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I posted this in another thread, but having read a lot of posts here about the Ryzen 3000 series of CPUs and thought that I should post my months long experience and experimentation with this series of CPUs in a thread of its own.
Here is a very short guide to configuring your Ryzen 3000 Series CPU.
I have the X570 AURUS XTREME motherboard and had a 3600X in it and now, for over a week, I have a 3950X. Originally I was using a GigaByte X470 AURUS Gaming 7 WiFi rev. 1.1 in conjunction with my 3600X but the following is applicable to both.
My experience - and this is not just with GigaByte mobos, but with another mobo as well - is that you have two choices, both of which are mutually exclusive.
1) You can configure your BIOS manually and NEVER use the Ryzen Master utility for anything
2) Configure your Vcore LLC (Load Line Calibration), in my case turbo, and SOC LLC, in my case high, and getting rid of the logo at boot. Don't configure anything else. After booting into Windows configure the system with Ryzen Master.
For God's sakes don't try to configure the motherboard with the utility Easy Tune - your system will hate you for it.
If you try to mix and match the two options you will be headed for a world of pain and frustration.
The crazy thing is that even if you set the parameters exactly the same in both the BIOS and Ryzen Master, you will have nothing but problems.
Now as always there are exceptions to the rule, and in my case there are two of them:
A) When I wanted to overclock my RAM to MCLK and FCLK 1867 from 1800 I had to go into "Settings" and "AMD Overclocking" then, "DDR and Infinity Fabric Freqencies/Timings" portion of the BIOS and set the FCLK value to 1867 there. Ryzen Master will change the MCLK but not the FCLK if you are overclocking your RAM.
B) With the 3950X being a 16 Core/32 Thread CPU, I don't need SMT for most of the things I do - especially gaming. By turning SMT Off you can take the max clock you achieved previously with SMT On and add 100 MHz clockspeed to each core. The only problem is that Ryzen Master will not actually change from SMT On to Off (or vice versa) as it does with other motherboards I have worked with, so I have to do it manually by going into "Tweaker" then "Advanced CPU Settings" and then set "SMT Mode" to "Disabled.
I made the mistake of listening to the advice of the Tech YouTubers and of the Tech Media and found out, after a number of weeks of frustration, that as far as the Ryzen 3000 series of CPUs is concerned they haven't got a bloody clue.
Also ALL motherboards will punt way too much voltage into the Ryzen 3000 series of CPUs. Even Ryzen Master on any of the profiles puts an amount of voltage into the CPUs that will damage them over a relatively short period of time (measured in months, not years).
To this end, if you want to configure your CPU correctly, then, in Ryzen Master, create a Manual profile and under "Voltage Control" set the "Peak Core(s) Voltage" to 1.3 Volts, and see how far you can clock it stably.
When you have reached a stable clock at that, then you can try lowering the voltage in increments (in my case it was one increment to 1.29375 Volts) and enjoy a system which will give you good performance, low temps and above all last a long time.
On my system, using a Noctua NH-U12A air cooler, my system runs stable - and I designate stable as being able to do multiple runs of CineBench R20 back to back - with SMT On (i.e. 16 Cores/32 Threads) at 4.3 GHz and a CineBench R20 score of 10,110 at 1.29375 Volts and with SMT Off (i.e. 16 Cores/16 Threads) it runs at 4.4 GHz for a CineBench score of 7,754 at exactly 1.3 Volts.
I have ordered and AlphaCool Eisbaer LT360 AIO and I will be interested to see what difference that makes, because running CineBench with SMT On results in a higher temperature than I am personally comfortable with.
Having now tested the AlphaCool Eisbaer LT360 AIO with three Noctua NF-A12x25 fans instead of the fans that came with it, I will say that the temps are lower than with the NH-U12A but not by all that much. It is however enough to make me feel comfortable with the temps when running CineBench R20 with SMT On and running my 3950X in 12C/32T thread mode at an all-core of 4.3 GHz at 1.29375 Volts.
To summarise, every Ryzen 3000 series CPU I have been able to test extensively (my own 3600X and 3950X and my friend's 3900X) have their "sweet spot" for performance/voltage at 1.3 Volts. Whatever you achieve with regard to a stable clockspeed at that voltage, if you go even 25 MHz per core higher than that, you will have to punt in a disproportionately higher voltage.
On my 3600X for instance, just to go from 4.225 GHz at 1.29375 Volts to 4.25 GHz required me to put in 1.35 Volts.
As with all things, the "Silicon Lottery" has to be taken into account and other people might be able to clock their 3600X or 3950X higher for a given voltage than I can.
