Buildzoid's 3700x Static Overclock Degrades Processor

[Zach_01]

They are doing it on purpose, to optimize performance , really quite uniformly at least for all users , the only outlier to this would be laptops wherein year on year power budgets drop yet meaning full performance is expected to rise.
And in slimmer packages.

Afaik all dies are now ground down to be considerably thinner sometimes flexible even, that can't help with radiation transmission weva.

I meant they’re not doing it (for us to loose OC & extra performance) on purpose... It is what it is... It’s competition they’re up against.

 

[moproblems99]

And Both Intel and AMD are taking overclocking away from us which sucks

I'll be honest, part of the reason I bought Ryzen was to be lazy and get 95% of possible performance from day 1. Surprisingly, it is has almost been as fun digging through the ASRock UEFI looking for shit.

 

[Bones]

Yes, it is silicon but the individual components are 40% smaller than the last one. For all we know, the properties (functional, for us) start to change and historical trends don't matter anymore. Similar to how Ryzen's, especially 3s, are bucking some of the trends that we are used to operationally. Again, similar to how intel is having problems clocking on 10.

I can't say you're wrong, could be once it gets to a certain size or smaller you'd have to throw convention out the window.

ATM I'm still seeing things going in the same direction even with the Ryzen 3000 chips, the differences I'm seeing are in how things are implemented - Could also be this is out of necessity due to it's smaller size to make it work properly.
Either that or it's just them implementing more features with the chips.

Can't say one way or the other myself on that.

 

[Waldorf]

@Bones
i should have added, its no proof either way (incl BZ).
and of course i was a little over exaggerating with millions, but just because someone has a couple of chips that can handle certain numbers, doesn't mean all can/all the time.

 

[eidairaman1]

I've got one, just need to use it with the chip.
The board I was using itself can throw 2.0v's+ to it.

Hmm, a crosshair right?

Also 2V on vcore right?

@Bones
i should have added, its no proof either way (incl BZ).
and of course i was a little over exaggerating with millions, but just because someone has a couple of chips that can handle certain numbers, doesn't mean all can/all the time.

Been like that since jumper overclocking

I'll be honest, part of the reason I bought Ryzen was to be lazy and get 95% of possible performance from day 1. Surprisingly, it is has almost been as fun digging through the ASRock UEFI looking for shit.

I guess I'm old fashioned.

Rather OC myself.

 

[Bones]

@eidairaman1 Was running a Sabertooth 2.0 for my runs.

@Bones
i should have added, its no proof either way (incl BZ).

Dude......
By the way you presented this it's still impossible to say for example the sun factually rises in the east and sets in the west even if you had observed, took notes and compared every sunrise and sunset since the beginning of time itself because, from the way you put it all that doesn't matter, never did, never will.

Since you referred to it, From you once again:
"and how many cpus compared to global numbers?
how many have been running with "auto" settings in identical setup/environment to have a control group chip?
even if u had 100 chips in the past 20y would mean nothing compared to millions.
meaning you have ZERO proof, if we talk about ALL the cpus (of same brand/type/model)."

You already know that no one is going to have them all, time to test them, facilities to do that in...... Then using what's clearly impossible to acheive to justify your arguement is beyond ridiculous and in itself proves nothing.
There does come a point in time from all the testing you MUST declare something as actually being "something", esp if the same results keep happening over and over again or just stop wasting time and don't do it at all.

and of course i was a little over exaggerating with millions, but just because someone has a couple of chips that can handle certain numbers, doesn't mean all can/all the time.

This is an obvious thing, it's called the Silicon Lottery".

 

[droopyRO]

A bit of offtopic:

I did this clip last night, the top one is PBO off with undervolt -0.0625 + 105W TDP limit and the bottom one is the default board settings with undervolt. So PBO looks kind of useless IRL, will test it further in apps.

You have have same CPU Temps to have use of this bench.

I dont understand what you mean, sorry.

 

[Ferrum Master]

A bit of offtopic:

I did this clip last night, the top one is PBO off with undervolt -0.0625 + 105W TDP limit and the bottom one is the default board settings with undervolt. So PBO looks kind of useless IRL, will test it further in apps.

You have have same CPU Temps to have use of this bench.

@droopyRO

Why did you edit, it hard fo me to reply without looking like double post.

Your temps vary a lot in between benches, I saw around 10C. That changes the turbo boost duration for the gpu and also CPU now. You have to cooldown or/and ramp up everything on 100% fan speed(open window, it is winter) to tame the temperature drift, in order to have similar boost clocks for the system.

