Question Voltage needed for maintaining 4.2 Ghz on Ryzen 5 3600X overclock ?

[tomseurocat]

I'm confused here. When overclocking I need 1.45 v to maintain a 3.8Ghz stress test on my Ryzen 5 3600x CPU and to maintain a 4.2 Ghz stress test I need 1.25 v. I was under the impression that I would need higher voltage to maintain a higher clock speed, but I'm seeing just the opposite. Temps remain 70-75C for each level on the stress test. Cinebench has been my stress test program. Should I be using something different?

 

[drea.drechsler]

What voltage are you measuring?

If measuring VRM output voltage you might be seeing the effect of Vdroop since at 3.8G it's not going to droop as far as it will at 4.2G. But Ryzen actually likes Vdroop as it's built in to it's boost algorithm which requests a lower voltage as it raises clocks boosting at high frequency and heavy processing loads. Many, if not most, AM4 motherboards have quite a bit of droop built in even when using a lot of LLC.

The better voltage to look at is the (SVI2 TFN) voltage, which is the actual core voltage reported by the CPU in telemetry. Alternatively, put a DVM or oscilliscope on one of the MLCC's at the backside of the socket to measure Vdd as close to the CPU as possible.

For real-world work stress testing I think Cinebench is adequate. You could use Prime95, small FFT's, as it's kind of the internet standard but it's completely unrealistic with it's perfectly coded, tightly nested and infinitely repeating AVX instructions that have little to no real-world relevancy. Still, it is a good test for system cooling. Because Ryzen doesn't throttle back clocks with AVX instructions but with temperature keep in mind it can be murder on them when trying to settle on a fixed all-core overclock. There's probably more than a few Ryzen's that have had their Golden Sample status reduced to Lead by stress testing them to death with P95.

 

[tomseurocat]

Sounds like you know your subject because this is way over my head. lol I'm just trying to get enough performance out of my rig to play and record NCAA14 using RPCS3 Emulator and GeForce Experience for recording and Madden 22 with GeForce Experience again. Separately of course.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/qx7avj7ttroqqbq/Screenshot+2022-07-15+105252.png/file
I understand stress testing to death. I'm finding, what I think is a moderate OC for both my CPU and GPU that works well. From the screenshot I have been using Peak Cores Voltage on Ryzen Master, but you're saying that I should be looking at SV12 TFN ( found that in HWiNFO64). That is a true voltage? You can see my CPU overall temp. This is during actual game play and recording (NCAA14 using RPCS3 Emulator and GeForce Experience for recording). I didn't know if that was too high of a temp or not.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/ddtuf6eor0uj6cl/Screenshot+2022-07-15+111736.png/file
I do have a very moderate OC on the GPU using MSI Afterburner. Your thoughts on that? What I might view as a moderate OC and what somebody who actually know what they're doing might be quite different.

 

[drea.drechsler]

....
You can see my CPU overall temp. This is during actual game play and recording (NCAA14 using RPCS3 Emulator and GeForce Experience for recording). I didn't know if that was too high of a temp or not.
...

Actually...I can't see anything. I'm not sure how Mediafire works, the link just takes me to a page with a MASSIVE amount of scamware links I don't choose to click on.

But in general, the best OC for Zen 2 and Zen 3 is...don't. Instead use PBO and invest in very, very good cooling. Help the boost algorithm work freely and it returns significantly improved performance compared to stock settings on stock cooling while still striving to keep the processor safe.

 

[tomseurocat]

Sorry, does this work a little better?

 

[drea.drechsler]

Sorry, does this work a little better?

Yep, much better

OK, I'm not sure exactly what RM's "Peak Cores Voltage" actually is: is it a setting for core voltage? I don't use RM and vastly prefer using BIOS settings. RM is actually not intended for 24/7 use, it's really a tool for OC competitions and demonstrations. The service itself is known to hurt system level performance.

The voltage to look at in HWInfo is CPU Core Voltage (SVI2 TFN). In that screen shot yours is currently at 1.362V with a PEAK voltage it's reported of 1.475V (perfectly normal). The AVERAGE voltage is 1.371. The average is important because that's what will degrade the processor if it's averaging really high.

For fixed overclocking what you're looking for is to keep the SVI2 voltage below 1.325V, preferebly below 1.3V, in very heavy, stressful, all-core processing (Cinebench) with around the 4.2Ghz. When the load lets up it may climb really high (no more Vdroop); that should be 1.4V or less. It may go as high as 1.5V which is not safe at all to leave that high constantly, even during light processing. Adjust LLC to help with that but too much LLC makes the processor unstable in and of itself.

If you leave it 'stock', or use PBO, in light processing it can boost to it's maximum clocks (maybe over 4.4Ghz for later 3600X's) but when it does it will demand up to 1.5V...and you'll see it in the maximum voltage reading. But when the load goes away the voltage will drop again to very low. That's why you have to pay a lot of attention to Average Voltage readings since that's the best indication of how much stress leading to degradation your CPU is seeing. Properly set up you'll see a lot of boosts to 1.5V (maybe even more) but the AVERAGE will probably be around 1.35V through a mixed work-load session (some heavy rendering, mostly just gaming and/or web browsing) or much, much less for JUST web browsing, email and word processing.

