they don't have a lot of money) but don't have much of a clue even about that - and that's pretty much the easiest part to do.

You and I can talk about the LLC, but there are many more people out there who, when I say, "Bung the Vcore LLC and SOC LLC onto the third highest value", they ask, "Where?" and I will answer "Under the Tweaker Option in the BIOS" and they ask, "What's a BIOS? Is that something I have to plug into the computer? Because I didn't get one of them with the computer".

I won't deny there have been a number of times where I have felt myself losing the will to live in these kind of discussions.

I talked to one guy yesterday from Greece who contacted me on a Discord Server after someone told him about me, and he has built a 3900X system but it kept shutting down. I can't remember exactly what he was using it for (he told me, but I wasn't interested or listening), but it was something that made use of the threads.

The thing is that he bought the CPU and a high quality motherboard (ASUS X570 Crosshair VIII Hero WiFi) and wanted to make do with the stock cooler until he could afford something better. He had run the gauntlet of getting advice from other people and watching YouTube videos and was both somewhat frantic as well as being confused, disillusioned and feeling pretty bad.

Turns out that his CPU was overheating using the APP and shutting down - never mind throttling.

So I walked him through what I basically wrote in the original post, but luckily I had talked to someone a few days ago with an ASUS board and to be able to make changes on the fly to a profile without needing to reboot, you have to set the DOCP (which gives me problems when I set XMP on my GigaByte motherboard, so the exact opposite situation).

Anyway, after walking him through it, with the application running he is hitting 73-75 °C.

I couldn't tweak it to the max (I think we got it to 4.225 GHz all core), but with a profile set for turning SMT Off he can run games at 4.375 GHz (which is all his system would run stable at). The reason for this I suspect is that although he got the same RAM from G.Skill (4x8 GB in two different 2x8 GB packs) one of the sets of RAM had Hynix chips and the other Samsung. I find that a really shitty move by G.Skill.

It was a lot of work and took me about four or so hours on voice to walk him through it and of course test it.


----------



## lorry (Mar 22, 2020)

thing is that there are so many 'experts' out there and so many new people with high spec setups, I'm one myself, although I do have old knowledge. The cost of building a quite high end setup has come down a fair bit in recent years and from my recent experience the building side of it is pretty much Lego skillset these days.

On a side note, you can be a Great, even The best player in the world at something, but a crappy teacher. it's not as easy the other way around though.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 23, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> I won't deny that the way I achieve my goal is a bit of a kludge - it could be worse though



No denying that, there are likely still worse ways.  I still think you have something else going on keeping things from working the way you expect.  But I am with you on just getting things working and moving on at times.



Michael Nager said:


> Truth be told I was a bit surprised at the hostility that confronted me here, because from what I have seen there has been *no* suggestion or advice that I have been able to find that kills as many birds with one stone for me, and others, as the one I developed for myself.



Well, I think a lot of it was mostly a misunderstanding but there are a lot of "experts" here and don't like to except there are alternate ways of doing things.



Michael Nager said:


> Buildzoid's videos did set me off a bit. When watching them I was thinking, "That's all well and good, but you are just bunging a band-aid on a gaping wound".



I think that is how a lot of people feel about your method.  That said, AMD made Ryzen master for some reason - either because board partners make shitty UEFIs or Ryzen is more finicky than it needs to be.



Michael Nager said:


> What I find most unfair about the whole situation is that someone looking for advice on how to configure their systems are getting all kinds of shit told to them, and if they are inexperienced they will be in a world of pain if someone who sees advice for one motherboard manufacturer and tries to apply that advice to a motherboard from another manufacturer.



Well, there isn't much that can be done about that.  At some point, a user just has to understand what they are dealing with or they will just get what they get from the factory.  In that sense, Ryzen is not a bad choice as you get pretty much what you are gonna get from the factory (Let's pretend these last five pages of discussion didn't occur).



Michael Nager said:


> You have the situation, where BIOS options (for instance with ASRock) don't even work if you set them.



Honestly, I can't say I have experienced that.  With the exception for RAM settings that must be done through the tweaker section.  Which sucks because the other areas are laid out better than the tweaker secion.


----------



## RealNeil (Mar 24, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> I am mostly fine letting Ryzen do its thing.


I'll probably do the same with my 3800X setup once I build it. If it works, don't fix it.

It's what I'm doing with my i9-9900K machine and it's doing fine.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 24, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> Honestly, I can't say I have experienced that.  With the exception for RAM settings that must be done through the tweaker section.  Which sucks because the other areas are laid out better than the tweaker secion.



To your points:



> No denying that, there are likely still worse ways.  I still think you have something else going on keeping things from working the way you expect.  But I am with you on just getting things working and moving on at times.





> I think that is how a lot of people feel about your method.  That said, AMD made Ryzen master for some reason - either because board partners make shitty UEFIs or Ryzen is more finicky than it needs to be.



I think we can kill two birds with one stone here.

The conclusion that I came to - and that was my initial breakthough in cracking my problems - was to only use what we would classically consider to be the BIOS to configure the motherboard, and nothing else. To configure the CPU and RAM I used the *real *BIOS, namely the AGESA portion contained in "AMD CBS" and "AMD Overclocking"  I switched to Ryzen Master, which is a lot more convenient for configuring the RAM because to do it manually in the "AMD Overclocking" and then changing the RAM timings under "DDR and Infinity Fabric Frequency/Timings" you have to enter the values in hexadecimal.

"Load the XMP profile", I hear you say, "Nothing could be simpler than that", I hear you say.

Yeah, about that, if I load the XMP profile, with a clean BIOS then the first thing I get are the three beeps (I am old-school and although motherboard manufacturers no longer see fit to include a little speaker, I have one installed, because fuck little LEDs or BIOS code displays, just hearing the series of beeps allows me to pinpoint the source of problems a shit-ton easier) that tell me there is a RAM problem.

This is followed by a number of sometimes hangs, sometimes a clean series of reboots, aka "RAM Training" until the system boots into the OS. So it seems to me that the SPD of the RAM is read by the BIOS (which I call "GigaByte Master") and then that attempts to update the real BIOS, namely the AGESA, and there is a negotiation back and forth.

Sometimes it just results in the system shitting itself and giving me the "Cleared CMOS" message and I have to go in and load the XMP profile again - rinse and repeat the procedure outlined in the previous paragraph.

What is certain, at least with the motherboards I have worked with, that setting the XMP profile *IS NOT* what configures the RAM, but rather it is the negotiation between setting the XMP profile in the BIOS and then what the RAM timing portion of AGESA agrees with is important.

For instance, if I set XMP and then go through the "RAM Training" I get a value for tRFC of 648 although the XMP profile of my RAM states 312. A number of other timings are worsened.

The thing is though, if I copy out the SPD values displayed by loading the XMP profile, then turn XMP off again, load Windows and put the SPD values into Ryzen Master, it accepts and applies the values with no problems whatsoever.

My way of doing it is admittedly kludgy, but it does have one thing going for it, *IT WORKS!*

For any benchmark you care to name, Buildzoid, in a non-exotic cooling scenario (LN2), will not be able to match any score I can achieve given his methodology for overclocking his 3950X (aside from a single core benchmark, which is essentially meaningless and only being clung to by Intel because they have nothing else) and that I can not only beat his scores easily, but beat them with less voltage and lower temperature.

