Ryzen 9 3900X decline in performance lately

[Lumerian]

So I've had this CPU for almost 2 years now and I've never seen it performing this bad no matter what I do. It's at a point where it's noticeable even while gaming (stutters, FPS drops at 1440p etc.). What could have caused this and is there anything you can think of that can fix this?

Temps are low, 50-55C while gaming and 60-70 under full load (Premiere, Cinebench etc.)

Full specs are:

• AMD R9 3900X
• XFX RX 6900 XT Merc (UV)
• MSI B450 Tomahawk (BIOS ver. 7C02v1H)
• Corsair Vengeance RGB 3000C15 (XMP, no OC)
• Corsair H115i PRO
• XPG SX 8200 Pro 512 GB
• Phanteks P400A
• Corsair RM750
• Windows 11 21H2

And the Cinebench results: (This is with per CCX OC, 4375-4350-4300-4325 MHz respectively at 1.35V. And both the multi core and the single core performance worsen with everything set to auto and CPB/PBO enabled) I'm so lost...

 

[Livin]

20 minutes ago, Lumerian said:

So I've had this CPU for almost 2 years now and I've never seen it performing this bad no matter what I do. It's at a point where it's noticeable even while gaming (stutters, FPS drops at 1440p etc.). What could have caused this and is there anything you can think of that can fix this?

Temps are low, 50-55C while gaming and 60-70 under full load (Premiere, Cinebench etc.)

Full specs are:

• AMD R9 3900X
• XFX RX 6900 XT Merc (UV)
• MSI B450 Tomahawk (BIOS ver. 7C02v1H)
• Corsair Vengeance RGB 3000C15 (XMP, no OC)
• Corsair H115i PRO
• XPG SX 8200 Pro 512 GB
• Phanteks P400A
• Corsair RM750
• Windows 11 21H2

And the Cinebench results: (This is with per CCX OC, 4375-4350-4300-4325 MHz respectively at 1.35V. And both the multi core and the single core performance worsen with everything set to auto and CPB/PBO enabled) I'm so lost...

 

Throwing out a bunch of things as ideas

With the OC in mind as well, when setting things to "stock" do you still see the same hitching/stuttering in games?  Despite the lower performance, that kind of stuttering shouldn't be an issue with the type of hardware you're running.  Also is this across multiple titles or a specific one/few?

Between those runs did you do BIOS updates?  Those can include new versions of AGESA and microcode updates which can change how the CPU behaves.  Normally you hope these bring performance improvements, but not always (especially in cases where they try to patch vulnerabilities). 

More commonly though this will be something running in the background.  A service or application can easily make the impacts you are seeing.  As those applications (and Windows) gets updates it could cause what you're seeing as well.

[Lumerian]

23 minutes ago, Livin said:

With the OC in mind as well, when setting things to "stock" do you still see the same hitching/stuttering in games?  Despite the lower performance, that kind of stuttering shouldn't be an issue with the type of hardware you're running.

Yep, games still stutter and overall performance is lower along with the lower GPU usage.

 

24 minutes ago, Livin said:

Also is this across multiple titles or a specific one/few?

Almost all of the games I play. From games like Tarkov and Apex Legends to Sniper Elite 5 and Cyberpunk.

 

25 minutes ago, Livin said:

Between those runs did you do BIOS updates?  Those can include new versions of AGESA and microcode updates which can change how the CPU behaves.  Normally you hope these bring performance improvements, but not always (especially in cases where they try to patch vulnerabilities). 

Yes I have, and actually I noticed my performance getting tanked after the latest update to the non-beta BIOS. But I also tried going back to the previous BIOS with no luck on the performance side.

 

53 minutes ago, Livin said:

More commonly though this will be something running in the background.  A service or application can easily make the impacts you are seeing.  As those applications (and Windows) gets updates it could cause what you're seeing as well.

Possible but I always try to keep my PC clean. No BS programs, pirated software or anything that can impact the performance. Though maybe Windows messed something up, I don't know...

[Livin]

16 minutes ago, Lumerian said:

Possible but I always try to keep my PC clean. No BS programs, pirated software or anything that can impact the performance. Though maybe Windows messed something up, I don't know...

I'm more meaning things that are starting with the system.  Checking the startup tab in task manager as well as opening MSCONFIG and check what non-microsoft services are starting with the system (there's a checkbox for this at the bottom).

Something else you can try just for checking if that lost performance in Cinebench is hiding somewhere, try setting the priority on cinebench to "high".  To do this, open task manager while Cinebench is open, find the .exe in the list on the details tab, then right click, and set priority to high.  Then try going through a single run (important to not do continous!).  The system may look like it locks up when it starts running (Windows will be throwing all the CPU resources towards Cinebench instead of other programs/tasks including mouse movement/gui interaction), but just let it run for the typical time it would take to finish regardless and it will snap back to normal once the run is complete.  See if that has a significant impact on the score.  If it does, something running in the background is likely sapping CPU time.

[Lumerian]

51 minutes ago, Livin said:

I'm more meaning things that are starting with the system.  Checking the startup tab in task manager as well as opening MSCONFIG and check what non-microsoft services are starting with the system (there's a checkbox for this at the bottom).

Something else you can try just for checking if that lost performance in Cinebench is hiding somewhere, try setting the priority on cinebench to "high".  To do this, open task manager while Cinebench is open, find the .exe in the list on the details tab, then right click, and set priority to high.  Then try going through a single run (important to not do continous!).  The system may look like it locks up when it starts running (Windows will be throwing all the CPU resources towards Cinebench instead of other programs/tasks including mouse movement/gui interaction), but just let it run for the typical time it would take to finish regardless and it will snap back to normal once the run is complete.  See if that has a significant impact on the score.  If it does, something running in the background is likely sapping CPU time.

