Question Am I getting the most out of my 5950x?

Apr 10, 2022
7
0
10
I built a new pc about a week ago with the sole purpose of editing mostly RAW footage... Mainly in After Effects. It's a 5950x cooled by a arctic liquid freezer ii on an MSI x570 with 128gb of 3600 ddr4. I've done a couple projects since putting the new build together, and although much faster than my previous build, I feel like I may not be getting the most out of the cpu. From the research I have done higher temps are common with the 5950x, for me I'm idling around 28-32 and under heavy load I've never seen it go over 65, and it usually stays in the 50s. Now this is obviously a great thing but it has me wondering... my cpu is showing 100% usage and I've experienced some slow downs because of it but the cpu stays extremely cool compared to what's supposedly normal. What exactly does this mean? is there a lot of headroom for my cpu and should I be looking to overclock? Would the benefit of overclocking be worth the trouble? Mainly just curious and wondering if I can get more out of it, if not it's still done a great job so far. Thank you in advance for your replies.
 
I built a new pc about a week ago with the sole purpose of editing mostly RAW footage... Mainly in After Effects. It's a 5950x cooled by a arctic liquid freezer ii on an MSI x570 with 128gb of 3600 ddr4. I've done a couple projects since putting the new build together, and although much faster than my previous build, I feel like I may not be getting the most out of the cpu. From the research I have done higher temps are common with the 5950x, for me I'm idling around 28-32 and under heavy load I've never seen it go over 65, and it usually stays in the 50s. Now this is obviously a great thing but it has me wondering... my cpu is showing 100% usage and I've experienced some slow downs because of it but the cpu stays extremely cool compared to what's supposedly normal. What exactly does this mean? is there a lot of headroom for my cpu and should I be looking to overclock? Would the benefit of overclocking be worth the trouble? Mainly just curious and wondering if I can get more out of it, if not it's still done a great job so far. Thank you in advance for your replies.
Another thing to look for is which cores are loaded to max in your application, Window task Manager will show only highest loaded core while some others may be even in sleep state. Your apparently low temps makes me think so. There are still many applications that run on 1-4 cores.
Did you run any benchmark programs like Cinebench r23 that should place load evenly ?
 
With a base clock of 3.4Ghz and with boost enabled/ default in Bios, You bet you have headroom and can Overclock the 5950x and worth it.
Disable boost and go all core for a target up to 4.9-5GHz depending on witch arctic liquid freezer ii AIO you have. I have found boost to overvolt when boost is enabled and high temps on those cores that boost.

That and decent RAM @3600Mhz and 128GB (verified) You have a powerful system indeed and will handle Video files as a simple chore.
You must have an excellent IMC to run 128GB at 3600MHz with stability?

If your system is stable under load then stress test with Aida64 and put her thru her paces. (y)
 
Last edited:
Apr 10, 2022
7
0
10
I ju
Another thing to look for is which cores are loaded to max in your application, Window task Manager will show only highest loaded core while some others may be even in sleep state. Your apparently low temps makes me think so. There are still many applications that run on 1-4 cores.
Did you run any benchmark programs like Cinebench r23 that should place load evenly ?
I just ran a multi core test on cinebench r23 and it didn’t go over 60 once
 
Apr 10, 2022
7
0
10
And what score did you get ? Multicore and single.
I only did multi, got a 25200... Since this post I have tried overclocking, the best I got stable was a 30400 at 4.6ghz at 1.225 V but the temps were up to 85-90 average at that point and that's a bit hotter than I'd like to run all the time so instead of overclocking manually I turned on pbo and was able to get a 27800 while staying under 80. I was surprised by how fast the temps increased with minor changes in the voltage, but I guess it's to be expected. Definitely confusing how I've read about people getting 4.8ghz at 1.27 V with temps under 80 using an aio but I guess it just luck of the draw.
 
I only did multi, got a 25200... Since this post I have tried overclocking, the best I got stable was a 30400 at 4.6ghz at 1.225 V but the temps were up to 85-90 average at that point and that's a bit hotter than I'd like to run all the time so instead of overclocking manually I turned on pbo and was able to get a 27800 while staying under 80. I was surprised by how fast the temps increased with minor changes in the voltage, but I guess it's to be expected. Definitely confusing how I've read about people getting 4.8ghz at 1.27 V with temps under 80 using an aio but I guess it just luck of the draw.
Every CPU sample is different, "Silicone lottery", I have seen some that claim 5.1 GHz with decent voltages and temps. Low 80s are fine temp for Ryzen 5000 series.
 

wyliec2

Splendid
Apr 4, 2014
199
32
21,890
I use my 5950x for video encodes which utilize all cores. In my experience, PBO doesn’t work all that well (intended to boost a few cores). I have found an all-core OC 4.2 - 4.5 with 1.26v will give more throughput and lower temps. PBO bounces all over with temps and voltage which works for gaming but not sustained all-core workloads.
 
Apr 10, 2022
7
0
10
I use my 5950x for video encodes which utilize all cores. In my experience, PBO doesn’t work all that well (intended to boost a few cores). I have found an all-core OC 4.2 - 4.5 with 1.26v will give more throughput and lower temps. PBO bounces all over with temps and voltage which works for gaming but not sustained all-core workloads.
That makes sense, but my temps are getting extremely high with anything over 1.2 V. I’m not sure there’s something I could be doing differently, because my temps seemed low before I started overclocking. Manual at 1.225 V I was averaging 85-90C in cinebench but with pbo on with curve optimizer I’m using 1.35 V at 75C. And I did score lower with pbo but feel more comfortable with the temps. I know it’s different, still confusing though. If I could achieve 4.5-4.6 all core with temps under 80 I’d be happy with that but it doesn’t seem likely.
 

wyliec2

Splendid
Apr 4, 2014
199
32
21,890
That makes sense, but my temps are getting extremely high with anything over 1.2 V. I’m not sure there’s something I could be doing differently, because my temps seemed low before I started overclocking. Manual at 1.225 V I was averaging 85-90C in cinebench but with pbo on with curve optimizer I’m using 1.35 V at 75C. And I did score lower with pbo but feel more comfortable with the temps. I know it’s different, still confusing though. If I could achieve 4.5-4.6 all core with temps under 80 I’d be happy with that but it doesn’t seem likely.
Actually my core voltage may be in the 1.2v range (I’m away from home for several weeks so working from memory).

Are you able to achieve any all core OC at 1.2v??

80C is my preferred cutoff and 4.5 will occasionally hit that. When I have encodes that will run for several days, I’ll bump it down to 4.2 or 4.3 - I sleep better! :)
 
Apr 10, 2022
7
0
10
Actually my core voltage may be in the 1.2v range (I’m away from home for several weeks so working from memory).

Are you able to achieve any all core OC at 1.2v??

80C is my preferred cutoff and 4.5 will occasionally hit that. When I have encodes that will run for several days, I’ll bump it down to 4.2 or 4.3 - I sleep better! :)

After doing a lot more research, I was able to get a stable 4.6 at 1.25 V with LLC3 and the highest temps I’ve seen after a few stress tests are 84 which is acceptable for me, as long as it doesn’t go higher. I had PBO off before but one thing that seemed to help with stability was turning off CPB which I didn’t notice was an additional option in the bios. This scored me a 30604 multi and 1530 single in cinebench but one thing I noticed while testing is that if I set cinebench to real-time priority it will freeze everything while rendering, then I can move the mouse for a sec while it loads the next sequence and it freezes again until it finishes and starts the next sequence again. It will run the whole time and get a great score but it’s definitely strange.
 
Last edited: