The CPU That Broke the Camel's Back (3800x Horror Story)

[KingPizza]

I've had issues with my 3800x from the beginning. Nothing major, just mild instability issues: a random crash once a week, screen flickering, random slowness, and most infuriating of all, wildly fluctuating CPU temps I still, to the time of me writing this, have not gotten under control. This CPU has lasted through 3 different motherboards and CPU coolers, 4 different cases, and a GPU swap, and I absolutely hate it. Then ClockTuner for Ryzen released, and this program is the reason I'm finally biting the bullet and upgrading.

 

To be fair, my 3800x performs, I assume, within spec. Default out of the box, it runs mostly fine. When I first built the PC I was using bottom of the barrel parts in a MicroATX system. I assumed the general, infrequent instability was just from the $100 AsRock Mobo. As I began to upgrade the system, however, and after each small iteration, it became clear who the culprit was. Again, in my current, far-more-advanced-than-the-first build, with an X570 Aorus Master, EK 360 AIO, and Corsair 850w Platinum yellow label, the only real issue I have at default settings is the CPU temp fluctuations. CPU temps float between 30c and 65c randomly at idle. On the silent fan profile, opening Chrome causes the fans to spin to 100%. This has been the case through 3 different motherboards, a top of the line air cooler, another liquid cooler, and finally this *literal* chart topping 360 AIO from EK Gaming. However, no amount of stress testing can get the CPU temps over 70c. 5 hours in Prime 95, it doesn't break a sweat. How does that make sense?!

 

Then I heard about ClockTuner for Ryzen, and figured it could really help me. An auto undervolt to get my temps in check while possibly giving me a better Cinebench score? Hell yeah, sign me up. Well I wish I hadn't, cause I'm now the owner of, I think, the absolute WORST binned 3800x in existence. Ignorance is bliss. This program confirmed I have a "bronze" CPU, and you know the numbers it assigns to each CPU Core so you get an idea of their quality? My highest scoring core is lower than the lowest scoring core of the 2 CPU's in the 2 tutorial videos I watched to set the program up. Oh, and the program doesn't work for me. It causes my PC to crash every time. No matter what I do. I've changed all the settings I needed to in Bios, even some optional ones for extra stability.

 

My 3800x was the sample used to determine the absolute baseline minimum for what constitutes a 3800x, and I'm convinced the wildly fluctuating temps are because my CPU struggles to turbo boost based on the default AMD specs. I don't blame AMD for this, and fully plan to upgrade to a 5000 series chip. I just really needed to vent, and perhaps even get confirming/competing opinions or experiences.

 

EDIT: Also forgot to mention, it takes 1 minute for my PC to start on a gen 4 NVMe drive because the first time it gets to the POST screen, it restarts itself like there's some kind of bad bios setting, but NEVER fails to start successfully the second time. I've also adjusted every single bios setting to remedy this issue, but nothing works. Also Also, every 10th (ish, obviously the issue is completely random) startup it'll boot in to Windows, but nothing responds. No keyboard, mouse, USB won't respond. Have to do a hard reset.

[xAcid9]

Should've RMA it imo. 

[DildorTheDecent]

22 minutes ago, KingPizza said:

Oh, and the program doesn't work for me. It causes my PC to crash every time. No matter what I do. I've changed all the settings I needed to in Bios, even some optional ones for extra stability.

Same. It never seems to set the voltage on my 3950X. It supposedly tested a 4050MHz diagnostic frequency to 960mV~ but the SVI2 TFN sensor reported the voltage as being around 1.25V. Latest version of Ryzen Master and no conflicting programs open.

 

I guess it is beta so some issues are expected.

 

As far as factory performance goes, I can't recall major issues hitting the 4.7GHz boost clock that AMD advertises. My 3950X will hold it on up to 2 cores during single thread runs. Zen 2 has been a mostly positive experience for me. Except for the 560MHz boot bug. That's annoying. My Infinity Fabric does 1900MHz with no perceivable issues. So that's another plus.

[SFFDesigns]

3 hours ago, KingPizza said:

and you know the numbers it assigns to each CPU Core so you get an idea of their quality?

What are your numbers? I've got a Silver 3700X, so I bet the two would be roughly similar considering the 3800X generally has a better bin

[KingPizza]

6 hours ago, Hymenopus_Coronatus said:

What are your numbers? I've got a Silver 3700X, so I bet the two would be roughly similar considering the 3800X generally has a better bin

Highest was 136 and lowest was 115.

[KingPizza]

8 hours ago, DildorTheDecent said:

Same. It never seems to set the voltage on my 3950X. It supposedly tested a 4050MHz diagnostic frequency to 960mV~ but the SVI2 TFN sensor reported the voltage as being around 1.25V. Latest version of Ryzen Master and no conflicting programs open.

 

I guess it is beta so some issues are expected.

 

As far as factory performance goes, I can't recall major issues hitting the 4.7GHz boost clock that AMD advertises. My 3950X will hold it on up to 2 cores during single thread runs. Zen 2 has been a mostly positive experience for me. Except for the 560MHz boot bug. That's annoying. My Infinity Fabric does 1900MHz with no perceivable issues. So that's another plus.

I don't know what half of those words you just used mean, so I'll take some comfort knowing it's probably not just because I'm too stupid to use the program, lol.

[KingPizza]

On 10/22/2020 at 2:58 AM, xAcid9 said:

Should've RMA it imo. 

The OP makes it sound like my PC was crashing constantly and that I always knew the CPU was the issue. In reality, my PC runs fine 98% of the time, and I didn't suspect it was the CPU until nearly a year in.