ryzen Guide to P State (Variable Frequency) Overclocking on the Crosshair vi Hero

[tom_w141]

Hi everyone i'm just throwing this up as hopefully a short and easy to understand guide to p state overclocking on the crosshair vi hero motherboard (AM4/Ryzen). First of all don't be turned away if you don't have the crosshair! Most of this guide features the AMD common bios which should be common across motherboards (it is just up to your board manufacturer which options to make available in their BIOS).

 

Why should you want to do this? Well as you may has noticed if you have overclocked your powerful new ryzen cpu that it no longer downvolts/downclocks when idle . This is because this is a fixed all core overclock. Which while good for performance, it is bad for: the cpu's lifespan, excess heat generation when idle and your electricty bill. A power state or "p state" overclock however will not only enable you to overclock above stock speeds but also step back down when idle (similar to Intel's speedstepping).

 

Crosshair specific info:

- This should be working on any BIOS revision later than and including 1002 (which at the time of writing is 1002, 0079, 0081, 0082 and 0083)

- Update 0081 and later should be working with custom BCLK values (though i personally haven't tested this yet), 1002 must use default BCLK.

 

As above i'm using the crosshair vi hero motherboard and BIOS revision 0082 but this should be fairly similar across manufacturers:

 

Step 1: Always best to start with a clean slate so head into the bios and hit "load optimised defaults"

 

Spoiler

 

 

Step 2: Head to the extreme tweaker screen and check everything is back to default and most importantly that the cpu core ratio is on "auto"

 

Spoiler

 

 

Step 3: Head to the advanced tab and open the AMD common bios specification or "AMD CBS" for me

 

Spoiler

 

 

Step 4: Next open "Zen Common Options"

 

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Step 5: Head down to "Custom Core Pstates" As you can see I left all above options on auto but you might want to force enable "Global C-State Control"

 

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Step 6: Accept the terms (this is no more dangerous than a fixed all core overclock so don't worry)

 

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Step 7:  Pstate0 will be set to auto by default, change this to custom

 

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Step 8: Setting Pstate0 to custom reveals 5 boxes, 3 of which can be changed by the user and the top 2 greyed out boxes show the results. It gets a little complicated here because we are using hexadecimals. we are going to try a 3.9GHz overclock in this guide. Change Pstate0 FID to "9C", do not touch DID or VID, DID is the divisor there is no need to change this and VID is the voltage. We could change VID but at the moment anything different from the default VID breaks it and it will boost 100% of the time. (3A on my 1700 - if this is different for you please use YOUR default value NOT mine)

 

I will add a table to calculate your FID values soon TM   File is now attached: Ryzen Hex Values.xlsx

 

Note: Voltage is in micro volts so that is 1.187500V and not 1187500V (Take a note of this number btw it will help later for the offset)

 

LEAVE ALL OTHER P STATES ON "Auto"

 

Spoiler

 

 

Step 9: Head back to the extreme tweaker tab because we now need to set the voltage offset. Change the CPU Core Voltage to "Offset mode" and positive "+" Now from your manual OC which you have probably dont prior to this you will know what voltage you need to be stable at 3.9GHz, for me this is 1.3375V but its always good to be a little generous when using offset instead of manual so i'm going to allow 1.35V maximum. To calculate your offset voltage take the desired value and subtract the voltage value that you noted down in the previous step. 1.35V - 1.1875V = 0.16250V

 

Note: My RAM speed and RAM voltage have defaulted to 2133 and auto, leave these as they are and redo your RAM overclock once you are happy with what we are focusing on here.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Step 10 (Optional): Enter "Extreme Tweaker\External Digi+ Power Control" and give the CPU voltage and SOC voltage some load line calibration to reduce V droop, personally I like level 2. Although this step is entirely optional!

 

Spoiler

 

Step 11: Boot! Yeah we aren't done yet sorry  Change your Power plan to "high performance" (May also work for AMD Ryzen Balanced plan - untested) or "Ryzen Balanced" (now confirmed to be working) and edit the plan -> change advanced power settings -> expand "Processor Power Management" -> expand "Minimum Processor State" -> set this at 20%

 

Change Log:

 

20/04/17 - Release

20/04/17 - Added Hex Value Calculator

17/05/17 - Minor Text Changes & Confirmation of Ryzen Balanced Plan

 

[jjohnthedon1]

Thanks for the guide il try this now !