Basically even if you undervolt, PBO would work better if you have better cooling capacity.

 

[droopyRO]

The tests were done at a few minutes apart, the time it takes to reboot you PC and make a few BIOS settings.
GPU/CPU is at 59ºC/49ºC respectively 61º/54º at the beginning of the tests. With PBO off and TDP limit it will not boost as high as with them on. But you see an average of 15W reduction in power consumption and with 0.125V less, for the same performance.
Also this is the time it took to render this clip on both the PBO off and on settings.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Try the same with CPU fan on max... imho the cooling is the limiting factor here, thus PBO ain't that useless in those cases... as it gives a simple thing - enable, slap a really good cooler or live in tundra and here we are even for an average Joe. It doesn't apply to us as enthusiasts, but things have changed really. Tinkering too much into doing voltages and frequencies has passed, just as GPU. The only thing we need to do is to provide decent cooling and the silicon should do everything himself.

 

[droopyRO]

Did you check my system spec before replying ? Better cooling for what, ? I have a Noctua U12(because i a like silent PC) with two Noctua 1300 rpm in push-pull config. If i want better performance i can sell the 2700X and get a Ryzen 3700X. Rather than invest 100$-150$ in some useless AiO just to get 100Mhz more.

 

[Waldorf]

@Bones
(btw, im not your "dude").
it still will not change the fact that someone telling me that certain (higher voltages) are safe, just because a handful of chips "made it",
and not even having enough samples to be statistically relevant, and especially if they don't work for the company making them, yet "know better"

and you cant factually say where the sun rises, as it changes with the observer's position.
and this time i make it easy to NOT misunderstand me: northern/southern half of the planet.


@droopyRO
unless you start gaming and the cpu heat dumped inside the case heats up the air,
lowering you gpu boost clocks (starting above 40*C gpu temp), which is less of an issue using even the cheapest AIO
setup as exhaust to dump the heat outside the case.
temps on gpu can make a difference of the next faster chip being slower.

 

[Super XP]

Just noticed this, it may be of interest. It appears Buildzoid's static overclock on his 3700x has degraded the processor:

Actually Hardcore Overclocking

Ok so it looks like I've managed to degrade my 3700X as it crashes on MSI mobos even at stock and PBO doesn't work on it at all now. EDIT I think since I alr...

www.youtube.com

But with Boost & Turbo clocks Ryzen doesn't need overclocking really. As it boosts when you most need them to boost.
Anyhow I've had a AMD FX 8350 Piledriver CPU statically overclocked to 4.40GHz all cores and minimal voltages for about 5 years with absolutely no issues, and even sold it for a pretty penny after I got my R7 1700X CPU. Apparently that FX-8350 is still running strong.

Well TDP doesn't have a standard industry definition, & if you ask Intel they'll give a different answer from AMD. Talk with forum dwellers like us, & that's generally not gonna be pretty. Not defending Intel (or AMD) here but in today's world TDP definition is kinda malleable, especially depending on boost clocks as well as OCed speeds. You generally get more cooling headroom than what the manufacturer states as their "TDP" & you're good to go, just like with PSU & (total) system power draw.

Last I read AMD measures its TDP by its max achievable boost clocks, where as Intel measures there's by there base clocks, as to give the illusion of a lower TDP, lol I just wish I could find that very detailed analysis I read a couple years ago online. Maybe Intel paid to have that analysis removed? kidding lol

 

[Bones]

@Bones
(btw, im not your "dude").

It was a figure of speech.... Dude.
Get over yourself already, you're not that special and to be fair about it, neither am I.

it still will not change the fact that someone telling me that certain (higher voltages) are safe, just because a handful of chips "made it",

And I'd like to see where I'm the someone that told you it was safe to run higher voltages 24/7.
Take that up with the one that did say it to you and be done with it because you'll find no solution here about that.

To say it as you said it "and this time i make it easy to NOT misunderstand me"..... I always use the least amount of voltage that's needed per chip.

Yes, I don't try to overvolt and then claim it's 24/7 safe, been doing this for too long to know better.

and not even having enough samples to be statistically relevant, and especially if they don't work for the company making them, yet "know better"

Sure..... Keep on with the impossible requirements about control groups and so on, things you know will never be and then try to use this impossibility as "Justification"....
It's BS and we both know it.

and you cant factually say where the sun rises, as it changes with the observer's position.
and this time i make it easy to NOT misunderstand me: northern/southern half of the planet

AH!
Nice "Spin" on this but you're not worming out of this one so easily.
The Sun STILL comes up towards the East and goes down towards the West no matter where observed due to the rotation of the earth being consistent in direction relative to the sun itself no matter where you are on it, does it even at the poles when observed there.

