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OcUK Ryzen 3000/Zen 2 review thread

07/08/2019 6:33 PM (GMT) - Update on the bios issue on Crosshair VIII Hero motherboard ("the thing").

Earlier today I received a response to my inquiries from ASUS. The response was rather technical and I cannot go into the specifics of what exactly it involved.
However, it confirmed my suspicions of what actually has caused the seen anomalies. A long story short; a mistake has been made and it has affected the results of multiple reviewers, including my own. In my own case, I ended
up discarding my own affected multithreaded results alltogether, before even releasing them. I'm still angry because of a lot of my own and other peoples work went to waste because of it. But like I said, mistakes do happen.
In this case all of the evidence and known facts suggest that this was indeed a mistake, caused by an extremely tight schedule and miscommunication between several different parties. Infact, all of the facts I can personally verify
indicate that despite the rather suspicious way this mistake happened, there never was any malicous intent involved.

ASUS also provided me a new bios versions for both Crosshair VIII Hero and Formula boards, which correct the mistake made in newer than the AMD approved 0066 bios builds.
Based on my own testing done on the 3900X SKU, the CPU now meets its specification in terms of the allowed power consumption (same way, as the approved 0066 build did). The new build has currently not been validated, so
it will take some time until its changes get reflected to builds available to the larger audience.

What kind of effects will the fixed bioses have then?

Based on my own testing (do note that silicon variation exists and that the sample size is one for 3900X):

- ~ 27W lower average power package power consumption (VDDCR_CPU & VDDCR_SoC, i.e. the main power rails)
- 7°C lower temperature (tDie, while using DeepCool Assassin II cooler)
- < 90MHz average frequency loss across all twelve cores in MT workloads

The above figures were recorded during Blender 2.80b runs, but they should translate almost directly to Cinebench R20 NT as well (based on my experience).

The peak power difference between the faulty and the fixed bioses is around 35W (Prime95).

Despite there is no question that a mistake was made, I'd still like to thank ASUS for two specific reasons: they didn't try to deny the existence of the issue (which btw. is the usual reponse within the industry), but also fixed it immediately.
I also do feel bad for the bios engineer, who had to stay over(over)-time to get the bios build done. Thanks for that. I also have to feel bad for ASUS, because this mistake might have smirched the reputation of their brand new Crosshair VIII -series motherboards.
And make no mistake, these are one of the best, if not the best X570 boards available at the market (a personal opinion).

At this point you should ask yourself if ASUS paid me off?
Everyone can be bought, its just the matter of the offered sum or bargain. Everyone claiming otherwise either lives in self-deception or frankly, is a moron.
I myself could definitely be bought. And rather cheaply too, I think. The thing is, just that at least until writing this, nobody has even tried to do so.

Besides of this statement, I also corrected an error AMD pointed out to me.
Despite the 3900X CPU has fused (factory programmed) Fmax ceiling of 4.65GHz, AMD only advertises 4.60GHz maximum boost.
I must admit that I was initially surprised to see the 3900X having 4.65GHz fused maximum boost limit, since AMD indeed only mentions 4.60GHz in their marketing materials.
Nevertheless, I'm yet to reach the advertised 4.6GHz either, so in that regard the only thing which changes is the CPU falling 25MHz short instead of 75MHz short of its advertised frequency.
Click to expand...
 
https://www.techpowerup.com/257201/...ail-amds-zen2-backwards-compatibility-promise

AMD succeeded in delivering on its backwards-compatibility promise for the 3rd generation Ryzen processors on motherboards based on AMD 300-series and 400-series chipsets. This promise was very close to being derailed suggests a community thread on MSI forums. According to MSI representatives active on the forum, the capacity of the SPI flash EEPROM chip that stores the motherboard UEFI firmware is woefully limited to cram in the AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a microcode on many of its motherboards.

The company had to make several changes to its UEFI BIOS package that's currently being circulated as a "beta," to accommodate support for 3rd generation Ryzen processors along with AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a. First, it had to kick out support for A-series and Athlon processors based on the 28 nm "Bristol Ridge" silicon. Second, it had to [and this is a big one], kick the RAID module, breaking SATA RAID on many of its motherboards. Third, it had to replace its feature-rich Click BIOS 5 setup program with a barebones "GSE Lite" Click BIOS program, which lacks many of the features of the original program, and comes with a dull, low-resolution UI. This program still includes some essential MSI-exclusive features such as A-XMP (which translates Intel XMP profiles to AMD-compatible settings), Smart Fan, and M-Flash.The scary part? Many other motherboard brands appear to be using 16-megabyte EEPROMs on their older socket AM4 motherboards. These companies are bound to run into similar ROM capacity issues unless they keep their UEFI setup programs lightweight. Motherboards based on the latest X570 chipset feature 32-megabyte EEPROMs. The AMD X570 chipset lacks support for not just "Bristol Ridge," but also first-generation Ryzen "Summit Ridge" and "Raven Ridge" processors.

We recommend that unless you literally possess a 3rd generation Ryzen processor, do not update the BIOS of your older socket AM4 motherboard. You may risk losing features and break your RAID volumes. Find out the latest version of BIOS that has the classic AGESA PinnaclePI 1.0.0.6 microcode, and use that instead.
Click to expand...
 
String said:
That's quite a lot to read at this time in the morning, summary seems to be that using x470 boards may break some features due to limitation of BIOS chip memory. Has anyone actually experienced this issue?

I'm glad I didn't steam in on day one purchase (I was very tempted) as between this and BIOS code issues there's a fair bit of research to be done yet.
Click to expand...
My Asus B450I Strix has a 256MB Bios module.
 
AthlonXP1800 said:
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X Tested on Cheap B350 Motherboard

Holy batman, look at VRM temperatures!
Click to expand...

The heatsinks on the motherboard they used are tiny - it's why the MSI B450 ones are OK due to the much larger surface area. Still it appears the motherboard worked.

However,TPU made an error IMHO - they used a vertical air cooler. The reason why Intel and AMD stock coolers are horizontal is that they force air over the VRMs. Vertical coolers don't do this as well.
 
HUB test of a B350 with Ryzen 3000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRaZ2Txv13M


World War Z has now had a patch and the Ryzen 7 3700X and Ryzen 9 3900X are close to the Core i9 9900K.

Another review has been added:
https://www.planet3dnow.de/cms/47396-zen-2-amd-ryzen-7-3700x-und-ryzen-9-3900x-im-test/25/

This has the first ARMA III test I have seen on Ryzen 3000:
https://www.planet3dnow.de/cms/wp-content/gallery/amd-ryzen-3000/d24.png

d24.png


A massive jump in performance over the previous generation!
 
opethdisciple said:
Just watched this. Not particularly good review for the 3700x. It's not a bad CPU, it's just for the money depending on workload your money might be better spent else where.

In sum, 3600 excellent chip for the money and good at gaming. 3700x odd placement in the market due to better CPUs for the same money dependant on workload. 3900x has a place as a entry level HEDT chip.
Click to expand...

Its a weird review. He talks about gaming being too close for the Ryzen 7 3700X compared to the Ryzen 5 3600 which is a fair statement,but the forgets this:
KU110i4.png

6 core CPUs relative to 8 core CPUs have most of the gaming performance for less money. You are only buying an 8 core CPU in a gaming rig for being futureproof,ie,next generation consoles,etc. The performance is not reflected right now,ie,games being unplayable.

Then you have examples like this with Lightroom:

IkN4Pwy.png

For example in Photoshop,the filters only take a brief period to run,so 10% here or there isn't large,but a batch export like that or noise reduction takes time.
 
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