Ryzen 3000 voltage question

[Ad Hominem]

I know I'm late to the party here but I recently got a 3950x for myself and noticed voltage at desktop idle was 1.45 - 1.5 today. This led me down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out what is normal and what is safe for this processor. This was with everything set to auto except XMP for my 3600 ram and PBO enabled and Ryzen Balanced power plan.

I read the reddit post from AMD_Robert about observer effect but these voltage readings are constant on all cores and report the same way in Ryzen Master, HWiNFO as well as CPU-Z. I have determined that my iCue software is causing this behavior of calling to the CPU constantly and causing it to see 'load' and boost up - because the voltages settle down when I close iCue.

Now getting rid of iCue would be troublesome because it controls the lighting on a lot of my peripherals. I updated my BIOS earlier this week and downloaded the latest chipset drivers from AMD today which haven't helped.

Would I be better off just setting a manual core ratio in BIOS? This seems to fix my voltage issue but seems to hurt my single core performance as the frequency stable for all cores is lower than what a single core could do. It seems like I can set it to 4.2 or 4.3 all core where voltage will bop around at 1.09v idle all cores and then jump down to 1.019 under all core load in Cinebench R20.

Is this all core 1.5v acceptable and within spec for daily use or do I need to be looking at other options? Has there been official word from AMD that I haven't been able to find? On one hand I want to just trust AMD because they would know what their chips can do more than me and they had to do a lot of innovating to get these badass CPUs, but on the other hand voltage that high is alarming to see when you're used to things being a certain way for so long. The reddit post mentioned how it was normal and acceptable for single cores to boost around 1.5 but that's not the behavior I'm seeing. Maybe there's a way to stop iCue from being so annoying to the CPU?

[Ad Hominem]

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, The Farmer was pushing 1.6v. I'm I've been fiddling around while I had time today and was able to narrow the voltage question down to 2 progs running on my PC. Wallpaper Engine and iCue. I'm perfectly willing to ditch Wallpaper Engine but I really don't want to ditch iCue. When I close both of them I get idle voltages around 1.10v at idle.

I ran a quick benchmark on Shadow of the Tomb Raider between PBO and an all core overclock, where PBO rendered around 1.3% more frames than all core OC at 4.25GHz. Running work loads like Blender or Cinebench that hammer all cores the all core OC is way better though. So difference in gaming is negligible and all core performance is much better with an all core OC. Might be able to push it a little more with a per CCX OC.

I was a little surprised by these results though and I can't help but think something is missing or wrong. I always thought there was no real performance to gain from OC'ing Ryzen and you see just as much or more performance turning on PBO and let the big dog eat.

[r.linder]

引用自 Ad Hominem：

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, The Farmer was pushing 1.6v. I'm I've been fiddling around while I had time today and was able to narrow the voltage question down to 2 progs running on my PC. Wallpaper Engine and iCue. I'm perfectly willing to ditch Wallpaper Engine but I really don't want to ditch iCue. When I close both of them I get idle voltages around 1.10v at idle.

I ran a quick benchmark on Shadow of the Tomb Raider between PBO and an all core overclock, where PBO rendered around 1.3% more frames than all core OC at 4.25GHz. Running work loads like Blender or Cinebench that hammer all cores the all core OC is way better though. So difference in gaming is negligible and all core performance is much better with an all core OC. Might be able to push it a little more with a per CCX OC.

I was a little surprised by these results though and I can't help but think something is missing or wrong. I always thought there was no real performance to gain from OC'ing Ryzen and you see just as much or more performance turning on PBO and let the big dog eat.

1. Your CPU was being fed 1.6V? The ♥♥♥♥? You sure that's correct?

2. PBO isn't really overclocking... Precision Boost just lets the CPU sustain higher boost clocks. Precision Boost Overdrive is a step-up from that, as it allows for higher sustain voltage. AutoOC (aka disabled PBO limits) takes it a step further by removing PBO's limits, allowing the CPU to boost higher if PB/PBO limits were limiting it.

[Ad Hominem]

引用自 Escorve：

1. Your CPU was being fed 1.6V? The ♥♥♥♥? You sure that's correct?

2. PBO isn't really overclocking... Precision Boost just lets the CPU sustain higher boost clocks. Precision Boost Overdrive is a step-up from that, as it allows for higher sustain voltage. AutoOC (aka disabled PBO limits) takes it a step further by removing PBO's limits, allowing the CPU to boost higher if PB/PBO limits were limiting it.

No, Der Bauer which I think translates as 'The Farmer' said he was getting some kind of built in overcurrent protection at 1.6v when slamming the CPU with a big load suddenly.

So how would I just let the CPU use precision boost without the extra voltage of overdrive? The only options I see in BIOS are for PBO. I wonder if I have AutoOC enabled because Ryzen Master has some crazy high values listed as max for like PPT, TDC, and EDC when I enable PBO.

[r.linder]

引用自 Ad Hominem：

引用自 Escorve：

1. Your CPU was being fed 1.6V? The ♥♥♥♥? You sure that's correct?

2. PBO isn't really overclocking... Precision Boost just lets the CPU sustain higher boost clocks. Precision Boost Overdrive is a step-up from that, as it allows for higher sustain voltage. AutoOC (aka disabled PBO limits) takes it a step further by removing PBO's limits, allowing the CPU to boost higher if PB/PBO limits were limiting it.