[Dr. Futura]

it works!!!

 

i created this account just to say: thank you!

 

i tried two different methods:

1. changing the VID in P0 => did not clock over 2,7GHz (default on my 1700 in P1)

2. changing the FID & VID in P0 and P1 => did not clock down lower than P0

 

AMD Ryzen Balanced plan does not work => it doesn't clock up to P0

 

[tom_w141]

14 hours ago, Dr. Futura said:

it works!!!

 

i created this account just to say: thank you!

 

i tried two different methods:

1. changing the VID in P0 => did not clock over 2,7GHz (default on my 1700 in P1)

2. changing the FID & VID in P0 and P1 => did not clock down lower than P0

 

AMD Ryzen Balanced plan does not work => it doesn't clock up to P0

 

Thanks for creating an account to say thanks and I'm glad it helped you

 

Yes I also changed VID when experimenting that's why in my guide I stressed don't change it because it won't go to P0 it will stay at p1 around 2.7GHz (you should be able to it's just buggy ATM so you can't until future updates) 

 

Thanks for confirming Ryzen balanced not working, even if you make the minimum processor state edit?

 

Glad you got it working though

[Dr. Futura]

some more testing on the power plans:

all 4 power plans work fine, they all clock down to 1.5GHz and clock up to 3.8GHz (my OC with FID 98) and give similar results in Cinebench (1600 up to 1645)

 

now that all plans are clocking fine to P0 OC, i wanted to know how they behave in idle (monitored with HWINFO v5.51)

 

system idle testing observations with all power plan at (min CPU power 20%, max CPU Power 100%):

- High performace: clocks jump randomly from core to core between 1.5GHz up to 3.8GHz

- Ryzen Balanced: same as High perfomance => clocks jump randomly from core to core between 1.5GHz up to 3.8GHz

- Balanced: stable clocks at 1.5GHz

- power saver: same as Balanced => stable clocks at 1.5GHz

 

i stick to the Balanced power plan to save some watts

[tom_w141]

1 hour ago, Dr. Futura said:

some more testing on the power plans:

all 4 power plans work fine, they all clock down to 1.5GHz and clock up to 3.8GHz (my OC with FID 98) and give similar results in Cinebench (1600 up to 1645)

 

now that all plans are clocking fine to P0 OC, i wanted to know how they behave in idle (monitored with HWINFO v5.51)

 

system idle testing observations with all power plan at (min CPU power 20%, max CPU Power 100%):

- High performace: clocks jump randomly from core to core between 1.5GHz up to 3.8GHz

- Ryzen Balanced: same as High perfomance => clocks jump randomly from core to core between 1.5GHz up to 3.8GHz

- Balanced: stable clocks at 1.5GHz

- power saver: same as Balanced => stable clocks at 1.5GHz

 

i stick to the Balanced power plan to save some watts

Thank you for taking the time to test.  

[entropic remnants]

Well, you are pulling us out of the woodwork, one Ryzen user at a time, lol.  I joined to say thanks and that this is one of the cleanest, easiest to understand single posts on this subject.  The information is often available by an OP who doesn't communicate quite as well as you do, or it's spread through a discussion that you kind of have to dig out.

 

My only constructive criticism would be that in the step where you do the math for the offset your result is incorrect.  The result as you showed the calculation should be 0.23125.  But I think the error comes from using 1.118... instead of 1.18... for the core base voltage.  Your result is correct when using the larger number so it's just a boggled number in the post.  I'd like a dollar for every time I've done something similar, lol.

 

Again, thanks!

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by entropic remnants
Clarity and accuracy

[tom_w141]

1 hour ago, entropic remnants said:

Well, you are pulling us out of the woodwork, one Ryzen user at a time, lol.  I joined to say thanks and that this is one of the cleanest, easiest to understand single posts on this subject.  The information is often available by an OP who doesn't communicate quite as well as you do, or it's spread through a discussion that you kind of have to dig out.