You can frequently improve boosting by slight undervolting using a negative offset. But don't overdue it, a phenomenon called clock compression can make you think it's running great but it's performing very poorly.

Gaming should present fairly light processing so you want to see it boosting to 4.4Ghz and hitting up to 1.5V as much as possible. That's where good cooling helps since it boosts much more eagerly when temperature can be held in the mid-70's.

I'm not familiar with OC'g Nvidia. AMD GPU's like to be undervolted first, then raise clock until it goes unstable (won't finish a 3DMark TimeSpy run). Undervolting alone usually nets a substantial performance improvement so raise voltage after overclocking as little as possible to keep it stable while watching temperature in TimeSpy. You have to decide how much temperature, and fan noise, you're willing to live with. Generally modern processes allow for 95C max temps but you need to check what's OK for your GPU.

 

[tomseurocat]

If you leave it 'stock', or use PBO, in light processing it can boost to it's maximum clocks (maybe over 4.4Ghz for later 3600X's) but when it does it will demand up to 1.5V...and you'll see it in the maximum voltage reading. But when the load goes away the voltage will drop again to very low.

If I'm reading this correctly, you'd be in favor of OC'g via the BIOS instead if RM, correct.....and possibly using PBO. It's not like I game and record for hours on end, I just want my recordings to look good. Having a micro stuttering issue when I record Madden 22 and it's driving me nuts. I thought that increasing the performance via OC'g would help out a bit. Thoughts?

 

[drea.drechsler]

If I'm reading this correctly, you'd be in favor of OC'g via the BIOS instead if RM, correct.....and possibly using PBO. It's not like I game and record for hours on end, I just want my recordings to look good. Having a micro stuttering issue when I record Madden 22 and it's driving me nuts. I thought that increasing the performance via OC'g would help out a bit. Thoughts?

Correct, I prefer BIOS.

Stuttering issues can be cause by a lot of things...and having the RM service involved isn't helping the situation sorting it out.

The first thing I'd suggest is completely uninstalling RM and doing a CMOS reset then record some Madden to see if the stuttering persists with bone-stock settings. The next thing is to clean up the system so take a look at what you're running: any motherboard utilities? Corsair Link? They can wreak absolute horror on systems at worse. Consider if you really need them running while gaming, or uninstall them completely if they leave a service still running. In some cases, ripping them out is hard. Removing the Asus Aura RGB utility was a bear for me because it kept wanting to re-install itself: I had to disable a BIOS setting to make it stop that.

If with bone-stock settings and no ancillary bloatware running you're getting good recordings, then try to overclock a little at a time. First thing is enable XMP for your memory, next is JUST enable PBO in BIOS using motherboard settings. I said it before, the best thing you can do to improve performance of any Ryzen is invest in much better cooling. It's essentially the same as overclocking since the CPU runs at higher average clocks and simply performs better even though the reported temperature may not change.

 

[tomseurocat]

Let me try the RM uninstall and CMOS reset. In last few day I did a complete reinstall of windows on my rig, so this should be quite easy. Get rid of Afterburner as well?

I have a Cooler Master water cooler in my rig so I don't think cooling will be an issue.

What setting did you have to disable? I hate that stupid Aura RGB utility. Like you said, it keeps coming back even though I turn it off in the BIOS.

Will let you know how it turns out, but I can hit you up for help if I need it? Haven't done like a ton of work inside BIOS aside from the occasional BIOS update, of which I just did one before I reinstalled windows.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Let me try the RM uninstall and CMOS reset. In last few day I did a complete reinstall of windows on my rig, so this should be quite easy. Get rid of Afterburner as well?

I have a Cooler Master water cooler in my rig so I don't think cooling will be an issue.

What setting did you have to disable? I hate that stupid Aura RGB utility. Like you said, it keeps coming back even though I turn it off in the BIOS.

Will let you know how it turns out, but I can hit you up for help if I need it? Haven't done like a ton of work inside BIOS aside from the occasional BIOS update, of which I just did one before I reinstalled windows.

I don't think Afterburner has any lingering problem services and has never been a problem for me.

A CM LiquidMaster cooler should do you well for cooling.

The setting was in BIOS, I think in the Tools menu or something similar (I've a TUF B550m Plus). It was something to not download Aura or keep it updated or the like. But once it got installed I also had to disable several services that would restart themselves at next bootup. That process is to first STOP the service, then from the command line use the SC app (Service Control) -- SC /delete <service name> -- to completely un-register the service.

If it's too deep in your system you might be better off flattening the OS and doing a fresh install once you know you've turned off the BIOS update vector. I feel it's more like a trojan than a useful tool, and probably opens a back-door that Asus (or worse: a bad actor hijacking their servers) could use at any time do whatever they wanted through a forced update. I've rethought my choice to ever buy any Asus motherboards again.