Slightly higher multi core score with slightly lower single core score on CB with priority set to high. 

These are everything. Task manager's startup tab isn't much different.  

[Livin]

7 minutes ago, Lumerian said:

Slightly higher multi core score with slightly lower single core score on CB with priority set to high.

 

If it's minimal difference than you're probably in the clear.  Really this mainly affects multi-core score.  Other tasks stealing some CPU time during the benchmark generally don't affect single-core unless there's significant usage, but even a few percentage points of overall CPU usage can affect multi-core scores.

Either way, with the things listed in your startup, you could try disabling as many things as possible to see if it makes a difference.  It's easy enough to turn them back on once you've done a little testing.  I'd keep AMD services running just in case, but pretty much everything else doesn't need to be enabled for testing purposes (just keep in mind disabling anti-cheat services will cause associated games/apps to be unhappy for online play).

Something unrelated to software that you can try as well is turning off XMP to see if that stuttering goes away (not sure if this is something you've already tried with stock settings or not).  XMP/DOCP are generally fairly safe, but it's not 100%.  I've had it cause crashes on some configurations in the past.

I'll be heading out for much of the day at this point too, but I'll try to check back and follow up later.  In the meantime hopefully others will have some good ideas and other avenues to chase.

[Lumerian]

53 minutes ago, Livin said:

 

If it's minimal difference than you're probably in the clear.  Really this mainly affects multi-core score.  Other tasks stealing some CPU time during the benchmark generally don't affect single-core unless there's significant usage, but even a few percentage points of overall CPU usage can affect multi-core scores.

Either way, with the things listed in your startup, you could try disabling as many things as possible to see if it makes a difference.  It's easy enough to turn them back on once you've done a little testing.  I'd keep AMD services running just in case, but pretty much everything else doesn't need to be enabled for testing purposes (just keep in mind disabling anti-cheat services will cause associated games/apps to be unhappy for online play).

Something unrelated to software that you can try as well is turning off XMP to see if that stuttering goes away (not sure if this is something you've already tried with stock settings or not).  XMP/DOCP are generally fairly safe, but it's not 100%.  I've had it cause crashes on some configurations in the past.

I'll be heading out for much of the day at this point too, but I'll try to check back and follow up later.  In the meantime hopefully others will have some good ideas and other avenues to chase.

No difference at all  Disabling XMP also caused lower overall performance. I don't even know at this point. Is it possible to search for MSI's old beta BIOS versions? I'm inclined to try an older BIOS despite being beta. I've looked around a bit but it seems they only keep non-beta versions on the support page of their site.

[Livin]

21 hours ago, Lumerian said:

No difference at all  Disabling XMP also caused lower overall performance. I don't even know at this point. Is it possible to search for MSI's old beta BIOS versions? I'm inclined to try an older BIOS despite being beta. I've looked around a bit but it seems they only keep non-beta versions on the support page of their site.

Rolling back to a previous stable should be fine, shouldn't need to find that beta one again if you wanted to try a BIOS rollback.

 

Starting to run out of ideas on things to try .  If you have a spare drive sitting around you could try a clean install of Windows as a test.

[Lumerian]

26 minutes ago, Livin said:

Rolling back to a previous stable should be fine, shouldn't need to find that beta one again if you wanted to try a BIOS rollback.

 

The reason why I'm asking that is because the latest BIOS on my MoBo's site is from 2020... Certainly don't wanna return to that, lol. Anyway, I e-mailed MSI about it, we shall see if they can help or not.

[Livin]

3 hours ago, Lumerian said:

The reason why I'm asking that is because the latest BIOS on my MoBo's site is from 2020... Certainly don't wanna return to that, lol. Anyway, I e-mailed MSI about it, we shall see if they can help or not.

Still shouldn't really be an issue.  Length of time since last release doesn't necessarily equate to number of changes.  Worst case you can flash it back.

[Lumerian]

15 hours ago, Livin said:

Length of time since last release doesn't necessarily equate to number of changes.

I've always been following, and there have been a lot of changes, sadly. The most obvious being the AGESA ComboAm4PI 1.0.0.6 to AGESA ComboAm4v2PI 1.2.0.7. As well as some memory issue fixes, ironing somethings out with the fTPM, etc.   Though I might still try the 2020 ver. tomorrow as it's getting late here and follow up.

 

Well, I couldn't resist so I went ahead and flashed it to the 2020 BIOS... and the results are significantly better. Results with OC/UV (on my first run I got around 19600 pts but dropped later on):

 

Results with everything auto & PBO/CPB

I can't figure out why it couldn't score over 1300 in SC (like many 3900X benchmarks report @auto) though...

 

Besides all of that, power management also seems better. 0.4 core voltage while idling, etc. Might as well keep this, I don't know... And last but not least, I wanna check the performance in games if anything changed at all, but it's 3 AM here and I'm about to fall asleep on my chair lol. So follow up tomorrow...

 

Yep, gaming performance has improved immensely. I was getting about 120-160 FPS in Apex @1440p with dips to like 90 FPS, now it rarely drops below 200. 2020 BIOS FTW, I guess

[Livin]

On 7/3/2022 at 6:16 PM, Lumerian said:

Yep, gaming performance has improved immensely. I was getting about 120-160 FPS in Apex @1440p with dips to like 90 FPS, now it rarely drops below 200. 2020 BIOS FTW, I guess

Glad to hear it worked out