*** AMD "Zen 4" thread (inc AM5/APU discussion) ***

[s09931]

Has anyone on Zen4 been able to successfully use XMP 3.0 rated DDR5? I understand 6000Mhz is the sweet spot for Zen4 - is the platform happy booting XMP modules and then manually setting the speed and timings etc, or are there compatibility issues doing so?

Cheers

Yep I have since launch. After some tweaking managed to get 6200, 32/38/38/38. fclk 2167 stable and working. My memory is: Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-49600C36 6200MHz Dual Channel Kit - White (CMH32GX5M2B6200C36W)


ZenTimings

 

[Dave2150]

Yep I have since launch. After some tweaking managed to get 6200, 32/38/38/38. fclk 2167 stable and working. My memory is: Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-49600C36 6200MHz Dual Channel Kit - White (CMH32GX5M2B6200C36W)


ZenTimings

Ah cool, thanks for info. I have a few XMP 3.0 Intel kits that I'd prefer to re-use (even if it means at less than XMP speeds) rather than have to buy EXPO ones.

 

[bfar]

Some people don't get this. It's painful.

The context of the original comment was around fan control, an how the tj-max is used by most motherboards to measure fan curves. Regardless of how much or little heat is put out, this has an impact on noise. Not just talking about watts and temps.

Hope that relives your pain.

 

[uscool]

The context of the original comment was around fan control, an how the tj-max is used by most motherboards to measure fan curves. Regardless of how much or little heat is put out, this has an impact on noise. Not just talking about watts and temps.

Hope that relives your pain.

if you use AIO that you can set curve to the liquid temp you can make it gradual increase with fans on rad , if going by fan you can set delay in response time so wont get that ramping up and down and only spin up when the temp is consistently higher

 

[RavenXXX2]

See zen 4 has gone back to msrp at most retailers, guess the non x chips are on the way.

 

[FredFlint]

See zen 4 has gone back to msrp at most retailers, guess the non x chips are on the way.

I did not think they would, thought the 3D versions would use the old rrp's. Looks like they will be more.

 

[McGraw]

I'm running my Corsair 5600/36 at 6000/36 no probs so far. I just manually chose it from my BIOS.

 

[Grim5]

ECO 105W gets 36K :140W (temps: 60-75C)
ECO 65W get 29.6K :85-90W(temps:55-65C)
Add -5 curve bumps the score up:~500-1000
Edit:
Just ran CineBench [ECO 65W -5 Curve]:max temp 48C(package) [29271][90.184W]

Thanks

I tried the 105w profile and got 35k, temps dropped to 65c at load. So only 10% loss in performance however it didn't change anything for idle, temps are still high at idle and cpu still pulls 80w, all it seems to do is limit max power draw to 142w.

Then I tried adding -15 to the curve and the score jumped to 38k with the 105w profile, plus it dropped the idle power draw by 10w. However it was not stable and crashed the 2nd time I ran cinebench.

Probably what I'll do for daily use is use the pbo enhancement mode to limit the cpu temp to 80c, leave it on the stock 170w profile and do -5 on all cores.

 

[Grim5]

Yep I have since launch. After some tweaking managed to get 6200, 32/38/38/38. fclk 2167 stable and working. My memory is: Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-49600C36 6200MHz Dual Channel Kit - White (CMH32GX5M2B6200C36W)


ZenTimings

Did you encounter any issues with the bios? I'm curious to see if I can get better on my kit, it's currently on 6200 36/39/39/39 but I've heard people say that sometimes after changing the settings the system won't even boot to bios and the cmos needs to be reset

 

[Dave2150]

Carrying on from this; I also found that none of the cores would go above 5.5ghz even when running cinebench single thread test.

Then after googling I found it's cause the latest AGESA has a 5.5ghz limit if 4 or more cores are active at the same time. Which is the case, task manager shows 4/5 cores active with load even just when idling but there isn't any apps that look like cpu hogs so no idea why.

Then found that my board has a medium load boost feature which removed this AMD limit and allows for any core to reach max clocks regardless of load - with that enabled then I had some cores reach 5.8ghz but the problem is now the 7950x is idling at 70c and it's drawing 110w at idle

It seems AMD has turned their latest CPUs into massive power hogs

Drawing 110W idle at stock - is this a general issue, or limited to certain boards?

 

[FredFlint]

Carrying on from this; I also found that none of the cores would go above 5.5ghz even when running cinebench single thread test.

Then after googling I found it's cause the latest AGESA has a 5.5ghz limit if 4 or more cores are active at the same time. Which is the case, task manager shows 4/5 cores active with load even just when idling but there isn't any apps that look like cpu hogs so no idea why.