 

My only constructive criticism would be that in the step where you do the math for the offset your result is incorrect.  The result as you showed the calculation should be 0.23125.  But I think the error comes from using 1.118... instead of 1.18... for the core base voltage.  Your result is correct when using the larger number so it's just a boggled number in the post.  I'd like a dollar for every time I've done something similar, lol.

 

Again, thanks!

 

Thank you I hope it helped  I will see if it needs updating once we get the latest microcode from AMD in the next BIOS. We should be able to adjust VID then. Also yes you are indeed correct well spotted hawkeye  fixed it  

[entropic remnants]

22 minutes ago, tom_w141 said:

Thank you I hope it helped  I will see if it needs updating once we get the latest microcode from AMD in the next BIOS. We should be able to adjust VID then. Also yes you are indeed correct well spotted hawkeye  fixed it  

Ha ha! Well thanks for taking it well.  There are folks that no matter how nicely you point out an error they get all weird, lol.

 

It worked STUNNINGLY well.  I'm just doing 3.8 ghz at 1.35 volts on a Ryzen 1700 and the difference in power input to my box measured with a "Kill-A-Watt" meter is from over 120 watts at idle to about 80 watts at idle.  Nice power savings when the computer is just sitting there.

 

I'd used a guide previously but it only got my clock changing.  Somehow I never picked up how to use the offset voltage mode properly for this and how to calculate it.  Like I said, your document just gelled everything for me.  Very happy with the results.  Using the Ryzen Balance plan with the minimum set to 20% and my benchmarks are returning the same numbers as when I had a static overclock.

 

I linked this over on the ASUS forum so hopefully you'll help a few more lost souls.

[tom_w141]

12 hours ago, entropic remnants said:

Ha ha! Well thanks for taking it well.  There are folks that no matter how nicely you point out an error they get all weird, lol.

 

It worked STUNNINGLY well.  I'm just doing 3.8 ghz at 1.35 volts on a Ryzen 1700 and the difference in power input to my box measured with a "Kill-A-Watt" meter is from over 120 watts at idle to about 80 watts at idle.  Nice power savings when the computer is just sitting there.

 

I'd used a guide previously but it only got my clock changing.  Somehow I never picked up how to use the offset voltage mode properly for this and how to calculate it.  Like I said, your document just gelled everything for me.  Very happy with the results.  Using the Ryzen Balance plan with the minimum set to 20% and my benchmarks are returning the same numbers as when I had a static overclock.

 

I linked this over on the ASUS forum so hopefully you'll help a few more lost souls.

Yeah I have noticed no performance drop, though must admit I haven't measured power at the wall so that was interesting. Edited OP as 2 people have now confirmed Ryzen Balance Plan is now working.

 

Thanks for spreading it, I check the ASUS ROG forum for the latest BIOS but I don't post there.

[entropic remnants]

Just an update to the Ryzen Balanced Plan -- I stopped using it but it only affected ONE game and it's a game with many issues: No Man's Sky

 

For some reason under the Ryzen plan, the sound would occasionally cut off then come back and sometimes lock the game up entirely though the computer overall was still responsive.  I was worried that it was the p-state overclock but apparently not since reverting to the Windows High Performance plan solved the issue.  

 

I set the minimum processor state to 20% on the Windows plan just like the Ryzen plan and I really can't tell any difference between the two.  Power during idle still drops down to around 80 watts going slight plus or minus that as background stuff runs and idles.

 

Still, that's the only issue I've had so far and I'm thinking it's likely related more to how the game marshals resources than the plan itself.

[randomlamer]

Hello and thank you for putting up this guide as I am trying to work with mine to set the Pstate overclocks.  I have a stable manual overclock of 4Ghz at 1.373v.  I have a 1700x with a Crosshair VI Hero (BIOS 1201).  I am having issues when I set the Pstate0 FID to 4000 with the VID being 1.35v with +.0187 offset that the downclocks are occurring, but my Vcore will stay constant at 1.373v (monitored using both cpu-z and hwinfo).  I also am using Ryzen balanced power settings with minimum processor state at 20%.  Any ideas?

[entropic remnants]

FID shouldn't be that high (if you are entering 4000 that is) and you must not set VID at all.  The only way to recover from his is to reload a previous BIOS setup that you didn't touch the P-states on.  Once you mess with that VID it's all over.  You must do all your voltage control from the Extreme Tweaker portion of the BIOS and not try to influence it in the P-state menu.