There are a lot of steps I have taken along the way and you reminded me of the time I spent months ago trying to work out what the hell was happening with regard to the RAM problems I was having.

I am not saying this to pat myself on the back, and if anyone can show me a better way of achieving my goals, I will abandon my methodology in a heartbeat. I am not wedded to it. But looking around, there is nothing, a gaping vacuum.



> Well, I think a lot of it was mostly a misunderstanding but there are a lot of "experts" here and don't like to except there are alternate ways of doing things.



Back in the mid 1990's I set up a network for one of the biggest porn producers in Germany. After getting it all set up, and writing a database solution for her, because the one she had was a total rip-off, I was invited to a party she was giving.

And no, it was a party just like any other, not what you are thinking.

At the party she introduced me to people as, "My computer expert", and this made me very uncomfortable, and I explained to those people that I was not then nor could I ever be an "Expert", because just when I start to think I know what the hell I am doing, things change and in many cases my current knowledge is more of a hindrance than  benefit moving into the future and that "Permanent Scholar" was the highest title I could aspire to.

How much do I know about computers?

Well I'd like you to stretch out your arms as far out from your body as you can, now bring your thumb and your forefinger together so that they are as close to touching as you can. Now look at the distance between your thumb and your forefinger, that is how much I think I know, and the distance of the spread of your arms is how much I feel woefully ignorant about in terms of computer knowledge in comparison. That's not really a great answer from having been a techie for 38 years when someone asks me, "What do you know about computers?", and I have to answer, "Essentially fuck all". 



> Well, there isn't much that can be done about that.  At some point, a user just has to understand what they are dealing with or they will just get what they get from the factory.  In that sense, Ryzen is not a bad choice as you get pretty much what you are gonna get from the factory (Let's pretend these last five pages of discussion didn't occur).



That would be all well and good except for the fact that they are leaving a hell of a lot of performance on the table. What worries me more though is that you are left at the mercy of motherboard manufacturers that they have the voltages under control - which they don't in my opinion - and that something you paid good money for will not decline in performance over the short term and be fried over the medium term.

With my original post I went beyond whining and showed how to configure a 3rd Gen Ryzen and be within specs to get a lot more performance for your money than you otherwise would have.

TANSTAAFL applies though, and the kludginess of my solution is a bit of a downside - which AMD could go a long way to remedying if they decided to expand their configuration software with some options. But who am I kidding, it's AMD, *THAT'S* never going to happen. 



RealNeil said:


> I'll probably do the same with my 3800X setup once I build it. If it works, don't fix it.
> 
> It's what I'm doing with my i9-9900K machine and it's doing fine.


If you try to configure your 3rd Gen Ryzen as if it were an Intel CPU then you will be in a World of Pain, with a good chance of frying your CPU.


----------



## RealNeil (Mar 24, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> If you try to configure your 3rd Gen Ryzen as if it were an Intel CPU then you will be in a World of Pain, with a good chance of frying your CPU.



I'm not into pain anymore. 

I just sold my i7-8700K system to my next-door neighbor. 
That one was tweaked in many ways. 
I de-lidded it and had very low temps with it. All cores were running at 4.972GHz.
I had SLI GTX-1080-FE GPUs in it and 32GB of DDR4-3200 MHz. RAM installed.
It seemed like I was always looking for a way to tweak it to get a faster benchmark score out of it.

Then, someone sold me an i9-9900k CPU and board. 
I knew that it was a PITA to de-lid this one, so I got a good 280mm AIO for it.
I got 32GB of 4133MHz. RAM for it. 
I got two 1TB Crucial Gumstick drives for it to run in a RAID configuration.
For DATA, there is a pair of 5TB Toshiba X-300 SATA drives in RAID configuration.

I put it all together in a high-airflow chassis with five 140mm Cougar Vortex fans. They move a shit-ton of air.
The SLI GTX-1080-FE GPUs moved over to this PC.
I went into the BIOS (ASUS ROG Strix Z-390-E Gaming) and set the RAID up. I set the Intel XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) to XMP-one.

I was ready,
Let the tweaking begin!
I started trying to OC the CPU. 
No Joy.
no matter what I did to tweak the CPU, it failed to boot. After a few days of screwing around with it, I set the XMP-1 memory profile and left the CPU on stock settings.
It booted and ran fine. It also scored significantly higher in benches than the 8700K ever did. 
I looked and found that it was boosting to over 5GHz. speeds. (not sure how many cores though)

Thinking about it, I decided to just leave it alone to do its own thing. It works, and I'm happy with it.

I'll probably set the Ryzen box up to do its own thing at first and see how it does.
I don't want to constantly massage my PS anymore. I want to just do some gaming with them.


----------



## Fry178 (Mar 24, 2020)

@mtcn77
for anyone that put more than one machine together and can read a manual,
should not have any probs using LM.
even when i didnt care to do more than apply it (not removing it after couple of month and replacing it a few times to "saturate" block/HS),
twisting the block removed it without trouble from the cpu after being installed for +1y.
and using it for now +6y, showed me the "gap" between a quality (cooler) base and the cpu HS is a lot less
than what i would need from even the thinnest coat of ("normal") TP i could apply.

and it was easier to cover all of the HS evenly, when a (greasy/oily) TP was previously installed,
which always gives me a hard time applying new/different  TP.


@Michael Nager
yet here i am, running aorus ultra with xmp loaded in bios, even managed to lower the timings from stock 18-22-22-42
(to 16-19-19-36/1, haven't tried more) at the same V, and on "crappy" micron E die.
no ram retraining happening.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 24, 2020)

RealNeil said:


> I'm not into pain anymore.
> 
> I just sold my i7-8700K system to my next-door neighbor.
> That one was tweaked in many ways.
> ...


The 3950X system I have is still what I consider to be my experimental system. I might go live with it and use it as my main system on my birthday next month.

Currently my main machine is an i7-4790K, which I have also delidded and used Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut liquid metal to replace the rubber that Intel laughingly calls TIM. It has been running with a mild overclock of 4.4 GHz on all cores since I first got it and in total the system has been up and running for more than 1,750 days 24/7 (4.8 years).

A couple of years ago there wasn't anything to spend my money on in the way of upgrading to a new system, so I decided to give the 4790K a new home.





Delidding made a lot of difference and here are the temps running AIDA Extreme on it:





The thing is that if you were sold an i9-9900K after Intel brought out the i9-9900KS then you're shit out of luck trying to OC it. The i9-9900KS was essentially Intel binning out the chips which would normally have been an i9-9900K that could be overclocked to 5 GHz (rumour has it that the "KS" in the CPU name stands for "Keep Spending").

If you do get a Ryzen system and keep your RAM then I would strongly suggest that you downclock the RAM to 3733 otherwise the Infinity Fabric will run at half of of what it should. At 3733 the Infinity Fabric would run at 1867 MHz; however above that the Infinity Fabric runs at Data Rate/2 which means that at 4133 your Infinity Fabric would run at 1033 MHz



Fry178 said:


> @mtcn77
> for anyone that put more than one machine together and can read a manual,
> should not have any probs using LM.
> even when i didnt care to do more than apply it (not removing it after couple of month and replacing it a few times to "saturate" block/HS),
> ...