Speaking of the poles although it may not disappear over the horizon for 6 months it still goes up and down a little as observed, from an Easterly to Westerly direction until it's hidden by the horizon for the other half of the year.
EDIT:
If you want to continue this back and forth, please.... Let's take it to PM's and be done with it.

 

[Mr McC]

Thanks all for turning this thread into an interesting discussion, well it is of interest to me at any rate.

 

[moproblems99]

Thanks all for turning this thread into an interesting discussion, well it is of interest to me at any rate.

It's pretty common, rarely do threads play out as intended.

 

[Mr McC]

It's pretty common, rarely do threads play out as intended.

Agreed, but with a little effort, we can all learn to agree to disagree, we can defend our positions and encourage debate without any hostility.

 

[eidairaman1]

Agreed, but with a little effort, we can all learn to agree to disagree, we can defend our positions and encourage debate without any hostility.

Yup till trolls from intel/nvidia show up

 

[mtcn77]

Yup till trolls from intel/nvidia show up

Hey, no one leaves me out of a good trollfest. Let's slug it out.

 

[Michael Nager]

Here is a comment I made on Buildzoid's video

entitled "The easy way to get a bit more performance out of Ryzen 3000 CPUs on Gigabyte X570 Motherboards"


From the outset, you have the same motherboard as I, the GigaByte X570 AURUS XTREME and the same CPU namely the 3950X.

If I were to put my hand on my heart and swear why I bought such an expensive mobo then the deciding reason was that it doesn't have a chipset fan. I have had mobos with a chipset fan in the past and I hated them.

Price is also a relative thing; I got the board for £580 but this would be considered "cheap" for a mobile phone, and yet for a mobo that will last me for a few years this is meant to be exorbitantly expensive?

But let's get to the meat and potatoes about why I am writing this rather lengthy comment and including a real guide on how to configure a 3rd Gen Ryzen system.

I watched a video from a guy called Major Hardware and he had a 3950X and a GigaByte board and pretty much everything went wrong for him and I felt sorry for him.

When I first started messing about with the Ryzen system (I started off with a GigaByte X470 AURUS Gaming 7 WiFi and a 3600X (I knew I wanted the AURUS XTREME board, but not at the price it was available and I also wanted the then rumoured 16 Core /32 Thread Ryzen if and when it ever came out).

After two months of frustration I realised that pretty much everything I thought I knew after 37 years of being a techie with regard to setting up the system wasn't really applicable, and I had to do a lot of unlearning - which you still do not seem to have considered.

The overwhelming amount of videos put out by so-called Tech-YouTubers on the topic of configuring Ryzen 3rd Gen are not only garbage, but also, over time, will lead to the degradation if not outright frying of the CPU.

So after watching Major Hardware's video I decided to post a guide in the comment section of the video to help him out based on my experience and the knowledge I have gained.

Do I think I have done a competent job?

Because of my back problems (I have had two spine operations and have spinal arthritis) I have to keep the room temperature pretty warm.

The ambient temperature in my room is 28 - 29 °C and you should keep that in mind when I show you the following benchmark results of my system, and you can compare it to yours:

My R9 3950X with SMT On:

1) CineBench R20 all-core score of 10,170 and a single core score of 498

2) FireStrike EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 28,213, a Physics Score of 33,848 and a Combined Score of 15,488
3) FireStrike Extreme EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 14,130, a Physics Score of 33,821 and a Combined Score of 7,057
4) FireStrike Ultra EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 7,180, a Physics Score of 34,089 and a Combined Score of 3,902

5) TimeSpy EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 10,292 and a CPU Score of 15,390
6) TimeSpy Extreme EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 4,791 and a CPU Score of 9,421

7) Ghost Recon Wildlands benchmark 1080p everything at max FPS 86.33, CPU 14.7% (Min. 9.8% Max. 23.2%) and GPU 96.7%

8) 7zip Compression Average 124.906 MB/s, Decompression 199.303 MB/s


My R9 3950X with SMT Off:

1) CineBench R20 all-core score of 7,817 and a single core score of 513

2) FireStrike EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 28,295, a Physics Score of 30,052 and a Combined Score of 15,833
3) FireStrike Extreme EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 14,170, a Physics Score of 30,168 and a Combined Score of 7,076
4) FireStrike Ultra EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 7,186, a Physics Score of 30,164 and a Combined Score of 3,906

5) TimeSpy EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 10,271 and a CPU Score of 15,340
6) TimeSpy Extreme EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 4,788 and a CPU Score of 7,564

7) Ghost Recon Wildlands benchmark 1080p everything at max FPS 86.51, CPU 23.4% (Min. 17.2% Max. 48.6%) and GPU 97%

8) 7zip Compression Average 103.106 MB/s Decompression 129.844 MB/s

The cooler I am using is the AlphaCool EisBaer 360 LT which as the name suggests has a 360 rad and I am running it with three Noctua NF-A12x25 fans.