 

Tom mentioned that this is a bug and will likely change.  But for now you have to do it "by the numbers".  FID and DID need to be in the proper ratio with DID being like what, 8?  Then you set the FID to get the desired clock speed displayed.  All the clock speed stuff in Extreme Tweaker is set to AUTO with the exception of AI Overclock mode set to "Manual" and Core Performance Boost disabled.

 

But the main thing here is that once you play with the P0 VID, it's all over and you need to start from scratch.

[randomlamer]

Hello sorry for the confusion, these are the settings that I have input into the BIOS:

Pstate0 (FID): A0 which translates into 4Ghz, (DID): 8, (VID): 20, which should translate to 1350000uV

Everything else within the Pstate menu is set to AUTO.

 

I determined that I needed to have a core voltage offset of +.01875v from my stable manual overclock.  I input this offset value under the Tweaker's Paradise within the Extreme Tweaker.  I have gone back and double checked that all other settings in Extreme Tweaker is set to AUTO with the exception of AI Overclock being set to manual and Core Performance Boost being disabled.  I also re-flashed back to BIOS 1107 (I think...the one prior to 1201) with the same result.

 

What the guide shows, is that the Vcore should scale with the frequency, which is not what is happening in my case.  I also read somewhere that since altering the Pstate0 beyond stock frequencies, OC Mode becomes enabled which shuts off the voltage regulation which I'm assuming is why my Vcore stays at 1.373v.  I'm not quite sure how others are able to achieve both an overclock as well as lower idle voltages if that is the case.

[entropic remnants]

58 minutes ago, randomlamer said:

Hello sorry for the confusion, these are the settings that I have input into the BIOS:

Pstate0 (FID): A0 which translates into 4Ghz, (DID): 8, (VID): 20, which should translate to 1350000uV

Everything else within the Pstate menu is set to AUTO.

 

I determined that I needed to have a core voltage offset of +.01875v from my stable manual overclock.  I input this offset value under the Tweaker's Paradise within the Extreme Tweaker.  I have gone back and double checked that all other settings in Extreme Tweaker is set to AUTO with the exception of AI Overclock being set to manual and Core Performance Boost being disabled.  I also re-flashed back to BIOS 1107 (I think...the one prior to 1201) with the same result.

 

What the guide shows, is that the Vcore should scale with the frequency, which is not what is happening in my case.  I also read somewhere that since altering the Pstate0 beyond stock frequencies, OC Mode becomes enabled which shuts off the voltage regulation which I'm assuming is why my Vcore stays at 1.373v.  I'm not quite sure how others are able to achieve both an overclock as well as lower idle voltages if that is the case.

Okay thanks for clarifying.  But you are still entering a value for VID.  You must NOT do that.  If you enter ANYTHING for VID, state P0 breaks.  You must get your BIOS settings "clean" and set ONLY FID in state P0.  Leave all other states in Auto.

 

Then in Extreme Tweaker, you set your core voltage to offset mode and use the calculation Tom showed you in his guide.  Again I must repeat: do not touch VID in the P-state overclocking area.  Once you do, you must wipe your settings and start over -- sorry but that's the only way it works.

[randomlamer]

13 minutes ago, entropic remnants said:

Okay thanks for clarifying.  But you are still entering a value for VID.  You must NOT do that.  If you enter ANYTHING for VID, state P0 breaks.  You must get your BIOS settings "clean" and set ONLY FID in state P0.  Leave all other states in Auto.

 

Then in Extreme Tweaker, you set your core voltage to offset mode and use the calculation Tom showed you in his guide.  Again I must repeat: do not touch VID in the P-state overclocking area.  Once you do, you must wipe your settings and start over -- sorry but that's the only way it works.

Hi yes once I choose the Custom Pstate0 setting, the value I get for the VID is already set at 20 which calculates to become 1350000uV.  I wiped the settings to double check this and it is the default setting.  The only thing I have altered within the Pstate menu was the Pstate0 FID which I changed to A0.  

 

I have set the core voltage under the Extreme Tweaker menu to Offset, +, and .01875v.  This then changes the core voltage to become 1.373v which stays constant even when the cores are downclocking.  Sorry again if I am still unclear and thank you for helping me.