Except of course that the i9-9900K is soldered.

That makes the prospect of delidding it not so attractive and as Der8auer has shown, the results even after delidding and lapping the CPU die are really not worth it.

I am running the Team Group Edition 3600 16-16-16-36 OC'd to 3733 with the same primary timings.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 24, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> If you do get a Ryzen system and keep your RAM then I would strongly suggest that you downclock the RAM to 3733 otherwise the Infinity Fabric will run at half of of what it should. At 3733 the Infinity Fabric would run at 1867 MHz; however above that the Infinity Fabric runs at Data Rate/2 which means that at 4133 your Infinity Fabric would run at 1033 MHz



Not true.  Many of us can and do run 3800 (or 1900 1:1).  But it is not guaranteed.


----------



## Zach_01 (Mar 24, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> Not true.  Many of us can and do run 3800 (or 1900 1:1).  But it is not guaranteed.


I can run 1900 1:1:1, but its not 100% stable. Its like 95+%...


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 24, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> Not true.  Many of us can and do run 3800 (or 1900 1:1).  But it is not guaranteed.


You will only be able to run the Infinity Fabric at 1900 with a Ryzen CPU that is a silicon lottery winner.

It is VERY rare.

Even at that, running it and being able to run it stably are also two very different things.

I thought you were going to bring up that he could run the Infinity Fabric async with the RAM, but the big downside of that is the big latency penalty that incurs which is not worth it for 4133 RAM.



Zach_01 said:


> I can run 1900 1:1:1, but its not 100% stable. Its like 95+%...


I have never tried running the IF at 1900 and my RAM at 3800.

I am happy that it is rock solid at 3733 with 16-16-16-16-32 timings and a Command Rate of 1T with the IF running at 1867 1:1:1

I am pretty sure it wouldn't be stable and that the only way of even trying to make it stable would involve me having to loosen up the timings and I have no intention of going to CL18 and/or going to 2T.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 25, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> It is VERY rare.



I wouldn't call it very rare.  I put it somewhere between 40% to 60%.  My 3700x will do nothing higher than 1600.  A friend's 3900x will not go higher than 1600.  Plenty of people here have no problem.



Michael Nager said:


> I am pretty sure it wouldn't be stable and that the only way of even trying to make it stable would involve me having to loosen up the timings and I have no intention of going to CL18 and/or going to 2T.



No idea what yours will or will not do but I didn't need to loosen timings or move to 1t.

Edit: I have some other ram with Samsung A-Die I need to try as well.


----------



## RealNeil (Mar 25, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> The thing is that if you were sold an i9-9900K after Intel brought out the i9-9900KS then you're shit out of luck trying to OC it. The i9-9900KS was essentially Intel binning out the chips which would normally have been an i9-9900K that could be overclocked to 5 GHz



My 9900K is one of the first batch ever sold. I bought it for jack-shit nothing from a friend that had it sitting on his shelf for months. After I bought it, it sat on my shelf for a lot longer.
I only recently built the system. Not trying to OC it anymore. It boosts to over 5GHz. on its own and that's that.




Michael Nager said:


> If you do get a Ryzen system and keep your RAM then I would strongly suggest that you downclock the RAM to 3733 otherwise the Infinity Fabric will run at half of of what it should. At 3733 the Infinity Fabric would run at 1867 MHz; however above that the Infinity Fabric runs at Data Rate/2 which means that at 4133 your Infinity Fabric would run at 1033 MHz



I already own the Ryzen 3800X CPU, an ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero Mainboard, and 32GB of GSKill RipJaws-V DDR4-3600MHz. RAM. (two 16GB sticks) I plan to run it at stock speeds.
So, according to your statements, my Infinity fabric should run at 1800MHz. But if it doesn't, I'll blow my nose with it.
I have two Vega-64 GPUs for this box, but I may sell them for a pair of 5700XT cards.


----------



## pcwolf (Mar 25, 2020)

@Michael Nager I want to thank you for your musings in post #123 regarding the relationships between AGESA - XMP - SPD and DRAM training. For all the back-and-forth of this thread, that post gave me the most illuminating ideas to understand what the devil is going on between the motherboard and timings.  

I have decided upon and been cursed with wrestling the ASRock X470 Taichi into submission. Not there yet, but your ideas and approach to things helps me in my understanding of the variety of tech factors pulling things back and forth. The Thaiphoon readouts of timings on my DRAM kit are also much lower than my successful experience so far in dialing them in with traditional overclocking procedures. So ... I appreciate your different approach, and your different experience as you relate it to us.

One of these days, I will go back to the start of this thread, follow your recommendations, and see what I will see.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 25, 2020)

RealNeil said:


> I already own the Ryzen 3800X CPU, an ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero Mainboard, and 32GB of GSKill RipJaws-V DDR4-3600MHz. RAM. (two 16GB sticks) I plan to run it at stock speeds.
> So, according to your statements, my Infinity fabric should run at 1800MHz. But if it doesn't, I'll blow my nose with it.
> I have two Vega-64 GPUs for this box, but I may sell them for a pair of 5700XT cards.


Up to 3600 if the FCLK is set to auto, then it should run at 1800.

It is only when you go above 3600 that you need to go in and set the FCLK manually.


----------



## pcwolf (Mar 25, 2020)

I'm successful now at 3733Mhz  16-16-16-31 and 1867::1867 CR1
3800 is a No Go


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 26, 2020)

pcwolf said:


> I'm successful now at 3733Mhz  16-16-16-31 and 1867::1867 CR1
> 3800 is a No Go


If that is stable then be very happy, you have a silicon lottery winner. 

Here are the timings as far as I have tightened them.

I have posted two pictures, one is how the timings are applied, the other is the profile and the timings I had to leave on auto to preven Ryzen Master from wanting to reboot every time I made any kind of changes:

1) The timings applied to my RAM:

As you can see I am running the 3950X with SMT turned off, this not only gives me the superior compute power of Cores over Threads (the compute power of a thread is about 65% of a Core) but also to punt on 100 MHz per core above and beyond what is stable running the CPU with SMT On (4.3 GHz).





And now the timings as they have been applied to the AGESA portion of the BIOS:





Now of course YMMV but it might help.

If you had told me that you were wanting to tighten up your timings I would have posted this earlier as an aid for you and I apologise for not doing so.

I just noticed I had set the Peak Vcore voltage to 1.30626 (somebody had asked me about the different voltages and I went through them and when going back down I didn't go all the way back to 1.3 Volts, that's sorted now).


----------



## pcwolf (Mar 26, 2020)

No apology needed.  It is only through the generosity of yourself and other TPU posters that I have gotten as far as I have!


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 26, 2020)

I said that I would get back to you guys after I had installed the Der8auer kit described in the following video:










The temps are lower, it is not miraculous, but running CineBench it is now able to punt in 160 Watts at a lower temp, it has to be said though that this is with a *FRESH* application of Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut and my experience has been, that it takes a bit of time and the system running for a week or so for the temps to go down another two to three degrees.

So I am very happy with it.

It is a bit finicky to install, but it is pretty straightforward.

Is it worth it?

Yes.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 26, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> I said that I would get back to you guys after I had installed the Der8auer kit described in the following video:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I can't believe that's a thing in a way.

