5950X idle and load voltages the wrong way round (Strix X570-E)

[dvs8]

Hi there,

I've been googling around for some time now and haven't yet found a conclusive reason why my system behaves the way it does, symptoms being high idle and load temps and thusly loud fans.

Cutting right to the chase, this is normal idle desktop with nothing running:

Spoiler: Exhibit A

That's actually the lowest temperature I've ever seen here, normally it's around 50-60C at idle. But you can see locked to base clock and the SVI2 TFN core voltage sensor is pinned to almost 1.5V

Then let's fire up Cinebench to make use of all those lovely volts:

Spoiler: Exhibit B

Temperature goes through the roof, the clock speed boosts (a bit), and the voltage hits the floor.

This is on an Asus Strix X570-E with optimised defaults + XMP + PBO enabled (nothing else touched), 360mm AIO cooler and well ventilated case. Pulling my hair out tbh and would really appreciate some tips if anyone else has seen this behaviour.

dvs

 

[Minstadave]

That's normal for the voltages to be higher at idle.

 

[Tanin'iver]

Unfortunately the more I read about this the more it seems to be "normal" for these processors.

See this thread where forum user iwolverine posted about similar behaviour, I added my own observations there too.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/foru...-temperature-too-high-55-60-degrees.18928167/

As for why it behaves this way though, I've no idea. If I had to guess I'd say that the high voltage levels are required to reach high clock speeds (try Cinebench single-thread and you will likely see a higher voltage reported than with the multi threaded), then the voltage gets reduced as more cores are loaded (at lower clock speeds than single/few cores) to keep the temperature/power draw under control.

But then for some reason the processor/motherboard don't seem to allow the voltage to drop low at idle, even if you carefully tweak your system to make sure nothing is using much CPU time at idle.

 

[Grim5]

1.5v at idle is normal
1.45v at max load single core is normal
1.1v at max load multicore is normal

If you CPU is at the voltages I've listed everything is normal

Ryzen power architecture is a bit different to Intel, AMD gives Ryzen high voltages with low Amps, Intel uses low voltages with high amps

 

[dvs8]

Wow - thanks for the quick responses. Kinda mental to think that 1.5V is normal for a chip these days. CTR puts mine at a "silver" sample so I guess I'll leave PBO on and just not worry about the vcore figure.

 

[EsaT]

Of course too high voltage degrades semiconductors fast by just frying insulation, but inside certain limits voltage alone isn't dangerous.
Wear starts to pick up when there's more load and current draw rises.
And temperature is another factor in wear.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15839/electromigration-amd-ryzen-current-boosting-wont-kill-your-cpu

 

[stephenb]

OP, no way your system is genuinely at idle with those clocks and temps. Suspect you have some software running that is chewing up CPU in the background. My system sits at ~ 9C over ambient at idle, clocks sub 1Ghz.

 

[Tanin'iver]

OP, no way your system is genuinely at idle with those clocks and temps. Suspect you have some software running that is chewing up CPU in the background. My system sits at ~ 9C over ambient at idle, clocks sub 1Ghz.

I see from your signature that you are water cooling it. When you say the CPU sits at ~9C over ambient at idle, is the temperature of the water or coolant in your loop equal to the ambient temperature?

Like the OP I'm using a 360 AIO cooler. The low pump and fan speed I have configured at idle mean the coolant temperature tends to be 35-36C, and the CPU temperature 46-47C - which is about 11C over the coolant temp.

I can bring the idle coolant temperature down by 5C or so if I run the pump and fans much faster, but I prefer the quiet.

 

[stephenb]

^ I don't have a temp sensor in this loop so couldn't tell you. Based on past experience I expect it is a little higher.