Now to someone who has read this and is going to make the obvious objection with regard to Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, please sit back, consider what you are going to write and you will quickly realise why you are wrong.
Here is a very short guide to configuring your Ryzen 3000 Series CPU.
I have the X570 AURUS XTREME motherboard and had a 3600X in it and now, for over a week, I have a 3950X. Originally I was using a GigaByte X470 AURUS Gaming 7 WiFi rev. 1.1 in conjunction with my 3600X but the following is applicable to both.
My experience - and this is not just with GigaByte mobos, but with another mobo as well - is that you have two choices, both of which are mutually exclusive.
1) You can configure your BIOS manually and NEVER use the Ryzen Master utility for anything
2) Configure your Vcore LLC (Load Line Calibration), in my case turbo, and SOC LLC, in my case high, and getting rid of the logo at boot. Don't configure anything else. After booting into Windows configure the system with Ryzen Master.
For God's sakes don't try to configure the motherboard with the utility Easy Tune - your system will hate you for it.
If you try to mix and match the two options you will be headed for a world of pain and frustration.
The crazy thing is that even if you set the parameters exactly the same in both the BIOS and Ryzen Master, you will have nothing but problems.
Now as always there are exceptions to the rule, and in my case there are two of them:
A) When I wanted to overclock my RAM to MCLK and FCLK 1867 from 1800 I had to go into "Settings" and "AMD Overclocking" then, "DDR and Infinity Fabric Freqencies/Timings" portion of the BIOS and set the FCLK value to 1867 there. Ryzen Master will change the MCLK but not the FCLK if you are overclocking your RAM.
B) With the 3950X being a 16 Core/32 Thread CPU, I don't need SMT for most of the things I do - especially gaming. By turning SMT Off you can take the max clock you achieved previously with SMT On and add 100 MHz clockspeed to each core. The only problem is that Ryzen Master will not actually change from SMT On to Off (or vice versa) as it does with other motherboards I have worked with, so I have to do it manually by going into "Tweaker" then "Advanced CPU Settings" and then set "SMT Mode" to "Disabled.
I made the mistake of listening to the advice of the Tech YouTubers and of the Tech Media and found out, after a number of weeks of frustration, that as far as the Ryzen 3000 series of CPUs is concerned they haven't got a bloody clue.
Also ALL motherboards will punt way too much voltage into the Ryzen 3000 series of CPUs. Even Ryzen Master on any of the profiles puts an amount of voltage into the CPUs that will damage them over a relatively short period of time (measured in months, not years).
To this end, if you want to configure your CPU correctly, then, in Ryzen Master, create a Manual profile and under "Voltage Control" set the "Peak Core(s) Voltage" to 1.3 Volts, and see how far you can clock it stably.
When you have reached a stable clock at that, then you can try lowering the voltage in increments (in my case it was one increment to 1.29375 Volts) and enjoy a system which will give you good performance, low temps and above all last a long time.
On my system, using a Noctua NH-U12A air cooler, my system runs stable - and I designate stable as being able to do multiple runs of CineBench R20 back to back - with SMT On (i.e. 16 Cores/32 Threads) at 4.3 GHz and a CineBench R20 score of 10,110 at 1.29375 Volts and with SMT Off (i.e. 16 Cores/16 Threads) it runs at 4.4 GHz for a CineBench score of 7,754 at exactly 1.3 Volts.
I have ordered and AlphaCool Eisbaer LT360 AIO and I will be interested to see what difference that makes, because running CineBench with SMT On results in a higher temperature than I am personally comfortable with.
Having now tested the AlphaCool Eisbaer LT360 AIO with three Noctua NF-A12x25 fans instead of the fans that came with it, I will say that the temps are lower than with the NH-U12A but not by all that much. It is however enough to make me feel comfortable with the temps when running CineBench R20 with SMT On and running my 3950X in 12C/32T thread mode at an all-core of 4.3 GHz at 1.29375 Volts.
To summarise, every Ryzen 3000 series CPU I have been able to test extensively (my own 3600X and 3950X and my friend's 3900X) have their "sweet spot" for performance/voltage at 1.3 Volts. Whatever you achieve with regard to a stable clockspeed at that voltage, if you go even 25 MHz per core higher than that, you will have to punt in a disproportionately higher voltage.
On my 3600X for instance, just to go from 4.225 GHz at 1.29375 Volts to 4.25 GHz required me to put in 1.35 Volts.
As with all things, the "Silicon Lottery" has to be taken into account and other people might be able to clock their 3600X or 3950X higher for a given voltage than I can.
Now to someone who has read this and is going to make the obvious objection with regard to Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, please sit back, consider what you are going to write and you will quickly realise why you are wrong.