I mean what an opportunity for differentiation missed by aio Devs(this is my main point for clarity)

It's too dear and wouldn't work in any way for me, I am happy making my own mounts if required for cheaper.
But I went full coverage mobo block so no use here.

I would do something similar if it would help though.


----------



## lorry (Mar 26, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> I said that I would get back to you guys after I had installed the Der8auer kit described in the following video:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




You say that the temps Are lower, but not miraculous. But you do not go into specifics?
That sounds a bit odd mate, to me if I was saying that it worked, I would be saying that it has dropped my temps by xc degrees


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 26, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> I can't believe that's a thing in a way.
> 
> I mean what an opportunity for differentiation missed by aio Devs(this is my main point for clarity)
> 
> ...


Given the problems with my back, I cannot guarantee that I will always be in a condition to do the maintenance on the loop, which is why I stick with an AIO.

I have had two spine operations and have spinal arthritis.



lorry said:


> You say that the temps Are lower, but not miraculous. But you do not go into specifics?
> That sounds a bit odd mate, to me if I was saying that it worked, I would be saying that it has dropped my temps by xc degrees


I did say that I had just applied a fresh application of TIM, even at that, the temps are around two degrees or so lower than the temps were previously where the TIM had been applied for enough time to have reached a homeostasis.

I have had a lot of experience with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut and it takes about a week or so of "pumping" for the TIM to be at its maximum efficacy.

So the time to ask me about specific temps is in about a week or so time when that has happened.

This is why I have not given specifics as of this time.

If it goes the way it normally does, then the maximum temps should be around four and a half to five degrees Celsius lower than they were.

So there is nothing "a bit odd mate" about what I wrote.

I gave my initial impression, which is positive, and my final impression will have to wait for a week or so.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 26, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> Given the problems with my back, I cannot guarantee that I will always be in a condition to do the maintenance on the loop, which is why I stick with an AIO.
> 
> I have had two spine operations and have spinal arthritis.
> 
> ...


You have skills though bro, even when I directly note my actual point in my post you go tangential.

See my post again.

Wasn't against others doing, using it or you.

Pondering why aio Devs don't do this is primarily it.


----------



## lorry (Mar 26, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> Given the problems with my back, I cannot guarantee that I will always be in a condition to do the maintenance on the loop, which is why I stick with an AIO.
> 
> I have had two spine operations and have spinal arthritis.
> 
> ...



Erm no you said


Michael Nager said:


> system running for a week or so for the temps to go down another two to three degrees.



not that they had gone down 2 degrees or so. two totally different things


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 26, 2020)

lorry said:


> Erm no you said
> 
> 
> not that they had gone down 2 degrees or so. two totally different things


If the temps with the fresh paste had been as high as they were with the bedded in paste then I would have been happy enough.

That the temps are a bit lower makes me happy, because I know from experience that those temps will go down a bit more.

The thing is though, that I won't be able to say anything definitive about temps for about another week.

I'm sorry about being unclear in the original post - that was my bad.


----------



## lorry (Mar 26, 2020)

I'm surprised that it made that much of a difference, doesn't you block completely cover the IHS then?


----------



## Zach_01 (Mar 26, 2020)

I believe (not know for sure) that external coverage is not the only definitive aspect of blocks. Blocks have a center (or core) of cooling, and must be placed upon the hottest area of the chip. For most CPUs its right on the center but for ZEN2 its not.
Any block that is not Ryzen3000 specific designed, missing and not cooling the hottest spot/area of ZEN2 package as it should. Then you relay on IHS and TIM to spread heat sideways.


----------



## lorry (Mar 26, 2020)

Zach_01 said:


> I believe (not know for sure) that external coverage is not the only definitive aspect of blocks. Blocks have a center (or core) of cooling, and must be placed upon the hottest area of the chip. For most CPUs its right on the center but for ZEN2 its not.
> Any block that is not Ryzen3000 specific designed, missing and not cooling the hottest spot/area of ZEN2 package as it should. Then you relay on IHS and TIM to spread heat sideways.



yeah, I just don't remember what block he is using though


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 27, 2020)

lorry said:


> I'm surprised that it made that much of a difference, doesn't you block completely cover the IHS then?


The problem is that all waterblocks for AIOs are designed for the hotspot to be in the middle of the PCB, and above all for there to only be one hotspot.

In the Ryzen 3rd Gen CPUs this design philosophy has been thrown out the window and the hotspot(s) are off centre, by a relatively large margin.

The business end of the cold-plate of a waterblock is where the heat exchanging fins are that the water passes through. For a single Chiplet CPU such as the 3600, 3600X, 3700X and 3800X less than 25% of that business end covers the hotspot which is the Chiplet.

For this reason, for the abovementioned CPUs you are better off getting a good air cooler (I have used the Noctua NH-U12A) to cool them because 50% of the cooling potential will be applied to that single hotspot.

For dual Chiplet CPUs such as the 3900X and the 3950X under load, an air cooler reaches its limits, as I know from experience.

For those same dual Chiplet CPUs the business end of the cold-plate of the waterblock of an AIO has less than 50% of its cooling capacity being applied to the hotspots and what is worse, the majority of the finned area of the cold-plate is essentially just twiddling its thumbs.

Another thing to consider is that for every 10°C of temperature, 4% more energy needs to be applied to the CPU to retain the performance.

For example, if, at 65 °C the CPU needs 150 Watts to achieve a performance level then, to achieve the same performance level at 75 °C you would need to apply 156 Watts, going from 75 °C to 85 °C would require 162.24 Watts to achieve the performance level you would have at 150 Watts at 65 °C.

Thus the worse the cooling solution is, the more the problem of heat, and heat generation becomes exacerbated and compounded.

What the kit from Der8auer does that it shifts the waterblock so that more of the fin area of the cold-plate can be brought to bear on the hotspots and can transfer more heat to the circulating liquid.

I am using the AlphaCool Eisbaer 360 AIO cooler.


----------



## lorry (Mar 27, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> The problem is that all waterblocks for AIOs are designed for the hotspot to be in the middle of the PCB, and above all for there to only be one hotspot.
> 
> In the Ryzen 3rd Gen CPUs this design philosophy has been thrown out the window and the hotspot(s) are off centre, by a relatively large margin.
> 
> ...



I have both (Alphacool eisbaer 360 and zde8sur) but yet to use either. 
Eventually I will be usinthe AlphaCool r45 420 and the Optimus foundation block


----------



## BrainMuncher (Mar 27, 2020)

Well you guys were right about the offset voltage being useless, what a shame, I thought that was such a good way of doing things. You could just reclaim back any extra headroom of your individual chip while keeping all other behaviors intact and without any risk. And if in any scenario you were power limited it would net you some extra performance from higher boosts.

So I tried out the whole PBO thing and that was also a bit pointless for me, seems like a feature for extreme overclockers. All it does is let the chip use more power but since the stock voltages are so astronomically high it doesn't help you because you end up thermally limited instead. And the chip just doesn't boost much higher that normal, I saw 4.225 for like one microsecond instead of the normal 4.2, not very useful, just extra heat, the opposite of what I want.

My mobo had two extra methods for setting the voltage under "AMD overclocking" - a second override, and a "max voltage offset".





