[SOLVED] Ryzen 5 2600x constantly at 4.2GHz

ironcreeper2004

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Idle temps with the stock cooler varies from 37-45 and all HWinfo and CAM both say it's running at 4.2ghz despite the stock being 3.6GHz. Am I missing something?
 
Solution
When I'm on the Ryzen Balanced Power Plan, all cores stay around 4200mhz in Ryzen master compared to with the balanced power plan, they drop to 2200 when idle. Is that better?
Look at core clocks in HWInfo, using a line graph for each core clock or multiplier.

What I suspect you'll see is more frequent boosting to max clocks to process a load quickly, but moving to different cores with other cores actually in a sleep state. The balanced plan facilitates that as it moves power saving decisions to the processor which is makes it more effective and faster. RM's charting doesn't really show this as clearly as HWInfo's charting does.

Another thing is when looking at temperature look at an average core temp readout. Ryzenmaster's is...
So there's a difference between base clock and stock clock speed? I always thought the base clock would mean that that's the clock speed out of the box?
yes...but no The base clock is stock. Ryzen's clocks are constantly changing as it tries to actually put idle cores to sleep, effectively turning the clocks to zero, to be energy efficient. When something comes along it then boosts the clock to as high as it's rated boost clock (4.2Ghz for your processor) to try and get the process finished and go back to sleep and conserve energy. If the process isn't quickly finished it will then lower the clocks bit by bit as the core heats up. It's a different boost strategy than Intel uses.

The whole boost process is even more aggressive with Ryzen 3000 processors.
 

ironcreeper2004

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yes...but no The base clock is stock. Ryzen's clocks are constantly changing as it tries to actually put idle cores to sleep, effectively turning the clocks to zero, to be energy efficient. When something comes along it then boosts the clock to as high as it's rated boost clock to try and get the process finished and go back to sleep and conserve energy. If the process isn't quickly finished it will then lower the clocks bit by bit as the core heats up. It's a different boost strategy than Intel uses.
Right, I never knew that. Thanks for informing me. Under about 60-65% load right now and clock has gone down to 4GHz at 59°C so I guess that makes sense.
 
The lowest I've seen them go to when I just have Ryzen master open is 2125mhz.
It does this on a per-core basis: putting as many as possible to sleep and boosting one at a time to max clocks (based on processor thermal headroom and motherboard power margin) to process one of the many little processes Windows frequently throws out to be run. Looking at an aggregate readout you'll always see the highest clock of the one core that happens to be 'boosting'.

Try using HWInfo64 and set the polling period to ~500mS. Then watch one of the metrics in the sensor screens called "C6 residency". It will indicate the percent of time a core is in various C states: C0 is full processing, C1 is a partial sleep and C6 is 'deep' sleep with most all core functions completely shut down. Watch this when you think the system is idle (it's never really idle) and when the system is doing something you know to be using the CPU.
 
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ironcreeper2004

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It does this on a per-core basis: putting as many as possible to sleep and boosting one at a time to max clocks (based on processor thermal headroom and motherboard power margin) to process one of the many little processes Windows frequently throws out to be run. Looking at an aggregate readout you'll always see the highest clock of the one core that happens to be 'boosting'.

Try using HWInfo64 and set the polling period to ~500mS. Then watch one of the metrics in the sensor screens called "C6 residency". It will indicate the percent of time a core is in various C states: C0 is full processing, C1 is a partial sleep and C6 is 'deep' sleep with most all core functions completely shut down. Watch this when you think the system is idle (it's never really idle) and when the system is doing something you know to be using the CPU.
Yea about 50% of each core is in C6 and C1 when idle, varying with about 5-12% going into C0. So that seems fine.
 
Yea about 50% of each core is in C6 and C1 when idle, varying with about 5-12% going into C0. So that seems fine.
You can also create some line graphs of the C6 residency for each core and see how the different cores are being put into deep sleep through time. That's really interesting.

Or some graphs to show how different cores are being boosted. Since you've an 'X' processor you should see some cores favored with more frequent or higher boosts if you've set the system up right.
 
When I'm on the Ryzen Balanced Power Plan, all cores stay around 4200mhz in Ryzen master compared to with the balanced power plan, they drop to 2200 when idle. Is that better?
Look at core clocks in HWInfo, using a line graph for each core clock or multiplier.

What I suspect you'll see is more frequent boosting to max clocks to process a load quickly, but moving to different cores with other cores actually in a sleep state. The balanced plan facilitates that as it moves power saving decisions to the processor which is makes it more effective and faster. RM's charting doesn't really show this as clearly as HWInfo's charting does.

Another thing is when looking at temperature look at an average core temp readout. Ryzenmaster's is an average and HWinfo also has an average readout.
 
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Solution

ironcreeper2004

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Have you updated your AMD chipset drivers recently ? If not go here: https://www.amd.com/en/support
and download the latest chipset driver for your board...it will update your system to the latest power plan making sure your getting the best settings AMD created for your specific motherboard.
Yep I've updated to the latest chipset driver. Thanks for the help from both of you, everything is fine after all.
 
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