[SOLVED] Is around 1.39-1.4V acceptable when gaming ?

[Kyozo]

System Configuration:

Operating System: Windows 10

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600(no overclock)

GPU: RTX 3070 GAMING OC

Motherboard: MSI B550 GAME-A-PRO

RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x8GB DDR4-3000

PSU: Corsair RM750 Gold

Monitor: HP X27qc, 27 Inch QHD Curved Monitor, with included DisplayPort cable

Problem Description:

I've had my PC for about a year now, when I first got my PC I used check all the stats relating to my hardware and in this case my CPU e.g. voltage, temps, clock speeds etc. At the same when gaming the it was around 1.35v in most games. Then after a month I basically just stopped checking, till now. I've noticed that when playing games(Squad, Holdfast, Ghost recon) my voltage is in the region of 1.38-1.4v. I'm not sure for the cause of this as its been a year since my last checking of stats and multiple changes to my system have been made since this like hardware upgrades e.g. new monitor, new CPU cooler and more. And obviously various software changes.

I'm using the latest chipset drivers, my BIOS is not the latest update but is a recent update. My PBO in BIOS is set to Auto. I'm using Ryzen High performance power plan. My clock speed varies game to game sometimes its 3,800 other times its 4,100. My CPU temps are fine and again varies game to game most it hits is 60c averaging 55c. I look in task manager when playing games and its mostly just the game taking up the CPU usage, I use Ryzen master to check stats with default settings (no overclock). My idle voltage is fine usually 1.1 -1.2V.

If you need any more details from me, please ask,

Thank you.

 

[MeanMachine41]

Yes I would say 1.4V is high and more for a MAX Overclock.

You should start with Core Voltage at 1.2V and see if it boots. If not then raise it in Bios (until it boots) in .01V steps and that is your lowest core voltage for general purpose use. Do not use Ryzen Master to change settings but use your Bios for system and voltage changes. If your system is then working fine there is no need to update Bios.
When voltage changes as you describe occur then keep on eye on your PSU and check each rail is within += 5% tolerance as it could be failing. This can be measured in HWinfo64.

BTW: 50-60C under load and gaming is excellent.

 

[Kyozo]

Yes I would say 1.4V is high and more for a MAX Overclock.

You should start with Core Voltage at 1.2V and see if it boots. If not then raise it in Bios (until it boots) in .01V steps and that is your lowest core voltage for general purpose use. Do not use Ryzen Master to change settings but use your Bios for system and voltage changes. If your system is then working fine there is no need to update Bios.
When voltage changes as you describe occur then keep on eye on your PSU and check each rail is within += 5% tolerance as it could be failing. This can be measured in HWinfo64.

BTW: 50-60C under load and gaming is excellent.

Hmm, Interesting.
Ive also posted this issue on some sub reddits too which people said it was fine. However I very much appreciate your advice to help me lower the voltage. The temps are low due to the fact i have the artic 34 Esports Duo.

 

[drea.drechsler]

System Configuration:

Operating System: Windows 10

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600(no overclock)

.....

Thank you.

Your voltage is fine for a CPU that's not being overclocked. AMD has said that Ryzen will routinely spike voltage as high as 1.5V when boosting to it's max boost clock so it's actually very safe where you're at. You might could very slightly undervolt using a negative offset (only use offset, never a fixed voltage with Ryzen).

You'll need a good benchmark program to test with (before and after making a change) as it can degrade performance if you undervolt just slightly too far; way too far and it becomes unstable. Suggest using Cinebench 2.0 and do both single thread and multi-threaded BM's. Single thread is important as it's more likely to reflect gaming performance.

BTW: PBO in AUTO is the same as leaving it disabled. You need to change the boost parameters (PPT, TDC, EDC) to change how it boosts and actually improve performance. That will make it run much hotter too, but you have a lot of thermal headroom since you don't need to worry about temperature until it gets to the mid-80's. Tjmax is 95C. Again, you'll need to run benchmarks to measure the effect.

 

[Kyozo]

Your voltage is fine for a CPU that's not being overclocked. AMD has said that Ryzen will routinely spike voltage as high as 1.5V when boosting to it's max boost clock so it's actually very safe where you're at. You might could very slightly undervolt using a negative offset (only use offset, never a fixed voltage with Ryzen).