Not exactly sure how this works but it does result in reduced performance. It seems to behave differently to the regular offset voltage setting, but I didn't bother to study it in depth since it doesn't do what I want. I'd also like to know what the difference between the regular voltage override and the "AMD overclocking" voltage override is. I can't really find any explanation.

What I would really want is some way to adjust the built in voltage/frequency curve, basically a working offset voltage setting. But it just refuses to deviate from the stock curve.

Anyway after a little experimentation I settled on a manual setting of 4.1GHz @ 1.25V. 1.225V was not stable. My goal was stock performance with lower volts/power/heat. Single core is actually the same as stock because even though it boosts to 4.2 at stock (and uses 1.475V to get there), I guess it doesn't stay there long enough to make a difference. All-core performance is slightly better than stock, at stock in sane all-core workloads like x264 it would sit at around 3950MHz at about 1.35V. But the temperatures are much lower, especially at idle and in light workloads, but all core temps are 7-10C lower as well. I was able to set everything in the BIOS without issue, although I did use Ryzen master to arrive at the values.

People say that the stock settings are pushing the silicon to it's limits out of the box, but it is clearly not. There is a huge difference between 1.475V and 1.25V. I'm guessing some of this stuff makes more sense with higher end models because you might actually need such voltages to get to 4.6GHz, but for the 3600 it's really over the top.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 27, 2020)

BrainMuncher said:


> What I would really want is some way to adjust the built in voltage/frequency curve, basically a working offset voltage setting. But it just refuses to deviate from the stock curve.



Use Load line calibration.  I set mine on 5 which reduces the voltage the most.


----------



## BrainMuncher (Mar 27, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> Use Load line calibration.  I set mine on 5 which reduces the voltage the most.


Heh I didn't think of that, get as much droop as possible. Might be worth a try although it will still request 1.475V. Some other day though I've had enough reboots for one day.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 27, 2020)

BrainMuncher said:


> Heh I didn't think of that, get as much droop as possible. Might be worth a try although it will still request 1.475V. Some other day though I've had enough reboots for one day.



Yeah, I know the feeling.  I have some A-Die ram I want to try out but just too lazy right now. I was also surprised by undervolting immediately dropping clocks.  I have gotten my 3900x to about 4.15 all-core by changing LLC and limiting EDC.


----------



## petedread (Mar 31, 2020)

Micheal Nager. I'm at the top of page 3 (just skipped to the end of the thread to post this) and I am going to have to come back and Finnish reading this thread tomorrow because the arguing has drained my enthusiasm. It looks like you have some very interesting information and ideas here, and very little in the way counter-arguments from those that disagree with you. I'm not saying you are right and them wrong because I just don't know. But I certainly don't see any harm in your method and your work and effort here should be appreciated even by those who think this is the wrong way to go about things. Looking forward to reading more and trying this.

Bios defaults. Water will be warm after 12 hours of gaming lol.


 
crome is the only app open.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 31, 2020)

petedread said:


> Micheal Nager. I'm at the top of page 3 (just skipped to the end of the thread to post this) and I am going to have to come back and Finnish reading this thread tomorrow because the arguing has drained my enthusiasm. It looks like you have some very interesting information and ideas here, and very little in the way counter-arguments from those that disagree with you. I'm not saying you are right and them wrong because I just don't know. But I certainly don't see any harm in your method and your work and effort here should be appreciated even by those who think this is the wrong way to go about things. Looking forward to reading more and trying this.
> 
> Bios defaults. Water will be warm after 12 hours of gaming lol.View attachment 149819
> crome is the only app open.


Those who disagree largely gave up due to wall of text replys, wherein legitimate points were dodged, but it's true to say his way is a legitimate way to imitate his efforts, which some have legitimate issues with still.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 31, 2020)

petedread said:


> Micheal Nager. I'm at the top of page 3 (just skipped to the end of the thread to post this) and I am going to have to come back and Finnish reading this thread tomorrow because the arguing has drained my enthusiasm. It looks like you have some very interesting information and ideas here, and very little in the way counter-arguments from those that disagree with you. I'm not saying you are right and them wrong because I just don't know. But I certainly don't see any harm in your method and your work and effort here should be appreciated even by those who think this is the wrong way to go about things. Looking forward to reading more and trying this.
> 
> Bios defaults. Water will be warm after 12 hours of gaming lol.View attachment 149819
> crome is the only app open.


I started off with three videos from Buildzoid where he discussed overclocking (which I don't do) his 3950X.

In the first video Buildzoid is using the same motherboard as the one I have (GigaByte AURUS XTREME) the same CPU (Ryzen 9 3950X) and a kit of RAM with the same specs as mine.

His ambient temperature was a lot colder than mine (from the description of the room his ambient temperature was at least 10 °C colder than mine) and yet, even at that, he was running into thermal issues (which I do not have) in the likes of CineBench R20. Just looking at his BIOS screen and the CPU temp, his temperature is 29 °C and mine is 37 °C so that should tell you all you need to know about the difference in ambient temperature with regard to which Buildzoid and I conducted our respective experiments.

Under those circumstances, and Buildzoid taking his best shot at overclocking his essentially identically specified system he managed to get a high score of 9,554 in CineBench R20.

Without overclocking and just using the steps I outlined in my guide, I achieved a CineBench R20 score of 10,170, at lower temps and lower voltage.

That's the bottom line.

I have been experimenting with 3rd Gen Ryzen CPUs for eight months now, and with my particular 3950X in conjunction with my GigaByte AURUS XTREME motherboard for four months.

One thing about all the replies, is that *NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON *has  demonstrated a better way of doing things to get a better result.

Surely if, as has been suggested by some, I don't know what the eff I am doing, then they would be able to come up with something to show me up for the incompetent dabbler they obviously consider me to be.

But ... nothing, zip, nada, bupkis, zero, zilch, has been forthcoming. For all the verbiage, the sound of crickets has been overwhelming with regard to any tangible refutation.


----------



## lorry (Mar 31, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> I started off with three videos from Buildzoid where he discussed overclocking (which I don't do) his 3950X.



That could be that your cpu is better than his maybe?


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 31, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Those who disagree largely gave up due to wall of text replys, wherein legitimate points were dodged, but it's true to say his way is a legitimate way to imitate his efforts, which some have legitimate issues with still.


If you don't read the replies, then how do you know what was, or was not dodged.

It's not my fault if my keyboard buys ink by the barrel.

If a point has been raised, I have tried my best to address it.

Something like the following from you:



> So we should blindly follow you, over the hundreds of engineers and scientists, interesting.



I do not consider that to be legitimate considering that when I asked you to point me to one, just *ONE* single, solitary, individual scientist/engineer *you* could cite there was no reply.

You employed a rhetorical device and as Herber Wehner once said in the German Bundestag:


> There is, and all in this house have experienced it, an objective power of the factual; there is however no objective fact replacing power of the polemical



I don't consider the lying baldy headed little shit-stain of a Marketdroid Robert Hallock to be an authority on anything; but if you do, then you are welcome to him.

Show me one person, including yourself, who has disagreed, who can come up with a better solution and I will adopt that in a heartbeat.



lorry said:


> That could be that your cpu is better than his maybe?



Over 600 CineBench R20 points better than his best?

I don't think so, not even in my wildest dreams.

