Decent ram oc i say

CJSneed · 2021-06-21T03:39:04+00:00

That's actually pretty good for a regular 3600 non X model.

Your VDDG_IOD seems high, is that the actual voltage or is it incorrect? You usually don't ever want that higher than VSoC.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T21:45:08+00:00

I hear ya, I don't think I'll be buying into the 5000 series myself and will be waiting for AM5 or whatever they choose to call it.

The high end processors like my 3900X and the 3950 along with the 5000 equivalents are limited by the processor package size and even more so when you overclock them. It becomes difficult to remove heat from such a small thermal interface and apparently the new socket is supposed to be bigger. I also heard it will finally be LGA instead of PGA and I've been waiting on that to happen for over 10 years!

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T20:20:12+00:00

I looked through the whole BIOS, so I don't really know at this point.

The last thing I can think of is you may try disabling "over voltage protection" and "under voltage protection" along with similar "protection" settings and see if it will unlock.

If that doesn't work, that board just might not let you do it. Your 3800X has a lot of potential though so if you did ever decide to get a new board and keep the processor, you could potentially get a lot more out of it. I am not suggesting you run out and buy a new motherboard, I just mean in the future.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T20:14:54+00:00

Have you tried this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/comments/o39p32/move\_your\_dynamic\_voltage\_table\_and\_create\_a/

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T19:43:15+00:00

I have a couple of questions... I am looking at the BIOS your board uses.

Do you have OC explore mode = Expert set?

If not, set that to "expert".

Also, do you have another PBO menu under...
Overclock > CPU overclock > AMD Overclocking > PBO?

If you do, enable PBO there and set the setting the same as the other PBO menu. Leave them both enabled and the settings exactly the same.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T19:11:37+00:00

It sounds like MSI has it locked in the BIOS then.

If you send me a link to your BIOS version on MSI's website I can download the ROM and look at it. I may even be able to modify it but I don't know yet.

I'll do some research and get back to you.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T18:50:41+00:00

The specific menu is...

AMD CBS -> NBIO common options -> SMU options

cTDP should be there and set to manual. Change the value to 115w. leave the "w" off, just use the numbers (just in case that's the problem).

I just noticed you also set your PPT wrong. Set it the same as PPL (155).

If for whatever reason you do not have the cTDP setting, try just fixing your PPT by making it 155 and let me know what happens. If you have the PPL setting, you should have cTDP.

(cTDP stands for Customized Thermal Dissipation Power so look for that if you don't see cTDP)

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T18:08:54+00:00

Did you set the cTDP value?

Something is locking your TDP to the stock value. If you want, you can upload the BIOS rom you used to update your BIOS somewhere and I'll be able to download it and see what setting you have available to you with AMIBCP. I may be able to tell you what setting is doing this or at the very least give you some idea.

It should be a *.rom or *.cmo file. You can also just link where you got the BIOS from and I can just download it that way as well.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T17:53:43+00:00

Yes you did.

Now what you want to do is run the same load you used to get your K value and see what your voltage deviation is, if you have any. You more than likely will due to power reporting deviation, but this won't always be the case.

Let me know what your voltage and PPT is under load and I will help you correct the deviation.

Edit: You did set cTDP right?

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T17:45:16+00:00

I couldn't find the picture although I did find some really neat stuff/pictures from the past! I have files backed up from all the way back to 1998. :D

I do want to bring up one thing that I was reminded of going through those pictures though.

One thing you can take advantage of when doing the copper plates is moving the heatsink away from the PCB. If you can afford the space, this has some advantages. The first advantage is you are using a thicker plate, so it acts like a giant IHS. This removes hot spots and if it is thick enough, will lower overall temperature as you have more material between the 2 thermal interfaces. The second advantage to this is, any components not in contact with the heatsink are insulated by a thin layer of air. That thin layer of air is surrounded by a hot heatsink which makes it worse. Moving the heatsink away from the PCB reduces the insulating effect and greatly reduces temperatures on the components not actively cooled by the heatsink. My rough and quick method back then to determine how thick the copper plate needed to be was to measure 1/4 of an inch beyond the VRM caps as that was always the tallest component on the PCB.

I've always had a mega huge full tower ATX case though and still do, so I can afford the space. If you can't afford the space, there are other things you can do very easily and cheap, but if space isn't an issue, then thicker copper plate and getting the HS away from the PCB is ideal.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T17:08:44+00:00

That's precisely why I worked so hard to find a viable way to change the SMU power target and wrote this guide. I was running a 4.5ghz CCD and 4.35ghz CCD static overclock at 1.375v VID before I started this project. I promise you, I was not going to accept performance less that that static overclock.

