Observations of the behaviour of my 1600X at idle

[Relentless81]

Hi,

I'm getting slightly obsessed with XFR and how my system is behaving, it started with noticing my idle temp is mid 30's after half an hour and stays at mid 30's, from cold boot its 30C so that got me thinking, why the hell does it increase 5C and not drop again creating higher idle temp.

For some reason, my CPU likes to boost to its highest rated clock rate which is great but its when its doing nothing

The CPU is 3.6 Base, 3.7 all cores and 4.1 XFR - It sits at 3.7 all the time, never seems to drop below that and boosts to 4.1 quite regularly when just sat in Windows causing the voltage to hit just shy of 1.5V and temps to spike which slowly increases my idle temp to mid 30's

I find this behaviour very strange, why is it boosting when its doing nothing? Why doesn't it downclock to its base clock of 3.6 or even lower to save on power and heat and therefore reduce idle temps?

I'm using the Ryzen power plan, a Gigabyte B350 Gaming board and everything is completely stock no OC with Noctua U12S cooler

I'm using Aida64 which accounts for 20C offset and that matches Ryzen Master temp which also accounts for it, I've removed all case filters and restrictions which has no effect on idle temp. I've also set my cooler to max speed and for some beyond strange reason it has no effect on idle temp

Only thing I can think of that cause high idle temp is the CPU is boosting for no reason and its the voltage spike that causing it or there is a major reporting issue on idle temp taken from the fact that CPU cooler at max speed has no effect

What behaviours have you noticed and do they match mine?

Cheers

 

[mattyg]

So from cold its 30C then after half an hour it settles at 35C and stays there at idle.

 

[Relentless81]

Seems to be the case yeah, only thing that happens is it boosts whilst doing nothing and doesn't downclock during that time

Maybe after half an hour it will continue to increase but it does seem to settle around 35/36

 

[HeX]

It'll never be doing nothing, there will always be background tasks which is why you see the CPU jumping to 4.1 now and again as a single thread is used for something.

Not dropping below 3.6 could be your power plan, or mobo specific quirk.

 

[Relentless81]

Ok, just my last processor never used to boost for no reason, I would at least have to open a browser or something.

So I need to focus my efforts on why it wont downclock. Everything is stock settings so I don't understand why it wont downclock. I did try changing the power plan but it didn't downclock, just sat at 3.7 which is actually all core boost, so something is keeping it from downclocking and actually forcing it to use all cores boost all the time

 

[Hagar]

Ok, just my last processor never used to boost for no reason, I would at least have to open a browser or something.

So I need to focus my efforts on why it wont downclock. Everything is stock settings so I don't understand why it wont downclock. I did try changing the power plan but it didn't downclock, just sat at 3.7 which is actually all core boost, so something is keeping it from downclocking and actually forcing it to use all cores boost all the time

Check the Ryzen balanced profile for minimum processor state in processor power management. May be at 90% as standard. Reduce to 50% for downclock.

 

[Relentless81]

Thanks I will check that but lets say I find it is 90% there must be a reason for it, these days I like to leave things standard if possible

 

[Hagar]

For all thread

 

[Hagar]

should read for all thread performance

 

[Relentless81]

Check the Ryzen balanced profile for minimum processor state in processor power management. May be at 90% as standard. Reduce to 50% for downclock.

Just tried this, clocks and volts do indeed go down when the minimum CPU state is reduced however it has no effect on idle temps

Very confused now!

 

[EsaT]

Just tried this, clocks and volts do indeed go down when the minimum CPU state is reduced however it has no effect on idle temps

Very confused now!

There might be simply some lower limit for shown temperature.
That sensor is there to measure that temps don't rise too high during load, so if temperature reading reacts correctly under load it doesn't really matter.

Intel has had similar behavior in core temperature readings.

 

[Relentless81]

There might be simply some lower limit for shown temperature.
That sensor is there to measure that temps don't rise too high during load, so if temperature reading reacts correctly under load it doesn't really matter.

Intel has had similar behavior in core temperature readings.

I have thought the same but others report lower idle temps than me on their setups, could be a motherboard thing like someone else mentioned

 

[ltron]

The sitting at 3.7GHz is intended behaviour according to AMD, leave it on the default 90%. As far as I understand it, the internal logic of the CPU is taking control of the idle behaviour under this power plan and software monitoring utilities cannot read this. Given that this is done in hardware by the CPU rather than having Windows getting involved, the transitions between various power saving states are much quicker which is what you want for better responsiveness and performance. Rest assured, your CPU is not at 3.7 under idle and your voltage is going down no matter what the software programs are saying.

See the "what about power?" section of this article: https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2017/04/06/amd-ryzen-community-update-3

I don't know about the boosting. 1.5V sounds very high for stock, what are you using to monitor?

 

[Relentless81]

The sitting at 3.7GHz is intended behaviour according to AMD, leave it on the default 90%. As far as I understand it, the internal logic of the CPU is taking control of the idle behaviour under this power plan and software monitoring utilities cannot read this. Given that this is done in hardware by the CPU rather than having Windows getting involved, the transitions between various power saving states are much quicker which is what you want for better responsiveness and performance. Rest assured, your CPU is not at 3.7 under idle and your voltage is going down no matter what the software programs are saying.

See the "what about power?" section of this article: https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2017/04/06/amd-ryzen-community-update-3

I don't know about the boosting. 1.5V sounds very high for stock, what are you using to monitor?

Thanks, I literally just read that and I believe you're referring to -

1. Finally, if you see a third-party tool reporting “idle” clocks in the range of 3200-3400MHz, you can be virtually certain that the core is actually sleeping and the tool is simply reporting the last known P-State.

Thats fine apart from its 3.7 but maybe the person writing it confused the range

AMDMatt mentioned the high volts under XFR are normal previously. IDK, I mainly want to understand why the high temps and volts. In Aida64 stress test I'm hitting 77C peak but the cooler ramps up and brings it down to mid 60's again.

Its mind numbing stuff trying to understand whats going on, especially when everything is stock settings