No, Der Bauer which I think translates as 'The Farmer' said he was getting some kind of built in overcurrent protection at 1.6v when slamming the CPU with a big load suddenly.

So how would I just let the CPU use precision boost without the extra voltage of overdrive? The only options I see in BIOS are for PBO. I wonder if I have AutoOC enabled because Ryzen Master has some crazy high values listed as max for like PPT, TDC, and EDC when I enable PBO.

1. My mistake.

2. Honestly, I would just disable Precision Boost altogether because it doesn't seem to do much for Ryzen 9 from my experience, and it's not my motherboard VRM limiting it or anything, because PPT, TDC, and EDC are always well within check and never in the red, and clocks are at least what most 3900X users get.
When I have it disabled and leave everything at stock, idle clocks are lower but load clocks still end up being basically the same as with PBO+AutoOC.

You would see more of an impact from CCX overclocking. Whenever I run a CCX OC, I usually run it as 4.55 on CCX1, 4.45 on 2, 4.35 on 3, and 4.25 on 4 at 1.38v, and it gets slightly better results than the best PBO offers me.

Though I had issues with a game running poorly after I CCX OC'd, so I went back to stock.
I also tried 1usmus' power plan, and it improved clocks because it makes use of some BIOS settings.
https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/1usmus-custom-power-plan-for-ryzen-3000-download.html
After making those changes and using the power plan, my 3900X can actually reach 4.6 GHz under load. Before it was more like 4.5~4.55 at best but usually closer to 4.4.

Lastly, you can lower temperature and increase average clocks by disabling CCD2 (which leaves the 3950X with only 8 cores and 16 threads if SMT is enabled), which almost always improves results in gaming, even if slightly. Downside is if you need to do work, you'd have to go back into BIOS and enable CCD2 again, or just deal with cut down multi-core performance.

[Ad Hominem]

Yea I'm just gonna leave it be with a 4.3GHz all core for now. I've been beating my head against a wall today trying everything I could think of to let PB or PBO do its thing so I could get that better performance in games, but the difference in games seemed negligible (sample size of 1 game tested so far, so take it with a grain of salt) and all core performance in something like Blender is going to be much better with an all core boost.

I'm getting a score of 9787 on Cinebench R20 with voltage at 1.216v and 71 degrees, and idling at ~37c 1.296v. Which is way better than idling at 1.45v - 1.50v and 50c.

I have a hard time leaving well enough alone though. I wonder how long it will be before I try to OC my memory now too and get into that whole mess.

[r.linder]

引用自 Ad Hominem：

Yea I'm just gonna leave it be with a 4.3GHz all core for now. I've been beating my head against a wall today trying everything I could think of to let PB or PBO do its thing so I could get that better performance in games, but the difference in games seemed negligible (sample size of 1 game tested so far, so take it with a grain of salt) and all core performance in something like Blender is going to be much better with an all core boost.

I'm getting a score of 9787 on Cinebench R20 with voltage at 1.216v and 71 degrees, and idling at ~37c 1.296v. Which is way better than idling at 1.45v - 1.50v and 50c.

I have a hard time leaving well enough alone though. I wonder how long it will be before I try to OC my memory now too and get into that whole mess.

Use 1usmus' DRAM calculator. Use it correctly and apply all of the necessary voltages and you should be fine to overclock on 4DIMM, which usually is harder to OC with Ryzen. Using the tool I was able to find better values and get my 3200 MHz RAM working at 3600 MHz CL16 on 4 modules without issue, which is a bit tricky to pull off from my experience.

1usmus is the unsung hero for Ryzen, aside from The Stilt. He knows Ryzen as much as AMD does.

[Ad Hominem]

I only have 2 modules at 3600 cl16, are 2 modules easier to overclock? Iirc after 3600MHz the infinity clock has to de-couple from the ram clock which can potentially cause some issues.

Yea a couple of these people in the community seem like they've put in a ton of work for the rest of us.

[r.linder]

引用自 Ad Hominem：

I only have 2 modules at 3600 cl16, are 2 modules easier to overclock? Iirc after 3600MHz the infinity clock has to de-couple from the ram clock which can potentially cause some issues.

Yea a couple of these people in the community seem like they've put in a ton of work for the rest of us.

The way Ryzen's memory system works, it's harder to get 4 sticks working at a higher frequency than 2.
The maximum isn't 3600 MHz, it's 3800 MHz, last I checked. (1900 MHz FCLK)

[PortableFreezer]

引用自 Escorve：

With AGESA 1.0.0.4 B, you should be able to run a CCX overclock in BIOS, which is better than all-core.

CCX 1 could be something like 4.5 GHz, next one down to 4.4, then 4.3, and then 4.2.

As for voltage, you'd be right to want to control it, as constant 1.5v isn't safe.

How does that setting look like and where? I have msi bios and there's amd overclocking and normal overclocking but I can't seem to find ccx controls. I want to do this due to CTR having to run in baggrund for my oc to work. And I'd rather have it at bios launch.