I think you worry too much about things that are "normal" for Ryzen 3000.
The problem is that AMD hasn't been great at communicating what is normal.
My Voltages fluctuates like crazy and so does the temperatures, however, if you've read any of the limited feedback from AMD, this is how the CPUs are designed.
The Ryzen 3000 thermal sensors react quite differently to previous generations of CPUs and they seem to report the hottest temperature in the chip and the least bit of load, will cause temperatures to spike, but they also drop back just as quickly. This is "strange" behaviour compared to past generations of CPUs and it's something AMD could've communicated much better.
Yes, I was also wondering about all of this, but from what I have managed to find, it's all the new "normal".
What I cant' complain about is stability, as despite all of the weirdness, my system is 100% stable.
I understand that this is how Ryzen 3000 is supposed to work, but it feels a lot like AMD is trying to reach what are in essence, unattainable clockspeeds, by leveraging this generation's aggressive PB2 to save it from disaster at the last second.
What do I mean? With any 65W SKU in the past, you have an initial period of boost when you can hit those speeds on the box, and then TDP takes over, and you're back to either base speed or Turbo Table's (for Intel) recommended allcore speed. This way, you can have that burst speed whule staying within the power and thermal envelope.
With the 3700X, it's not content with that burst. PB2 ensures that even at
full load, it's a constant cycle of
- Ryzen reaches 4361MHz
- Ryzen finds it wholly unsustainable on power
- Ryzen scales back to 3900MHz
- Ryzen starts twiddling its thumbs
- Ryzen goes back to 4361MHz
Whereas you can have a 9400F or 9700 and on a Z390 have it run at max boost all day long and it'll be happy as long as it's cooled, Ryzen isn't. It's too "smart" a CPU that it's always trying to give you that boost speed. But at the same time, it is so strict on itself that it can't stay at those speeds, but also so enthusiastic that it can't make do with anything less than max boost.
Case in point: Prime95. People say a lot of things about P95 but at the end of the day, if you can pass P95 for extended periods, your system is stable. With Ryzen constantly fluctuating in speed and voltage, what is stable anymore?
I am missing out on a whole bunch of performance at 3.6GHz, but it's, if anything, a more traditional experience.
As for stability, I always have one WHEA error popping up whenever I let Ryzen do its PB2 thing. The only sure thing is that I don't get it at base speeds, so as long as it's boosting, I get that WHEA.
At 3.6GHz, 7nm Ryzen is the perfect storm of efficiency. Is it just me or do I remember AMD initially showing off the IPC gains and efficiency gains with a ES 3700X running at sub-4GHz? Thats because it's Ryzen's sweet spot. Pushing it further, as they've done, is either to close the gap with Intel or overcome the shame of selling a CPU that can barely beat its predecessor, the 2700X. And honestly, there's no shame, because that's how 7nm is right now, but the market doesn't see it that way.
I guess this is the price we pay for 7nm early adoption without waiting for process optimization. Where AMD is right now technologically is not quite where you want to or need to be, ideally.
