Ryzen Voltage

[danlinus84]

I just noticed this official Gigabyte AM4 Overclocking Guide on the store page for my motherboard https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AB350M-Gaming-3-rev-10#kf

 

It recommends maximum voltage of 1.45-1.5v for 4GHz and advises not to go above 1.55v!

 

I thought I would see what people on here think about that? It's from the site for my actual product so I would be likely to believe it if other people hadn't advised differently!

[KarathKasun]

Over 1.425v is pushing into the extreme upper bounds of the 14nm process.  If you are going over that you should be under a serious water loop or you should be sub ambient.  Even with that, expect most chips to degrade with a relative quickness.

 

That board could only hope to push over 1.4v with a R5 1500X or below anyway.  If you tried that with a R5 1600 you would start seeing pretty high temps on the VRM.  With an R7 1700 you would likely damage the board in short order.

[danlinus84]

2 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

Over 1.425v is pushing into the extreme upper bounds of the 14nm process.  If you are going over that you should be under a serious water loop or you should be sub ambient.  Even with that, expect most chips to degrade with a relative quickness.

 

That board could only hope to push over 1.4v with a R5 1500X or below anyway.

Yeah, just don't know why Gigabyte would recommend it if it could damage. You would have thought they would have at least updated it by now! I am at 1.4v 3.9GHz.

[KarathKasun]

Just now, danlinus84 said:

Yeah, just don't know why Gigabyte would recommend it if it could damage. You would have thought they would have at least updated it by now! I am at 1.4v 3.9GHz.

Firstly, on what chip?

 

And they can recommend anything because overclocking voids warranty anyway.

[danlinus84]

1 minute ago, KarathKasun said:

Firstly, on what chip?

 

And they can recommend anything because overclocking voids warranty anyway.

1700x

[KarathKasun]

Just now, danlinus84 said:

1700x

Expect to get a new board if you ever put serious load on that setup.  It may survive awhile, but the VRM will be at or above max spec for temp under load.

[knightslugger]

1.55 will kill it within a month. ask me how i know.

[mariushm]

Stick to 1.42v or lower. Personally I'd say if you can't reach something without pushing above 1.4v, it's not worth it (too much extra power wasted for too little performance increase)

 

1.45v is the maximum voltage recommended by AMD. If you go above, the CPU can degrade and even die.. not suddenly but over the course of weeks.

 

Why 1.42 then and not 1.45... because of features like LLC (load line calibration) and because the VRM may be slow to react at variations of current.

LLC aims to compensate for the voltage loss in traces between the cpu and the point where the voltage is actually measured by the VRM... basically depending on your LLC setting, the voltage the CPU will see will be a bit higher.

So with some aggressive LLC settings, from time to time the voltage on CPU may go above 1.45v

 

You can read more about LLC here and in other places on the net, just google "load line calibration":

 

The damages caused by excess voltage can be sort of decreased with lower temperatures... so with watercooling and keeping the cpu to something like 50-60c tops, it may be fine to go up to 1.5v..1.55v for longer periods

 

If it's just for some OC competition and you don't care if your CPU lives after a couple of days, you can follow that gigabyte guide.

[danlinus84]

13 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

Expect to get a new board if you ever put serious load on that setup.  It may survive awhile, but the VRM will be at or above max spec for temp under load.

Maximum temp of VRM's hasn't gone over 85c on Aida64 stress test.

[knightslugger]

there's also Amperage draw to consider when loading more voltage to the CPU. it's just not a healthy practice.

[danlinus84]

I sent Gigabyte a message saying they should consider changing the voltage recommendation in their guide lol

[KarathKasun]

2 minutes ago, danlinus84 said:

Maximum temp of VRM's hasn't gone over 85c on Aida64 stress test.

AIDA64 stress test is mostly worthless.  Encoding video can get you higher temps.

[danlinus84]

7 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

1.55 will kill it within a month. ask me how i know.

Maybe it was a freak occurance.

[knightslugger]

Just now, danlinus84 said:

Maybe it was a freak occurance.

you're welcome to confirm.

[danlinus84]

1 hour ago, knightslugger said:

you're welcome to confirm.

Did it hit over 1.55v at any point in your overclocking drama?

[knightslugger]

5 minutes ago, danlinus84 said:

Did it hit over 1.55v at any point in your overclocking drama?

probably, it stopped reporting voltages under 1.55v after the event. could be i damaged the VRM, but the CPU wouldn't even boot reliably at stock speeds. the thing was fucked.