Remember I am conducting my experiments at a far higher ambient temperature, with far lower voltage than Buildzoid. There just isn't that amount of variance in silicon which could account for the difference.

Do I think that my methodology is better than his with regard to getting results?

Yes, without a doubt.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 31, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> If you don't read the replies, then how do you know what was, or was not dodged.
> 
> It's not my fault if my keyboard buys ink by the barrel.
> 
> ...


Fine example of a wall of text where you answer what you want, do you want The question again ok answer this, oh and I read all replys.


What about software crashes corrupting your OS, software clocking amplifies the errors possible.
And over time corrupts the OS.

Go on dodge it then.


----------



## Michael Nager (Mar 31, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Fine example of a wall of text where you answer what you want, do you want The question again ok answer this, oh and I read all replys.
> 
> 
> What about software crashes corrupting your OS, software clocking amplifies the errors possible.
> ...


It's Windows 10, what you describe is what everyone else calls "Tuesday". 

You don't need to employ my methodology to achieve something that Micro$haft can do all by itself without the aid of Ryzen Master.

I literally just considered that to be another rhetorical question, that you could not possibly be seriously putting up for consideration.

The *ONLY *time (and I am pretty sure I discussed this in one of my posts in this thread) I had serious problems was when I tried configuring the system in the BIOS with regard to the parameters *THAT WORK FLAWLESSLY* when applied via Ryzen Master.

The result was garbage being displayed on a screen with the same background colour as a BSOD and a reboot (after reverting the settings) ending up in Windows going into repair mode (which restored the functionality). For good measure I decided to repeat that experiment, with the same result. So I gave that up as a bad idea; stupidity of course being, "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result".

That having been said one of my prior corporate positions was Senior German Engineer for Enterprise Disaster-Recovery Tech-Support and my direct supervisor was the Vice-President for Tech-Support at a corporation that was, at that time, in the Top Ten of software companies worldwide.

So backups are a thing. You might want to try it sometime, it's amazing what kind of peace of mind that brings.

In the entire time I have been applying and refining my methodology over the past six months or so (I have been experimenting in total for about eight months), I have suffered no corruption of the OS.

I regularly check the health of the OS and I also know how to configure it so that it is a lot more robust than just leaving it the way M$ thinks it should be.

I have also deployed Windows 10 Enterprise, which prevents many of the shenanigans that the "Raptors from Redmond" are free to inflict on those who use other versions of the Win10.

In other words, I know what the fuck I am doing.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 31, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> It's Windows 10, what you describe is what everyone else calls "Tuesday".
> 
> You don't need to employ my methodology to achieve something that Micro$haft can do all by itself without the aid of Ryzen Master.
> 
> ...


You may know what the f your doing, might have backed up adequately.

But you're fuckin telling others to copy you , without knowing or being able to know their abilities.

Because you have had few issues doesn't mean others mileage wouldn't differ.

As I said , I have tried your method back at Ryzen gen one and before that with a fx8350 , it's not new.

Both times after a time gave odd issues due to corrupting of system software due to crashes, such as the new Cod game produces ATM.

Your limited by your hardwares bios, others are not.

Perspective, there's more than one.

I can easily roll better benchmarks then yours but that proves nought with regards to efficacy or stability of the system.

It's far easier to just blame Ms though eh, defence posture A.


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## Michael Nager (Mar 31, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> You may know what the f your doing, might have backed up adequately.
> 
> But you're fuckin telling others to copy you , without knowing or being able to know their abilities.
> 
> ...


Oh so now we are resorting to goalpost shifting?

Please point out to me *ONE SINGLE TIME* in all the posts I have made on this thread where I have been guilty of, as you say, "Telling others to copy you".

What I have done, is document my methodology and show the results and then answer questions which have arisen.

You are not seriously trying to suggest that configuring a 1st Gen Ryzen and a 3rd Gen Ryzen are the same thing are you? Please tell me you are not.

I just helped someone build and configure a Ryzen 5 1600 (the AF variant) system two days ago on and MSI board, and configuring it was piss easy.

Which part of the word "Experimenting" or the phrase "For eight months" do you not understand?

I have also stated in one of the posts I made on this thread that I have had the experience of helping someone configure his Ryzen 3950X on an ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero WiFi, also that I have directly experimented with a 3600X and a 3950X which I own and also a 3900X which my friend from the US loaned to me (the same guy who has the ASUS board).

I also experimented with the 3600X on a GigaByte X470 Gaming 7 WiFi Rev 1.1 mobo I have for about four months and will be putting the current system away and will be bringing out that motherboard to experiment with the 3900X before sending it back to my friend.

So no, as far as hardware is concerned I am not a one trick pony.

If you can achieve better benchmark results than I, with the same or higher clockspeeds with less voltage at lower temps (taking ambient temperature into account) then I would be happy for you to enlighten me. More than that, I would be genuinely grateful. I am not happy and content with my methodology, it is simply the best one that I have been able to come up with to go with 24/7 when I finally go Gold with the system.

Benchmarks are not an end in themselves, they are simply validation tools to test the robustness and efficacy of a configuration.

You should know that, if you have had any serious experience in configuring systems.

When I wrote:



> It's Windows 10, what you describe is what everyone else calls "Tuesday".



Which part of the smiley at the end was ambiguous?

Have you lived under a rock, and not heard of the serious chaos Micro$haft as created with its various major updates to Win10?

Did I in any way, shape or form, state, imply or even suggest, that Win10 was giving me personally any problems in my endeavours to optimally configure my system? If so, could you point that out to me?

You have obviously not been doing the same thing I have, given that you document a spectacular lack of success which I have not experienced.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 31, 2020)

See a page, bored hours and posts ago.

Are you seriously suggesting that the act of tuning has changed significantly and not just the silicon's operating parameters?.

I am aware we own different kit so, I am not tuning or advising you to tune yours because I wouldn't tune with yours, and because I get paid for that , Even advice is not always free.

8 months , well done, if it is time relative I have that beat Easily.

Cautioning fool's of an actuality they have not experienced yet in life is just what happens in life, deal with it.

And I would much rather leave my pc at 4.125 all cores loaded 24/7 and the GPU doing what it can on helping to find simulation solutions for vaccines then to massage my ego , trying to prove you wrong or help you achieve better clocks on a system doing f all 99% of the time.

I hope that soothes your opinion, mine won't be changing, and you can imply as much as you want I did something wrong/bad to cause corruption, I fucking told you I did something wrong, by doing what You are now doing.


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## RoyZ (Mar 31, 2020)

BrainMuncher said:


> Well you guys were right about the offset voltage being useless, what a shame, I thought that was such a good way of doing things. You could just reclaim back any extra headroom of your individual chip while keeping all other behaviors intact and without any risk. And if in any scenario you were power limited it would net you some extra performance from higher boosts.
> 
> So I tried out the whole PBO thing and that was also a bit pointless for me, seems like a feature for extreme overclockers. All it does is let the chip use more power but since the stock voltages are so astronomically high it doesn't help you because you end up thermally limited instead. And the chip just doesn't boost much higher that normal, I saw 4.225 for like one microsecond instead of the normal 4.2, not very useful, just extra heat, the opposite of what I want.
> 
> ...



Since I'm using the stock cooler on my 3600 I'm getting very high temps in some games, and an average of 3900ghz of core clocks in these hot games.

