Ryzen 7 1700x clock speed dips

[rifterdask]

So I have a 3 week old Ryzen system on my hands that's exhibiting a strange behaviour I haven't noticed before. Every so often, a single core will drop well below base clock speeds while idle despite the fact that cool'n'quiet isn't switched on:

HWMonitor Readout

Note the minimum frequency reported on core 0: A dip to about 2800. For reference, the base clock is 3400 mhz and typical default operating speed is 3500.

These dips are VERY occasional and I've never caught them under load, so here's what I'm wondering: Is this a natural behaviour that I've simply never noticed up 'til now or could it be a sign of forthcoming trouble? Thanks so much for your time, everyone.

 

[jr9]

AMD Turbo Core is the feature that automatically regulates CPU voltage/clocks based on load. Sometimes it picks certain cores to downclock/shut down that it feels aren't needed. I would only be concerned if all "CPUs" doesn't clock up during a stress test like Handbrake or OCCT. Idle CPU core speeds really don't matter especially if you have 8 of them and 14% total CPU utilization. My 2500k runs at -51.4% speed on idle and +12.5% when there is actually work to be done. Saves large amounts of electricity and makes the CPU last longer.

 

[rifterdask]

AMD Turbo Core is the feature that automatically regulates CPU voltage/clocks based on load. Sometimes it picks certain cores to downclock/shut down that it feels aren't needed. I would only be concerned if all "CPUs" doesn't clock up during a stress test like Handbrake or OCCT. Idle CPU core speeds really don't matter especially if you have 8 of them and 14% total CPU utilization. My 2500k runs at -51.4% speed on idle and +12.5% when there is actually work to be done. Saves large amounts of electricity and makes the CPU last longer.

Thanks for this! Good to know that this sort of thing is ordinary. Also, I think I might be a bit of a dummy - In my haste to play with my new system, I never bothered to check whether High Performance power mode was on. Windows itself has probably been throttling from time to time.

Thanks again!

 

[photonboy]

BTW, I have an i7-3770K where I manually in the BIOS set all cores to 4.4GHz under load... I even set the "Minimum" and "Maximum" both to 100% which you'd think would always lock to 4.4GHz.

I still drop to 3.2GHz despite all that... and I think it was 800MHz on default settings.

(older CPU's had potential core parking latency hence my locking the Minimum to 100%.. doesn't matter anymore AFAIK)

*So yes, all that mainly matters is performance under LOAD being what you expect based on overclocking.

**also, "troubles" with a CPU AFAIK only happen like this:

a) ERRORS (crashing, BSOD etc), or
b) throttling due to OVERHEATING (which you can check but it's probably near 100degC or so for the throttle point)

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

a) ERRORS (crashing, BSOD etc), or
b) throttling due to OVERHEATING (which you can check but it's probably near 100degC or so for the throttle point)

Not do disagree with what you're saying, just wanted to add that it's also normal for some CPUs to throttle under AVX usage.

 

[photonboy]

a) ERRORS (crashing, BSOD etc), or
b) throttling due to OVERHEATING (which you can check but it's probably near 100degC or so for the throttle point)

Not do disagree with what you're saying, just wanted to add that it's also normal for some CPUs to throttle under AVX usage.

True