Then found that my board has a medium load boost feature which removed this AMD limit and allows for any core to reach max clocks regardless of load - with that enabled then I had some cores reach 5.8ghz but the problem is now the 7950x is idling at 70c and it's drawing 110w at idle

It seems AMD has turned their latest CPUs into massive power hogs

I would turn "medium load boost feature" off, 110W idle is crazzy:

Spoiler

picture url

 

[Grim5]

I would turn "medium load boost feature" off, 110W idle is crazzy:

Spoiler

picture url

Yeah it's disabled now.

I've been playing a bit of modern warfare 2 and the 7950x is using 140w which feels a bit high but I know this game is severely CPU bottlenecked so it's likely a worst case scenario for gaming, the 4090 is chilling at 45c and 280w instead of its normal 450w

 

[Grim5]

So I found out how to get the idle power consumption down, changing the windows power profile from Balanced to Power Saver

I tried all 3 profiles
* Balanced and High Performance = 80/90w idle and CPU sits at 5.5ghz all core all the time and voltage of 1.4v
* Power Saver = 40w idle with some CPU cores dropping to 3.1ghz, voltage is 1.05v

There is no performance difference in Cinebench between the 3 profiles.

So I guess I fixed my problem, Windows needs to be in Power Saver profile. Are you guys using Power Saver? I think Windows 11 defaulted to Balanced for me

 

[uscool]

Also noticed this with the 5900x, I dont have power saver option on windows 11 but if I select best power efficiency ( default its set to balanced) it really shows difference in idle it really does drop the temps and in general use its noticeably lower without getting the CPU spiking like before and it still scores the same in cinebench and other cpu benchmarks

 

[FredFlint]

So I found out how to get the idle power consumption down, changing the windows power profile from Balanced to Power Saver

I tried all 3 profiles
* Balanced and High Performance = 80/90w idle and CPU sits at 5.5ghz all core all the time and voltage of 1.4v
* Power Saver = 40w idle with some CPU cores dropping to 3.1ghz, voltage is 1.05v

There is no performance difference in Cinebench between the 3 profiles.

So I guess I fixed my problem, Windows needs to be in Power Saver profile. Are you guys using Power Saver? I think Windows 11 defaulted to Balanced for me

I have not changed the power plan so it’s on balanced and medium load boost (think my MB has it) will be on auto. Have you installed the latest AMD chipset driver? My chip used ~140W when set to ECO 105W and under load.

Edit:
I just set it to Power saver and idle is now 22-28W. Also get a better Cinbench score: 30511 at ECO 65W. max temp 48C.

 

[SquirrelMadness]

Was I seeing this right the Ryzen 7950x was priced £548 last week? Had the tab open rather than took a picture.

Need it as a reference point as to know that anything above this price is overpaying.

 

[FredFlint]

Was I seeing this right the Ryzen 7950x was priced £548 last week? Had the tab open rather than took a picture.

Need it as a reference point as to know that anything above this price is overpaying.

It was at £548, looks like prices are going back up to rrp or above. What is the RRP now? Think it dropped to $600. Some places have it at £750.

 

[jellybeard999]

Prices have shot up back to RRP. I was waiting to see what happens at CES this week, but I'm not paying the new prices. Im now holding off to see what happens.

I'm in the awkward position of needing a new motherboard etc too, so no cheap upgrades for me. This makes Socket 1700 nearly as expensive as AM5, the only real difference being the RAM cost... Or it was until the price increases. Now its substantially more.

I had only just decided to go Zen 4 for the platform upgradability down the line, despite Intel being slightly better VFM at the moment, it's a bit of a dead end.

Motherboards and CPU are more expensive than intel, at the low/mid range perform worse £ for £ and you need more expensive DDR5!

It's widely reported in most reviews that AM5 is too expensive at the moment, so hopefully price drops soon.

 

[jack.mitchell]

Yeah, that was annoying, I had my finger over the trigger at 550 but then it jumped overnight. Grabbed one from elsewhere for 580 as it seemed the writing was on the wall and I'm now waiting out a good motherboard deal (or for any to come back in stock....), the b650E-F from Asus is currently looking like a winner. If anything happens to prices in the meantime I've got a 30 day return window if anything drastically changes.

 

[FredFlint]

Yeah, that was annoying, I had my finger over the trigger at 550 but then it jumped overnight. Grabbed one from elsewhere for 580 as it seemed the writing was on the wall and I'm now waiting out a good motherboard deal (or for any to come back in stock....), the b650E-F from Asus is currently looking like a winner. If anything happens to prices in the meantime I've got a 30 day return window if anything drastically changes.

I went for the ASUS b650E-E as it seemed like the least cutdown b650, some of them look like sub £50 boards and cost £200. The motherboard prices are the biggest downside to AM5, the CPU prices are not that bad and DDR5 has come down some.