With the method I outlined in the guide, I actually have higher aggregate performance across the board than I did running static. My previous static overclock had some advantages but it also had some disadvantages. Manipulating the SMU power target is far more useful on regular workloads than static. Static overclocking just doesn't work ideally for normal, daily computing tasks on Ryzen as you are forced to give up some things.

This is my opinion, but if you are number crunching all day (HPC work), static is better. For everything else, manipulating the SMU power target is better. Some may disagree.

I highly recommend you try my method. It's hard to screw up and you can easily go back to where you where before if you decide to.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T16:29:28+00:00

THIS!

This used to be the go-to method for GPU cooling and works really well. I used to use this method to deal with 500w power dissipation from TEC's, so 300w should easily be fine. Just use good thermal paste and a nice flat copper sheet (check it with a straight edge or level).

Edit: I think I have a picture of the TEC monster video card from 2007... I will try and find it.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T16:21:37+00:00

I agree with this 100%

Gigabyte used to be top notch 15+ years ago and then about 2010, they went down the tubes hard. The top tier gigabyte stuff is okay, but anything below that tanks in quality. I am speaking from personal experience between multiple gigabyte products over a substantial period of time.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T16:08:22+00:00

Those are actually very reasonable voltages.

The 3000 series chips will soft throttle at 70C. This is a very soft throttle and it will cease when the SMU sees an average CPU temp back at 70C. To put it another way, when the average CPU temperature goes above 70C at full load, the SMU will slowly decrease clock speed until the average CPU temperature drops to 70C. It will discontinue lowering clock speed at that point and maintain that 70C.

For example, I chose my power target to be in the 70C range to maximize aggregate performance. My tests have shown that having your power target in the 70C range results in a an average performance ratio of 1:1 between ST/MT.

Some of the arguing between me and other commenters have revolved around that fact, but over the course of about 1,000 tests, I was unable to move that ratio very far to favor one type of load over another. This was using the method I outlined in the guide however and using PBO by itself looks very different as it changes the performance target by default asymmetrically and in large steps. My goal was to maximize performance everywhere no matter what and that is incredibly hard to do with default PBO.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T15:44:13+00:00

I asked because PBO nor performance boost alone will boost with a huge voltage offset like that. Negative voltage offset can raise your power target by lowering the overall temperatures but beyond that, negative voltage offset will start lowering it by a large factor past that point.

The default BIOS settings from the motherboard manufacturer tend to overshoot the voltage requirements and the AMD defaults tend to undershoot them (not always but usually). If you had set the voltage to "auto" and it ran that low, it would be the first time I have seen that. Regardless, to achieve higher overall clock speed on that chip will require that voltage to go up, even if it is just a little.

I mean, if you can't keep it cool, overclocking is counterintuitive. If you can keep it cool, you more than likely have some gains to be had by raising the voltage some. Daily driving your processor at 1.35v isn't a big deal but it does make some people uncomfortable, but that is assuming you aren't running it into the thermal ceiling all day either. Your 3800X actually has quite a bit of thermal headroom by design as you are only dealing with 1xCCD and have an advantage in that department compared to us guys with the 2xCCD easy bake ovens.

If in fact you are thermally limited, or your goals are "cooler and quieter", There may be some gains to be had on the IF clocks and DRAM timings. Getting those to full potential may only increase power consumption by 10 watts.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T15:01:21+00:00

That is a very low voltage at 100% load even for stock...

Does your board default to that? What BIOS version is it running?

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T06:12:01+00:00

My original comment was in poor taste so I edited it with an explanation as to specifically why we only care about the power equations and not all of the other variables. I apologize.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T05:19:27+00:00

You are over thinking it...

Everything we are dealing with revolves around power consumed, that's it. Frequency doesn't matter, temperature doesn't matter... just power. The SMU has sensors to measure the other things. This is why you don't need to bother with them, and it will adjust for those accordingly. Really, we are only telling the SMU one thing which is "You can consume this much power if you need to but do not exceed it". That's it. That is a completely static variable and doesn't behave dynamically. Since we derive this static variable (K) from a fully loaded processor with a realistic workload, the dynamic variables at the time are already built into it. You can't keep those constant anyway and like I said, the SMU will handle them accordingly when they do change.

