[SOLVED] Helping me understand CPU voltage of my Ryzen 7 1700x

[StashinSome]

Hi Everyone. Brand new on this forum.

Been building computers for 12 years, but never got into the nitty gritty. Id say i have a moderate understanding of computers and hardware. I guess putting together a computer has become a lot easier this past decade. Sorry I digress. I just wanted to give a heads up here. This is and issue i probably have had for 3 years without knowing until recently. I just don't understand exactly whats going on.

My mobo is an ASUS Prime X370-Pro with a the Ryzen 1700x chip embedded. As Ive said I am of moderate knowledge of computer hardware. I have never tweaked my systems for overclocking. But recently I was trying to troubleshoot an issue and I started to suspect that is was a Power related. Strange crashes with no rhyme or reason behind them. Either way that's question is for another time. I need to understand what VDDCR CPU voltage is. My mobo shows this monitored in the bios and when my chip is idling its at 1.417 volts. I'm googling this number online to see If this played into my crashes and I read that CPUs are best run around a voltage of 1.3. And again I have never touched the OC setting in my mobo. So whats going on with this voltage? I also assumed with a high voltages, it means a higher temp, but it turns out my idle cpu is running temp wise just fine, at 44 degrees. Does anybody have some info into why my Ryzen chip runs at a higher voltage idle, than what is generally normal?

Thanks again for your guys' help

 

[drea.drechsler]

VDDCR CPU is the CPU core voltage. With most motherboards it will fluctuate some with CPU processing load...higher with light loads, and dropping as the load increases. With a 1st gen it's generally desireable to keep it under 1.375V. Although, it's also pretty common to boost it as high as 1.425V when overclocking in order to keep it from dropping too far and goings unstable under a heavy processing load. That's the max voltage, of course, which would normally be seen only with the CPU under very light processing loads.

But that can change with some high-end motherboards that have better regulators for the CPU voltage (called VRM). Those boards can hold a fairly steady voltage which is desirable for heavily overclocked processors.

 

[StashinSome]

VDDCR CPU is the CPU core voltage. With most motherboards it will fluctuate some with CPU processing load...higher with light loads, and dropping as the load increases. With a 1st gen it's generally desireable to keep it under 1.375V. Although, it's also pretty common to boost it as high as 1.425V when overclocking in order to keep it from dropping too far and goings unstable under a heavy processing load. That's the max voltage, of course, which would normally be seen only with the CPU under very light processing loads.

But that can change with some high-end motherboards that have better regulators for the CPU voltage (called VRM). Those boards can hold a fairly steady voltage which is desirable for heavily overclocked processors.

since I havent overclocked my CPU, i should probably find away to set the voltage to a lower value then, right?

 

[drea.drechsler]

since I havent overclocked my CPU, i should probably find away to set the voltage to a lower value then, right?

Assuming you've also left the CPU clock on AUTO (since you're not interested in overclocking) I'd just put voltage on AUTO leave it at that. As part of it's internal monitoring system called "SenseMi", the CPU monitors it's internal core voltage and will always request a safe, but stable, voltage from the VRM controller only when everything's on AUTO. It may seem high, but it's safe and it's going to be stable. Undervolting is just as risky as overclocking in the sense it can leave your system dynamically unstable. Don't try to re-think the engineers at AMD, just use it they way they designed it to work.

You also have to look at the correct voltage reading; the important one is called SVI2 TFN voltage (the internal core voltage reported out by the CPU in telemetry) . You need a utility that reads and reports and also makes it clear which it is. The only one I'm confident in is HWInfo64.

 

[StashinSome]

Assuming you've also left the CPU clock on AUTO (since you're not interested in overclocking) I'd just put voltage on AUTO leave it at that. As part of it's internal monitoring system called "SenseMi", the CPU monitors it's internal core voltage and will always request a safe, but stable, voltage from the VRM controller only when everything's on AUTO. It may seem high, but it's safe and it's going to be stable. Undervolting is just as risky as overclocking in the sense it can leave your system dynamically unstable. Don't try to re-think the engineers at AMD, just use it they way they designed it to work.

You also have to look at the correct voltage reading; the important one is called SVI2 TFN voltage (the internal core voltage reported out by the CPU in telemetry) . You need a utility that reads and reports and also makes it clear which it is. The only one I'm confident in is HWInfo64.

awesome thanks for all the info. i understand this stuff a little bit more now lol