You'll need a good benchmark program to test with (before and after making a change) as it can degrade performance if you undervolt just slightly too far; way too far and it becomes unstable. Suggest using Cinebench 2.0 and do both single thread and multi-threaded BM's. Single thread is important as it's more likely to reflect gaming performance.

BTW: PBO in AUTO is the same as leaving it disabled. You need to change the boost parameters (PPT, TDC, EDC) to change how it boosts and actually improve performance. That will make it run much hotter too, but you have a lot of thermal headroom since you don't need to worry about temperature until it gets to the mid-80's. Tjmax is 95C. Again, you'll need to run benchmarks to measure the effect.

I've looked at a youtube tutorial of how to undervolt the cpu, Do i need to enable PBO for undervolting?

 

[drea.drechsler]

I've looked at a youtube tutorial of how to undervolt the cpu, Do i need to enable PBO for undervolting?

No, but it helps if what you're looking for is a performance improvement. Increasing the PBO boost parameters you can make the CPU boost longer but it also makes the CPU run way, way hotter. Ryzen CPU's are temp sensitive, so better cooling and undervolting helps keep temperature lower and that helps the PBO settings to work to improve performance.

But as I said, undervolting can also hurt performance (the CPU won't boost high enough if it can't get the voltage) and if done way too far hurt stability. Motherboards and CPU's respond differently so it's an experiment to see what you get sort of thing.

 

[Kyozo]

No, but it helps if what you're looking for is a performance improvement. Increasing the PBO boost parameters you can make the CPU boost longer but it also makes the CPU run way, way hotter. Ryzen CPU's are temp sensitive, so better cooling and undervolting helps keep temperature lower and that helps the PBO settings to work to improve performance.

But as I said, undervolting can also hurt performance (the CPU won't boost high enough if it can't get the voltage) and if done way too far hurt stability. Motherboards and CPU's respond differently so it's an experiment to see what you get sort of thing.

Yeah, the youtube video does 2 methods. First one being just offsets. I think ill get to 0.0750V offset thats what most 3600 get. The other way was adjusting the cpu ratio which to 40 which sets it to 4000mhz then setting the voltage to like 1.25 and going down from there after testing. The first method lowers voltages whilst keeping perfomance whilst the second also lowers temps a lot in his case and others by 20c. Ill probably go with the first method since I already have good temps (tho technically speaking wouldn't hurt to go more down).

 

[drea.drechsler]

Yeah, the youtube video does 2 methods. First one being just offsets. I think ill get to 0.0750V offset thats what most 3600 get. The other way was adjusting the cpu ratio which to 40 which sets it to 4000mhz then setting the voltage to like 1.25 and going down from there after testing. The first method lowers voltages whilst keeping perfomance whilst the second also lowers temps a lot in his case and others by 20c. Ill probably go with the first method since I already have good temps (tho technically speaking wouldn't hurt to go more down).

Fixing core clocks (cpu ratio) and voltages are very dangerous with Ryzen...and offer benefits that are illusory in most cases. It may run cooler, but it's never running slower than the fixed clock.

First: when left to itself the algorithm drops clocks very low even turning unused cores completely off (C6 deep sleep) as much as it can. Since degradation effects are cumulative with clock frequency and temperature, being turned off is vastly preferred to even a low clock speed for extending life of the CPU.

Second: they rarely check actual performance with benchmarks. If not done carefully running a fixed clock will hurt performance, especially light threaded performance needed for gaming. They don't know that though since they never checked actual peformance before and after. If pushed too far (in order to at least equal performance of a stock processor) it WILL hurt CPU life as it's holding a high clock constantly so it never gets to be shut down whenever it can be.

People don't understand how modern CPU boost algorithms work. They are trying to run their CPU's the same way they did their older ones. You see that an awful lot in Youtube so have to be a bit careful.

 

[Kyozo]

Fixing core clocks (cpu ratio) and voltages are very dangerous with Ryzen...and offer benefits that are illusory in most cases. It may run cooler, but it's never running slower than the fixed clock.

First: when left to itself the algorithm drops clocks very low even turning unused cores completely off (C6 deep sleep) as much as it can. Since degradation effects are cumulative with clock frequency, being turned off is vastly preferred to even a low clock speed for extending life of the CPU.

Second: they rarely check actual performance with benchmarks. If not done carefully running a fixed clock will hurt performance, especially light threaded performance needed for gaming. They don't know that though since they never checked actual peformance before and after. If pushed too far (in order to at least equal performance of a stock processor) it WILL hurt CPU life as it's holding a high clock constantly so it never gets to be shut down whenever it can be.