So couple nights ago I tried something similar to what you tried. Got ryzen master and set all cores to 4.0ghz and voltage to 1.25.

Same game ran like 10 to 15° C colder than on stock, and with great performance.

Only tried that for one night though... cause being a noob on this stuff, got scared after reading people talk about cpu degradation by messing with this stuff.

I really liked what I saw that one night though lol


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## moproblems99 (Mar 31, 2020)

RoyZ said:


> Only tried that for one night though... cause being a noob on this stuff, got scared after reading people talk about cpu degradation by messing with this stuff.



There is no need to be any more scared using this method than any other. If you don't know what you are doing and why you are doing it, then you'll likely run into problems with any method.

The key difference to this method is that you'll need to apply your profile on startup instead of the uefi doing it for you during load.  There is always the possibility of a software issue causing something to go haywire but I doubt it is too much more likely than any other issue.


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## RoyZ (Mar 31, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> There is no need to be any more scared using this method than any other. If you don't know what you are doing and why you are doing it, then you'll likely run into problems with any method.
> 
> The key difference to this method is that you'll need to apply your profile on startup instead of the uefi doing it for you during load.  There is always the possibility of a software issue causing something to go haywire but I doubt it is too much more likely than any other issue.



Ah yeah, I get how the ryzen master works. I was talking about still not being secure enough on messing with manual voltages and static core clocks, thats why I only tried that one time.

I'm reading a lot about it though and gonna keep reading.

I'm seeing that the fact these ryzens are new, even the experienced people are still finding out what are the safe voltages and clocks for them to be left on manual.


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## mtcn77 (Mar 31, 2020)

TL; DR: We are only discussing this because ryzen does not yet sport high voltage monitoring - scalar setting is still a manual setting operating behind the scenes. That is the only problem we have with the 'stock setting' cult following having a bash with the stated problem with ryzen: what is automatic, is itself quite not.
You can put your vapid concern to rest though, ryzen won't always remain stagnant. There are at least two more generations with which AMD can introduce iterations of the necessary correction to its cpu fivr voltage monitoring.


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## Michael Nager (Apr 1, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> See a page, bored hours and posts ago.
> 
> Are you seriously suggesting that the act of tuning has changed significantly and not just the silicons operating perameters?.
> 
> ...



That sounds like Chingrish at its finest. I have no idea what much of that is supposed to mean. It's as if Google translate has taken a wobbly. But I don't want to be unkind to you if English is not your native language.

Taking a wild guess at it, I would say that there is a big difference between dealing with a CPU that is just one chip, like a 1st or 2nd Gen Ryzen, as opposed to two or three interconnected chips on the PCB (as is the case with 3rd Gen Ryzen) and how they have to be addressed and configured.

You sound like you are trying to be magnanimous but where you say "wouldn't" what your really mean is that you couldn't and cannot advise me on how to configure my system better than it presently is.

It is eight months out of the 38 years I have been a computer techie and yes, to my mind those eight months were well spent.

So let's take a look at what this fool can achieve on your own territory shall we?

To this end I castrated my 3950X to run on only one CCD making it a virtual 3800X, and I have configured it my way, let's see what happens with FAH when I run it:





4.125 GHz running FAH you say? You can run it all day you say?

Makes my 4.425 GHz look really shitty in comparison. Obviously I am doing something horribly wrong.

And those temps! My system is pretty close to catching fire!

Or not.

Way to go with calling me out there as a fool. You certainly gave me what-for sonny.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Apr 1, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> That sounds like Chingrish at its finest. I have no idea what much of that is supposed to mean. It's as if Google translate has taken a wobbly. But I don't want to be unkind to you if English is not your native language.
> 
> Taking a wild guess at it, I would say that there is a big difference between dealing with a CPU that is just one chip, like a 1st or 2nd Gen Ryzen, as opposed to two or three interconnected chips on the PCB (as is the case with 3rd Gen Ryzen) and how they have to be addressed and configured.
> 
> ...


It's like talking to a minor ,look at mine , no ,That's a waste of power,, crunch, use it for something ffs, it's not even your main pc because you think your i7 4790k is on par ,,,,odd epeen boy, do you want to see mine clocked higher than that, is that it , would that shut you up ,with walls of text decrying  to me you are not asking people to copy you with walls of fucking text on a thread labeled the definitive guide to overclocking Ryzen , go all out with your cock out while you're at it ,oddball.
As for you Foolish 3870x demo it's not the same binned silicon you prove naught , wanna see mine at 4.5.
Your signposting yourself as some kind of genius at this shit because 8 months with a bad back indoors on a mess about pc, your talking to people for which this has always just been life, but do go on, ##ck, we know you will.


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## mtcn77 (Apr 1, 2020)

I think the issue with these folk is a lack of comprehension that clock stretching is a defining feature of ryzen and that they think vdroop is bound for instability on this generation of hardware. Otherwise, there is no outlining logic to mentioning bulldozer in the same mindframe.
PS: how much was it that took buildzoid to put it to the test, 1.385v was it? Right on scalar 10 'manual' which is why it is not safe at stock.


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## moproblems99 (Apr 1, 2020)

RoyZ said:


> Ah yeah, I get how the ryzen master works. I was talking about still not being secure enough on messing with manual voltages and static core clocks, thats why I only tried that one time.
> 
> I'm reading a lot about it though and gonna keep reading.
> 
> I'm seeing that the fact these ryzens are new, even the experienced people are still finding out what are the safe voltages and clocks for them to be left on manual.



Also, don't worry about degradation.  There is no evidence to support that running a Ryzen at stock settings will cause degradation.  @Michael Nager 's method will similarly not harm your stuff.  If I was going to go this route, and I might just to play around, would be to run an all-core load like Cinebench in a loop and see what your CPU voltage is.  If you stay under that voltage, I would think you would be all right.  I am still experimenting with what I can get letting Ryzen do it's thing but after that, if curiosity still hasn't killed that cat, I'll probably read through this thread again once all the BS has been cleaned out and give it a go.


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## sneekypeet (Apr 1, 2020)

One and only warning to all in this thread.
This thread is not for arguments, it is not to go at each other, it is not to bait and troll.
Anyone else wants to be funny or otherwise difficult, you will be met with permanent thread bans, and possibly points, depending on the post.


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## Michael Nager (Apr 1, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> Also, don't worry about degradation.  There is no evidence to support that running a Ryzen at stock settings will cause degradation.  @Michael Nager 's method will similarly not harm your stuff.  If I was going to go this route, and I might just to play around, would be to run an all-core load like Cinebench in a loop and see what your CPU voltage is.  If you stay under that voltage, I would think you would be all right.  I am still experimenting with what I can get letting Ryzen do it's thing but after that, if curiosity still hasn't killed that cat, I'll probably read through this thread again once all the BS has been cleaned out and give it a go.


After forking out £750 for a CPU I'm going to be pretty careful about how I treat it.

If I had a GigaByte board from a few generations ago, then LLC would have been a thing. They did get called out on it and they made the necessary corrections.

The thing is though, that even with Vdroop it was still granting itself 1.37 Volts or more under load when left to itself, and I just don't trust that for the long term.