[entropic remnants]

Well, I haven't been much help, lol.  Until I read Tom's write up I was very confused and always did something wrong, some little thing.  I'm not even close to an expert so I'm sorry I don't have more for you.

 

If I think of anything after reading over things again I'll let you know -- but at this point I'm not sure.  Maybe Tom or someone will jump in and have something useful for you.  Good luck regardless.

 

[AlexKelly]

great guide, getting good results so far at 3.8Ghz on my 1700 using the same board (CH6 Hero BIOS 1107).

some things I have noticed so far;

 

- 1.5ghz at idle with occasional spikes to 3.8.

- voltage is still reported at a constant 1.35 - 1.37V. 

- reported CPU power draw in hwinfo64 down to 5-8W from 15-25W.

- my 1700 crashes in prime95 at 3.8Ghz using 1.381V, LLC level 2. ;(

[entropic remnants]

Hmmm... my voltages go up and down.  Not sure what's different between our setups and I'm using 1107 as well.  Can you take some cell phone photos or something of your BIOS setup and post them?  I should have asked randomlamer about that also.  Maybe later I'll post mine to show how I've got it set up.

 

As far as Prime95, I had a weird result that turned out to be my memory and not my CPU.  I have 3200 mhz E-die Samsung dual rank and I used a 2666 mhz speed and a bclk overclock to get them to their rated 3200mhz.  I had to dial in a 68.6 ProcODT and I had good booting and HCI Memtest would run all day.

 

BUT: Prime95 would run all day on the small fft test, but NOT on the blend test.  On blend, worker threads would just halt randomly.  It turned out that when I dropped off the bclk back to 100 mhz, it cleared up -- of course that set my memory back to 2666.  Hoping AGESA updates allow me to get this memory to where it's rated at 3200 mhz.

 

Yes, I'll do that.  I'll get some shots of my BIOS screens and post them later so we can compare.

[randomlamer]

Here are my settings and my results from hwinfo.  Its pretty much the same as the guide above.

Spoiler

 

[entropic remnants]

That all looks good to me and very similar to what I have set except your P0 state is showing that 1.35 volts and I don't think it should. 

 

If you remember ever touching that P0 VID you're going to have to reset CMOS and try again.  In fact, you should probably save your settings and do just that and come back to P0 and see if it still shows 1.35.  If it does, then I guess that's hard coded in your processor some way.  But if after a COMS clear it's like that 1.18... voltage then that's your problem.  Using the CMOS reset button on the back does not clear the settings you've saved in the Tools section and for absolute safety save them to a flash drive also.

 

So if you find that 1.18... in P0 then redo everything touching ONLY FID in the P0 state and see what happens.

 

Your screen shots are excellent, do you have some kind of capture device?  I don't know anyway to capture BIOS screens except with a camera -- or is there something in the BIOS I missed?  Seems like a lot of folks have very clean BIOS images.

 

And if you tried all that already forgive me for preaching to the choir, lol.  I'll get my shots up in a bit.

 

[entropic remnants]

F12!  Duh.  Never realized that saves to the flash drive.  Excellent.

 

Spoiler

 

[entropic remnants]

What's the secret to showing the images directly in the "Reveal Hidden Content"?  Mine just show as download links?

 

[randomlamer]

Since I am running a 1700x, 1.35v in the Pstate0 VID is the default setting.  I've cleared the CMOS and that is what shows.  I used the F12 shortcut to screenshot and it saves to a FAT32 USB drive.  I changed my images to a .jpeg format and then attached it to my post.  It seems like you attached them as .bmp which the site may not support.

[entropic remnants]

9 minutes ago, randomlamer said:

Since I am running a 1700x, 1.35v in the Pstate0 VID is the default setting.  I've cleared the CMOS and that is what shows.  I used the F12 shortcut to screenshot and it saves to a FAT32 USB drive.  I changed my images to a .jpeg format and then attached it to my post.  It seems like you attached them as .bmp which the site may not support.

Got it thanks.  Yes, might be right for 1700X.  I don't have much for you then, sorry.  I will go fix those attachments though.

 

EDIT: Image attachments revised in previous post.