People don't understand how modern CPU boost algorithms work. They are trying to run their CPU's the same way they did their older ones. You see that an awful lot in Youtube so have to be a bit careful.

So I should deffo go with the first method of offsetting then?

 

[drea.drechsler]

So I should deffo go with the first method of offsetting then?

I would start there...with a bit of PBO. A simple Zen 2 PBO setting is put it to manual, TDC and EDC to 230A, PPT to 330W.

Check performance both before and after though...use Cinebench 20.

One other thing to remember is the CPU was designed to run with certain parameters: up to 1.5V when it boosts in light threaded work (games are almost all light-threaded workloads to CPU's). And up to 95C when work load is heavy as with all-cores, AVX, for image rendering. CB20 tests that way so expect that and do not be surprised. It will also drop voltage considerably when it is running that hot, maybe as low as 1.25V. It's expected and by design for a proper performing CPU.

If yours is running well below 95C, though, that's all the better: it means your cooling is good and it responds by performing even harder.

 

[jasonf2]

Modern chips modulate those settings automatically. Setting an underclock is generally a bad idea unless you are having thermal issues in a setup that you cannot beef up your thermal solution (think laptop and gpu), which it doesn't appear that you are. I like to think of underclocks like this. You buy a performance car with a programmable speed/fuel limiter that can either go 1000 mph for 10 seconds and then fall back to 10 mph due to heat buildup or it can sustain 750 mph indefinitely and you plan to run in a race that will go for one hour. A proper underclock is like setting the limiter to 750 mph. On an overall whole the underclock will cause the max speed to be reduced, but will average a faster race time. But here is the problem. Most stock setups are designed to operate in their thermal ceilings by default because engineers really do their best maximize performance. So underclocking something that doesn't need it is like taking that same car from the earlier example but in this case the manufacturer stock set the speed limiter to 750 mph and you decide to manually set the limiter to 500 because everyone else is doing it. Does the car build less heat? Yes. But is there an unnecessary performance hit that doesn't really have any purpose, absolutely. And here is the other issue. Just like a car engine, if you restrict the fuel too much the engine doesn't run right. So especially when playing with core voltage an improper undervolt will cause instability and crash the machine. In fact as frequency increases core voltage has to increase as well to maintain the stability of the transistor gates. That is why you see it move around as your machine is boosting under load. In a stock setup those limits are set to defined operating perimeters. When you start changing those settings stability can become an issue.

 

[Kyozo]

Modern chips modulate those settings automatically. Setting an underclock is generally a bad idea unless you are having thermal issues in a setup that you cannot beef up your thermal solution (think laptop and gpu), which it doesn't appear that you are. I like to think of underclocks like this. You buy a performance car with a programmable speed/fuel limiter that can either go 1000 mph for 10 seconds and then fall back to 10 mph due to heat buildup or it can sustain 750 mph indefinitely and you plan to run in a race that will go for one hour. A proper underclock is like setting the limiter to 750 mph. On an overall whole the underclock will cause the max speed to be reduced, but will average a faster race time. But here is the problem. Most stock setups are designed to operate in their thermal ceilings by default because engineers really do their best maximize performance. So underclocking something that doesn't need it is like taking that same car from the earlier example but in this case the manufacturer stock set the speed limiter to 750 mph and you decide to manually set the limiter to 500 because everyone else is doing it. Does the car build less heat? Yes. But is there an unnecessary performance hit that doesn't really have any purpose, absolutely. And here is the other issue. Just like a car engine, if you restrict the fuel too much the engine doesn't run right. So especially when playing with core voltage an improper undervolt will cause instability and crash the machine. In fact as frequency increases core voltage has to increase as well to maintain the stability of the transistor gates. That is why you see it move around as your machine is boosting under load. In a stock setup those limits are set to defined operating perimeters. When you start changing those settings stability can become an issue.

Im undervolting not underclocking

 

[jasonf2]

In a chip that dynamically adjusts clock frequency to load an undervolt will typically restrict the ability for the chip to hit max clock frequency. Because of this I have really came to the point of using the term almost interchangeably. These chips have come a long way from the old 80486 days where we set a static frequency. To get the clocks they are getting today they are running these things right up to the edge and have very little overclock headroom. You may not be locking the max frequency, but you are limiting performance in cases where thermals are not an issue.