3900x stable overclocking questions

[Dwee]

My 3900x was getting fairly low benchmark scores at stock settings, ~6700-6800 in Cinebench R20. I read a guide somewhere and set all cores to 4.5ghz and set a static voltage of 1.3v until someone told me I'd possibly degrade my chip by doing that (had it running like that for maybe 30 minutes).

 

I switched back to stock, but my work benefits from increased performance so I tried out PBO, and that made a decent improvement to where I was hitting closer to normal stock benchmark scores (7000). That was with PBO enabled in BIOS and everything else auto.

 

Then, on discord I asked for advice and did manual PBO in BIOS with 300 PPT, 230 TDC, 230 EDC, 4x Scalar and +200Mhz boost.

This is what I got from running cinebench. The voltage never drops below 1.1v, but I'm not sure if that's in issue or not.

 

So basically, my biggest issue is that coming from overclocking my 4790k there's a lot to learn and it's sometimes difficult for me to understand. Is what I have right now going to cause any degradation in the chip, or is there anything that I could change for the better?

 

Another thing to note: I have an ASUS TUF X570 plus WiFi board. I only have the 8 pin CPU connected and don't have the optional extra 4 pin. My corsair PSU didn't have a cable for that. I don't know if that affects much.

 

Thanks for reading.

[Jurrunio]

1. Voltage readout in Hwinfo64 is Core Voltage SVI2, not VID just so you're aware

 

2. 1.3V in all core workloads should be safe even at 4.5GHz, and it can go higher in work that uses less cores which is fine

 

3. What kind of memory settings are you running?

[Dwee]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

3. What kind of memory settings are you running?

I have (copied from newegg) DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) Timing 18-22-22-42 CAS Latency 18 Voltage 1.35V. I have it set with DOCP (or whatever AMD's XMP is called) to be 3600 stock 3600, haven't messed with it to try 3733 or anything.

 

I was just worried about voltages being 1.3v static at all times because I've seen posts about chips starting to degrade after some amount of time using that. When I boosted it to that, the temps were under control and I was able to get 7900-8000(?) Cinebench. I also think AMD hasn't specifically said what voltages are generally safe, and I guess it varies from chip to chip.

 

And thanks, I didn't realize I was looking at the wrong data.

 

In the past, I've just looked at temps and called it a day. Didn't know too much about power draw / voltage / current.

[Jurrunio]

12 minutes ago, Dwee said:

was just worried about voltages being 1.3v static at all times because I've seen posts about chips starting to degrade after some amount of time using that. When I boosted it to that, the temps were under control and I was able to get 7900-8000(?) Cinebench. I also think AMD hasn't specifically said what voltages are generally safe, and I guess it varies from chip to chip.

At stock, Zen 2 CPUs shoot up to 1.47V during single core short workloads (moving the mouse without doing anything else, for example), but rarely over 1.25V in all core workloads (and even lower with higher core count CPUs).

 

Idle voltage could seem higher than Intel CPUs, but that's because of different ways to manage power. Ryzen turns off part of the cores while Intel doesnt, but compensates by dropping voltage more.

[Dwee]

12 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

At stock, Zen 2 CPUs shoot up to 1.47V during single core short workloads (moving the mouse without doing anything else, for example), but rarely over 1.25V in all core workloads (and even lower with higher core count CPUs).

 

Idle voltage could seem higher than Intel CPUs, but that's because of different ways to manage power. Ryzen turns off part of the cores while Intel doesnt, but compensates by dropping voltage more.

Yeah I've noticed with small loads it does boost up and with heavy its less. I was just talking about this setting in Ryzen master I turned to manually be 1.3 at all times, and then someone told me it would degrade my chip. I guess I'm easily confused by how Ryzen works, and I wish i was getting better stock performance too.

 

[pstarlord]

Here is all you need to get the most out of your CPU:

 

Go into your BIOS, enable XMP profile for your RAM.  (you can get the Ryzen RAM Calculator if you want to set in your timings manually)

 

Make the following settings: (These are from a Gigabyte Aorus BIOS, but you should be able to find the similar settings in your BIOS)

 

DRAM Power Down - Disable

DRAM Gear Down - Disable

 

PRECISION BOOST SETTINGS:

PPT LIMIT = 300

TDC LIMIT = 230

EDC LIMIT = 230

 

CPU/VRM SETTINGS:

CPU V-Core Loadline Calib = High/Turbo

SOC Loadline Calib = High/Turbo

VCORE Soc Protection = Max (400 on many boards)

VCORE Current = Max 

PWM Phase Ctrl = Extreme Setting 

 

At that point, it should take care of itself and get you a performance increase while being very stable.  

 

If you want to push it a little farther, you can use Ryzen Master to set an OC on and Undervolt on the CPU.  (For RAM timings, I've had much more success using the BIOS settings instead of the settings in Ryzen Master)  I've tried going through a pushing each core individually, but it doesn't yield much more performance than just using the all core setting.  Push it up 250 at a time until you lose stability, then push it down a bit.  Then undervolt it by turning the Core Voltage a little at a time until it's not stable and push it back up a little. 

 

Seems like a lot of steps, but just try it without even messing with Ryzen Master and you should see a pretty great increase in performance. 

[Dwee]

17 hours ago, pstarlord said:

CPU/VRM SETTINGS:

CPU V-Core Loadline Calib = High/Turbo

SOC Loadline Calib = High/Turbo

VCORE Soc Protection = Max (400 on many boards)

VCORE Current = Max 

PWM Phase Ctrl = Extreme Setting 

For CPU V-Core Loadline Calibration, my BIOS has this (pic) - is there a specific level I should choose for high/turbo that is safe? It has the same levels with the SOC Loadline.

 

I'm assuming VDDCR CPU/SOC is the correct category. I'm able to set up to 130% Vcore current. I see both VDDCR CPU and SOC Power Phase Control. Should I change both? I also don't see VCORE Soc Protection. I see SOC Switching Frequency, and that goes to 350. Is that it?

 

 

 

[pstarlord]

17 minutes ago, Dwee said:

For CPU V-Core Loadline Calibration, my BIOS has this (pic) - is there a specific level I should choose for high/turbo that is safe? It has the same levels with the SOC Loadline.

 

I'm assuming VDDCR CPU/SOC is the correct category. I'm able to set up to 130% Vcore current. I see both VDDCR CPU and SOC Power Phase Control. Should I change both? I also don't see VCORE Soc Protection. I see SOC Switching Frequency, and that goes to 350. Is that it?

 

 

 

 

This is the video I used to get my information from, it's by Buildzoid, so it's solid info.  It's about 30 minutes, but the first like ten or so is him rambling about stuff.  haha.  Watch it, and he will explain what each setting is for and what it does, then you can compare that to the descriptions on your mobo.