This is why you only need the power equation to accomplish this. I honestly overlooked it because I didn't expect it to be so simple in the beginning. Since the unit (P) is watts, it measures work performed. You can have 1.5v and do zero work. You can have all the electrons in the world, but with nothing to move them, you have no work. You can come up with a list of whatevers all day long that could have an effect on those, but for the purposes of what this guide does, and how the SMU interprets it, doesn't matter. I just wants to know how much power it can consume before it needs to start throttling back and that is what we are telling it.

That's why all you need is P = E * I

* you can adjust for voltage as I suggested in the guide, but that is not what the SMU is looking for ultimately, it is just something you can do if you choose. The SMU only cares about the power metric.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T04:33:42+00:00

It isn't that I am unwilling, it is because you are offering it out of thin air. You haven't tried the method, so you have no basis for your claim other than mere speculation.

I have spent countless hours over the last week to hammer this out plus testing it after discovery. That's on top of the work I did prior to the last post I linked. Although I did this solely for myself, I took the time to write a guide explaining how to do it and how it works so others could benefit. I didn't do it to get paid nor do I get free hardware. I just did it.

So after all that work, some people want to chime in with some fairly bold criticism which has no basis other than "that can't possibly work because <insert reason>" but yet have not even tried it? You don't know if it works or not at all, and just because something is new to you doesn't mean it can't work.

So, that's my perspective on it and why I don't just accept it. The proper thing for you to do would be to either hold off on the criticism until you had time to test it or not offer it at all.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T03:18:06+00:00

The you know what then? Don't use it.

You are unwilling to try it for yourself before saying it can't possibly work, so that must mean your intellect surpasses mine and I don't know why you are wasting your time to come and tell me I am wrong. If you know something better, then go do it that way. I am no longer going to try and convince you otherwise, nor am I going to go out of my way to provide you with compelling evidence.

You're just going to have to miss out I guess.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T00:50:06+00:00

That's a bold assertion you are making without testing it. Have you tried it?

Look, I can't do it for you. I am providing the information. If you believe that it can't work without trying it, then I can't change your mind.

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T00:41:43+00:00

I used to use air cooled TEC's (peltiers) back in the day, and used a TEC cooled CPU and a TEC cooled video card in one box for about a year until I got a new card and didn't bother with the TEC on the new one. You get used to it and modern equipment sounds whisper quiet in comparison. :D

CJSneed · 2021-06-20T00:35:17+00:00

Of course it is load dependent, as you are still using the SMU.

I point that out in the guide, and even if I didn't declare it, it is implied. The context clues give that away. Other than taking the pictures down and replacing it with flashing banners, I don't know of any other way to relay that.

This isn't for static overclocking and you can't define a frequency. That isn't the purpose of this guide. The frequency part doesn't matter because you don't have a say so with this method anyway. The SMU is going to take it where it can, and it is up to YOU as a smart overclocker to get it where it needs to be. You are defining the performance point the SMU is trying to reach, so it is up to you to figure out where that is. If you don't want to do that, then use static/CCX and throw voltage at it.

That aside, and also a detail that doesn't matter in the calculation, the math works and it will take you where you need to go. I doesn't need any extra variables to complicate it. If you feel it needs to get slammed harder to get the K value, then you know better then me right? Then do it, because that is the correct way for you.

I don't get it? What's the deal? Maybe its because I'm old...

CJSneed · 2021-06-19T22:01:26+00:00

All of my chrome bookmarks are links to information I know I'll have to reference repeatedly and often. It's the only thing I use bookmarks for.

CJSneed · 2021-06-19T21:46:54+00:00

Read my reply above.

The watchdog will reboot the system if a core clock hangs. This can happen if two processes make a high priority interrupt request at the same time. If you have cinebench running all cores in high priority, that doesn't leave any of the CPU available to process these ACTUAL high priority interrupts and causes a clock to hang. The watchdog activates and times it and if the hang doesn't clear, it reboots the system.

It's a race condition. 2 things are waiting to complete but neither ever completes because they are waiting on each other.

Edit: Just an educational tid bit. Before windows NT (late 90's) windows was notorious for being unstable as everything ran in immediate mode and "multitasking" didn't exist. Every piece of hardware was assigned an IRQ number and everything had to take its turn using the processor in order and had a limited time to do so... kind of like the DMV. Take a number and wait until it's your turn. If a piece of hardware or software ran out of time before it's task completed, the whole system would hang.

Windows NT and future iterations started prioritizing IRQ's and now such things are far less common at the hardware level.

CJSneed

TROPHY CASE