Question Underclocking an AMD Ryzen 5900X ?

[cgash3]

Hello, I've had my Ryzen 5900X for a while now and I'm happy with its capabilities. However, the CPU keeps fairly high temps while idle or not doing much. This is very uncomfortable to me since most of my day passes in work using remote desktops and I only load the CPU (either for work or games) in my free time.

I know that it's better to do this kind of work in the BIOS, however, I prefere the dynamic nature of doing it in Windows, especially when I'm not trying to overclock anything. For this sort of work, I'm currently using ASUS ROG's AI Suite 3, as my MB is from ASUS.

I have 2 built-in profiles - the default one where the CPU frequency is dynamic in range 3.7-4.8GHz, and another one fixed at 4.2GHz that I mostly use as it's quieter and cooler and I rarely need the extra power.

I have no experience at all in the field of Over/Underclocking and I need some help with a solution for a stable profile that I can use for my daily needs (remote desktop, youtube videos, browsing, etc). I tried searching for one on the web but couldnt find anything.

Can anyone help me with this? Maybe at least point me to something or give me a link if they know of a place where I can find such profiles?

 

[a39232]

Well its usually a better option to do this in the BIOS because there is a high possibility if it shutting down since you would be manually adjusting voltage and clock speed. That and those chips are designed to boost as high as possible as long as it doesn't hit the power or thermal limit.
But essentially you would use whatever setting to keep the clocks the same speed and then lower the voltage and testing to see where its stable.

 

[cgash3]

Thanks for answering!

Honestly, I don't really care about the clock speeds. I'm just looking for a hot switch between "power" mode and "office computer" mode without needing to actually buy an office computer.

The way you say it sounds very easy. However, when I get into the BIOS there are possibly 100+ settings for all kinds of controls that I don't really understand. Thant's another reason I prefere doing this in the AI Suite app. However, the settings in the app are extremely limited and I'm not even sure if what I'm trying to achieve is even possible there.

 

[Crosslhs82x2]

I used this video as a guide and dropped 10c and gained performance.

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nvVs_6Sr3wU&feature=shared

 

[Bob.B]

Thanks for answering!

Honestly, I don't really care about the clock speeds. I'm just looking for a hot switch between "power" mode and "office computer" mode without needing to actually buy an office computer.

The way you say it sounds very easy. However, when I get into the BIOS there are possibly 100+ settings for all kinds of controls that I don't really understand. Thant's another reason I prefere doing this in the AI Suite app. However, the settings in the app are extremely limited and I'm not even sure if what I'm trying to achieve is even possible there.

Could you set up 2 power plans say balanced for office work and high perf for gaming?

Within each plan you can adjust min and max cpu power.

 

[CountMike]

In a Power Plan settings, Less than 100% of maximum processor state forces CPU to run up to it's Base Clock frequency, in your case 3.7GHz. As you go less than 99%, it progressively lowers maximum frequency all the way down to what is set as Minimum state.
If you look here
https://superuser.com/questions/957500/easy-way-to-switch-power-plan-in-windows-10
there are several ways to switch plans on the fly wit one mouse click.

 

[cgash3]

In a Power Plan settings, Less than 100% of maximum processor state forces CPU to run up to it's Base Clock frequency, in your case 3.7GHz. As you go less than 99%, it progressively lowers maximum frequency all the way down to what is set as Minimum state.
If you look here
https://superuser.com/questions/957500/easy-way-to-switch-power-plan-in-windows-10
there are several ways to switch plans on the fly wit one mouse click.

I'm sort of doing the same with the AI Suite. I have the 4200MHz profile which fixes both minimum and maximum clock to be 4200MHz. I tried to "beat the system" by lowering the clock to 3700MHz fixed and using all the lower settings from the 2 built-in profiles. However, this approach backfired for some reason and kept my temps ~15C higher than the 4200MHz profile.

I'll try your way now to see if I can get better results. Sadly, I have a similar issue with my GPU and it seems that one is harder to fix: GPU high temps issue

 

[CountMike]

I'm sort of doing the same with the AI Suite. I have the 4200MHz profile which fixes both minimum and maximum clock to be 4200MHz. I tried to "beat the system" by lowering the clock to 3700MHz fixed and using all the lower settings from the 2 built-in profiles. However, this approach backfired for some reason and kept my temps ~15C higher than the 4200MHz profile.

I'll try your way now to see if I can get better results. Sadly, I have a similar issue with my GPU and it seems that one is harder to fix: GPU high temps issue

AI Suite is garbage, Go to BIOS and do it from there or at least Ryzen Master.

 

[wyliec2]

Have you tried undervolting?? I did this with my 5950X quite successfully - use the Offset voltage with a negative value.

It allowed me to reduce temps while keeping an all-core overclock of 4200 MHz. Of course, you can reduce the clock value too but for me, the best results came with undervolt. I disabled PBO too as my use involved CPU-intense multi-thread workloads. The all-core OC still works well for daily driver office work too.

I was able to accomplish the same result with both BIOS and with AI Suite 3.