Issues understanding R5 3600 behavior.

JonnMcDude · May 31, 2020

The problem: I think Intel made me extremely stupid over the years, I have serious problems in understanding Ryzen processors and their behavior.

I recently purchased a cpu and ram combo to use on my not-so-recent Gigabyte AB350-Gaming motherboard and for some reason I cannot understand how to stabilize temperatures while the system is idle or using light applications.

My last computer was (still is but now as a secondary pc) a 4790K on a Z97 board, I obviously had a lot of time to learn and understand how to deal with them (cpu and bios); I am able to maintain a fairly decent OC (stable 4,5GHz) and the temperatures are fantastic (good old Corsair Hyper EVO 212) and I was always extremely happy with everything.

Two years ago I assembled a budget 1080p machine for my girlfriend for when she's staying at my house (Gigabyte AB350-Gaming, 1300X stock cooler, 8GB DDR4 and a small SSD+HDD) but, since I received a very good offer from a friend (he works in retail and was able to provide pratically new hardware for cheaper prices) for a R5 3600 and two sticks of DDR4 ram (Crucial Ballistix BL2K8G32C16U4B 3200) for a bit under 200€ (around $220) I was extremely happy to make the purchase with a little caveat. I know that the motherboard is a little on the cheap-economic side but still, with a bios update it's possible to use Zen2 processors.

My main issue is that this R5 3600 is constantly boosting high and low from base to the advertised boost clock and therefore the fan on the air cooler (details below) is always ramping up and down, I am a bit obsessed on checking temperatures because of the years I spent with the 4790K. The CPU constantly goes from 30°~35° to 49°~59° and whenever I open any kind of application the temperature instantly raises with the fan spinning up and down all the time. I stress tested the CPU and it admirably never raises above 64~65 degrees (which is of course great coming from a 4th gen Intel cpu).

I honestly feel like I'm missing something because I'm having an hard time experimenting with fan profiles in order to avoid this constant fan noise ramping up and then going down.

Another problem I have is dealing with the ram, I used the Ryzen calculator (data imported from Thaiphoon) to determine what to change in the bios but nearly half of the values are not editable (I believe this Gigabyte bios UI and user friendliness is pretty crap compared to the one I used for a long time in the MSI Z97 Gaming 5) so in the end I had to just enable XMP and leave as it is.

HARDWARE SPECS | Summary

Motherboard: Gigabyte AB350 Gaming | Bios version F50a
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Cooling: ARCTIC Freezer 33 eSports ONE
PSU: Seasonic M12II Evo Edition 620W 80Bronze
RAM: Crucial Ballistix BL2K8G32C16U4B 3200 CL16
GPU: MSI 2070 Super Armor
STORAGE: Crucial MX300 250GB (boot disk) SATA | Intel 660p 1TB (games) M.2 NVME | WD Blue 1TB (storage/archive) SATA
CASE: Corsair 300R
OS: WIndows 10 Professional 1909
Background apps: MSI Afterburner with RTSS, Logitech Gaming Software.

Conclusion: I know that I have to change motherboard but it is not possible at the moment due to financial issues, same thing with the cooler which is not as good as I imagined.

If there is anything else I need to provide as information please let me know.

Statik · May 31, 2020

This is how Ryzen works.

In low core/threadcount workloads Ryzen throws lots of voltage at the CPU (sometimes up to 1.5V) in order to allow the CPU to boost as high as possible, giving you the best performance possible. That is why Ryzen voltages/temps fluctuate a bit at idle and low loads. It's completely normal. And it seems gone are the days of comparing idle temps, because they don't really matter. All that matters is your CPU temp under load.

You can try setting a more passive fan curve in your bios, and not have the fan ramp up until you start hitting "load" type temperatures.

Streetguru · May 31, 2020

22 minutes ago, JonnMcDude said:

The random software temp readings really don't matter that much, just check what voltages it's using in CPU-Z or Ryzen master has accurate temp monitoring.

Unless it's basing it just off of the voltage given and not the true temps from the probes on the CPU.

JonnMcDude · May 31, 2020

22 minutes ago, Statik said:

This is how Ryzen works.

Thank you for the reply.

I understand, I need to change the way I see things because I was not prepared to this situation; I'll try to play a bit with the cpu fan profile.

Gigabyte provides an application with fan controls (it mimics the bios settings), do you know if it's not recomended? I find it kinda useful because if it works as advertised then I don't have to constantly jump to the bios for a little tweak in the graph.

What about ram? Is XMP a viable option if I can't properly tune it due to lack of customisation in the bios?

Ryzen Master, is it any good? Is auto oc actually decent or should I leave the cpu as it is with stock values?

Motherboard, since I am out of the loop (last I purchased was in 2015 I believe) which brand does provide a good BIOS experience?

21 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

The random software readings really don't matter that much, just check what voltages it's using in CPU-Z or Ryzen master

Voltages are in line with what I just learned.

Statik · June 1, 2020

2 hours ago, JonnMcDude said:

Thank you for the reply.

I understand, I need to change the way I see things because I was not prepared to this situation; I'll try to play a bit with the cpu fan profile.

Gigabyte provides an application with fan controls (it mimics the bios settings), do you know if it's not recomended? I find it kinda useful because if it works as advertised then I don't have to constantly jump to the bios for a little tweak in the graph.

What about ram? Is XMP a viable option if I can't properly tune it due to lack of customisation in the bios?

Ryzen Master, is it any good? Is auto oc actually decent or should I leave the cpu as it is with stock values?

Motherboard, since I am out of the loop (last I purchased was in 2015 I believe) which brand does provide a good BIOS experience?

Voltages are in line with what I just learned.

1. In regards to the Gigabyte software, I have no personal experience. I'm using an Asus board, so I can't vouch for it. But if it works fine, then I'm sure you're good.

2. You REALLY should run your ram in XMP. If you don't it's just a waste of money, and your ram is running slow. If you want to tweak it in your bios for better performance than that's on you, but XMP is really the baseline for ram. Running without XMP is just lost performance and wasted money.

3. I like Ryzen master. It's nice to be able to tweak everything in your desktop quick and easy. But I'd recommend setting everything in the bios after you have it all set up and stable.

4. I currently have PBO + AutoOC (with I think a +200Mhz offset, whichever is highest) enabled on my 3800x. It seems to work fine. I would recommend using something like CInebench R20 to benchmark, and run it with PBO on/off, and AutoOC on/off to see the performance difference relative to the temperature difference, and see how it is on your particular chip.

5. I love my Asus board, but I don't think you should have any issues with Gigabyte, Asus, Asrock, or MSI.

If I can also add one thing, since you're coming from an OC'd 4790k, is please do extensive research into OCing Ryzen 3000 before you consider overclocking it. IMO it's not worth it to OC Ryzen 3k, but my opinions aside, there's very little headroom to OC, and without proper knowledge about your specific chips max voltage, etc, and doing the right testing/info gathering beforehand and just jumping right into OCing you can permanently degrade the silicone in your chip.

Personally I only ever recommend PBO + AutoOC on Ryzen. Manual OCs just aren't worth the risk/hassle, and you can lose gaming performance.

Best of luck.