Never mind that it irks me to give away over 200 MHz of clockspeed for a higher temperature when I leave it to itself to "boost".


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## moproblems99 (Apr 1, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> After forking out £750 for a CPU I'm going to be pretty careful about how I treat it.
> 
> If I had a GigaByte board from a few generations ago, then LLC would have been a thing. They did get called out on it and they made the necessary corrections.
> 
> ...



I understand that you don't like it.  But that doesn't constitute a general problem for everyone else.


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## FleischmannTV (Apr 1, 2020)

TBH I'd rather deactivate CBP altogether than leave it at default. Activated I get 3975 MHz with 1,362 V on CB20 Multicore. With static OC, I can achieve 4000 MHz with 1.2 V or >= 4200 with 1.3 V. I don't get why 4000@1.2V should degrade the CPU faster than stock settings. Just look at the difference. Hence my current conservative supposedly safe setup is CBP off, V-Core auto on the desktop and for gaming I just activate my 4000@1.2V Profile in Ryzen Master.

From left to right: CBP enabled + V-Core Auto, 4000@1.2V, 4200@1.3V.



I mean. I love these processors, because they can be really powerful and efficient at the same time, yet the factory settings seem like the worst kind of Auto-OC ever.


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## Michael Nager (Apr 1, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> I understand that you don't like it.  But that doesn't constitute a general problem for everyone else.


It is where I would beg to differ, because as I said in an earlier post AMD has a track record of pushing their processors well past their optimal efficiency, one glaring example would be GCN, or another would be Vega, or the FX series of CPUs.

If the Marketdroids demand that points be put on the scoresheet with regard to bragging rights of "Boost Speed", which is a stupid concept with regard to 3rd Gen Ryzen, then I don't trust AMD to have my best interests at heart over the demands of said SalesCritters/Marketdroids.

The other thing to consider is that with 1st Gen and 2nd Gen Ryzen consumers were getting prime silicon because AMD had to do this to be competitive with Intel. They also couldn't really compete with Intel in either the Server or the HEDT segment in those generations (seems like a lifetime ago, but it was less than one year).

You will notice that in the 1st and 2nd Gen Ryzen CPUs performance could be achieved at far lower voltage. Just three days ago I was configuring someone's 1600 (AF version) and could comfortably hit 3.85 GHz at 1.137 Volts and under load it was running at 1 Volt because of the Vdroop.

With 3rd Gen Ryzen we, as consumers, are getting the shit that is not good enough to be put into the Server grade CPUs and AMD has racked up impressive sales in the Server market.

So we are getting shitty silicon, and the only way to get that silicon to perform the way the SalesCritters/Marketdroids (or as I called them at my company, "Computer User, Non-Technical" - I'm sure there is an acronym in there somewhere) is to punt in a lot more voltage.

What does AMD care if the CPUs degrade? They are only on the hook if the performance of a CPU falls below the minimum clockspeed, because the "Boost" is of course wrapped in the weasel words "Up to ...", or if the CPU actually fries.

So as opposed to first and second Gen Ryzen where the incentives for AMD were stacked in favour of the consumer, they are now, with the third Gen stacked against those interests.


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## moproblems99 (Apr 1, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> It is where I would beg to differ, because as I said in a earlier post AMD has a track record of pushing their processors well past their optimal efficiency, one glaring example would be GCN, or another would be Vega, or the FX series of CPUs.



I get that you don't like it but show me the data of all the premature failures.  Until you have data that shows all of these examples of premature failure due to over voltage then this still remains an 'I don't like it.' type of thing.

I am not disagreeing with you that these chips can run on less voltage.  I am only disagreeing about the longevity problems.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Apr 1, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> It is where I would beg to differ, because as I said in an earlier post AMD has a track record of pushing their processors well past their optimal efficiency, one glaring example would be GCN, or another would be Vega, or the FX series of CPUs.
> 
> If the Marketdroids demand that points be put on the scoresheet with regard to bragging rights of "Boost Speed", which is a stupid concept with regard to 3rd Gen Ryzen, then I don't trust AMD to have my best interests at heart over the demands of said SalesCritters/Marketdroids.
> 
> ...


The 1600Af are actually Gen 2 silicon not Gen 1.

The term boost is used in similar terms by Intel, and Nvidia.

Your disdain for AMD's technical abilities is clear but it's worth mentioning to you, they do indeed tend to set voltages a bit high , in most cases for stability, dropping Volt's on any AMD chip in the last 7 year's does tend to allow higher clocks in a lot of cases.
In the odd case however lower voltage decreased stability in Some applications, especially over time, but we can't know all the decisions that were made.
To assume we know it all is misleading though, how can we.


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## Michael Nager (Apr 1, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> The 1600Af are actually Gen 2 silicon not Gen 1.
> 
> The term boost is used in similar terms by Intel, and Nvidia.
> 
> ...


As you may have noticed, I did lump together Gen 1 and Gen 2 Ryzen to juxtapose them with regard to Gen 3 Ryzen because the differences between the first two generations are marginal.

I thought it was pretty obvious when I referred to the R5 1600 CPU *EXPRESSLY* as "(AF Version)" - but not obvious enough as it turns out - that I was referring to the the CPU which is being created using the GlobalFoundries 12 nm process.

If I had disdain for AMD's technical abilities I would hardly have an R9 3950X rig now would I?

Through decades of experience however I have nothing but disdain and contempt for SalesCritters and Marketdroids.

If I noticed applications becoming unstable over time then I would check the temp of the CPU under load because a CPU which has been working perfectly stably within one temperature range can quite easily become unstable when it crosses the threshold to a higher temperature range. 

Candidates for the cause would be:

A) The TIM (Thermal Interface Material) has degraded over time.
B) Radiator of a water cooling solution or the fins of an air cooler have become clogged
C) Dye or mould has clogged up the cooling fins in a custom loop water block.
D) If it is an AIO that has been in heavy use for a number of years then enough liquid could have permeated through the tubing and evaporated to cause it to lose efficiency and reach homeostasis at a higher temperature.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Apr 1, 2020)

Michael Nager said:


> As you may have noticed, I did lump together Gen 1 and Gen 2 Ryzen to juxtapose them with regard to Gen 3 Ryzen because the differences between the first two generations are marginal.
> 
> I thought it was pretty obvious when I referred to the R5 1600 CPU *EXPRESSLY* as "(AF Version)" - but not obvious enough as it turns out - that I was referring to the the CPU which is being created using the GlobalFoundries 12 nm process.
> 
> ...


Or a cause could be the pc has not seen that particular combination of load and execution before such that temperature is not an issue but the nature of the task and it's execution is.

I assume from your reply you haven't seen this so it can't be a thing already so if that's your reply or you wish to teach a duck to suck eggs further, please refrain.

Example some work unit's in Wcg and folding at home have at time's caused this for Many people running efficient tunes, same went while mining some ecoins.

As for lumping Ryzen 1+2 and then stating they all were capable of 3.85 @1.1# Volt's , that's misleading and wrong Ryzen 1 did that with higher voltage if at All, literally because not many could be cooled adequately.
Ryzen 2 was much much better, 3 a step ahead again.
And it is AMDS technical staff you have most berated on their choices, regardless what department your thinking.


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## sneekypeet (Apr 1, 2020)

I see my warning was not heeded... thread closed.


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