So the following is the step-by-step guide to configuring the system which I wrote in his comment section whereby you will be able to maximise the performance without running the risk of frying your CPU and you don't have to live in a ice-locker as you seem to do, to get a result:

I have to preface this with some info that is woefully lacking in the videos or articles you may see or read.

The thing is that as opposed to Intel CPUs that you have been used to (and that I was used to) the BIOS is supplied to the motherboard manufacturers as a binary and is called AGESA.

So what you see displayed as "The BIOS" is in effect just a configuration menu for the AGESA. The problem about editing the AGESA portion found under "Settings" under the headings "AMD CBS" and "AMD Overclocking" directly is that with some of the options, if you enter a wrong value, then your system will not boot. What is worse however is that some of the settings cannot be removed with a "Clear CMOS" and your mobo is effectively bricked.

With the GigaByte board you have you are lucky that you have a Dual-BIOS and I would strenuously suggest that you change the switches to "Single BIOS" and have a clean. up to date Backup BIOS and you can then configure the Master BIOS to your hearts content.

So now to configuring your BIOS:

1) Go into Easy Mode (F2) and click on "Load Optimized Defaults (F7)

a) Switch to Advanced Mode (F2)

b) Under the heading "Tweaker" do the following:

a) Go down to the bottom of the page and open "CPU/VRM Settings"
i) Set "CPU Vcore Loadline Calibration to "Turbo"
ii) Set "SOC Loadline Calibration" to "High"
iii) Set "PWM Phase Control" to "eXm Perf" (eXtreme Performance)

2) Under the heading "Setting"
a) Go to "AMD CBS"
i) Go to "XFR Enhancement"
ii) Set the FCLK Freqency to the desired value (in your case 1800 MHz)
iii) Set the "UCLK DIV1 MODE" to "UCLK ==MEMCLK"

b) Go to "AMD Overclocking" under "Settings"
i) Click on "Accept"
ii) Go to "DDR and Infinity Fabric Frequency/Timings"
iii) Go to "Infinity Fabric Frequency and Dividers"
iv) Set "Infinity Fabric Frequency and Dividers" to the desired value (in your case again 1800 MHz).

3) Under the heading "Boot" do the following
a) Set "Full Screen LOGO Show" to "Disabled"

Of course setting the boot drive etc. should be obvious and I don't think I need to explain that.

Do NOT set anything else, like "Extreme Memory Profie(X.M.P)" for instance.

There that's you done with the BIOS part of the configuration

Boot into Windows and install "Ryzen Master".

When Ryzen Master has loaded, click on "Creator Mode" on the left hand side.

1) Make sure "Control Mode" is expanded and under that heading click on "Manual"

2) Make sure that the section "Cores Section" is expanded
a) Expand "CCD0" and "CCD1"
b) Click on the red circle on the right hand side so that it changes to what looks like a Green "X"
i) Click in the first field beside "C 01" and change the clockspeed. You should have absolutely no problems setting it to "4250". When you have done the rest of the configuration then test it and increase it (in my case it is set to 4300 and I have no problems). When you set one field, because the Green X is activated, all the other values will change to what you set.

3) Make sure "Voltage Control" is expanded
a) Set "Peak Core(s) Voltage to 1.3 Volts

4) Make sure Memory Control is expanded and that it is "Included"
a) "Coupled Mode" should be "On"
b) Set your memory clock speed (in your case it would be 1800) remember this is the data rate. Infinty Fabric runs at the data rate and RAM runs at double data rate.

5) Make sure "Voltage Contols" is expanded
Unless otherwise stated, leave the values on "Auto"

a) MEM VDDIO should be set to 1.35
b) MEM VTT should be set to 0.675
c) VDDCR SOC should be set to 1.05

6) Make sure "DRAM Timing Configuration" is expanded

Now I have found that unless these values are set then every time you change something (like the voltage or the clockspeed) the system will want to reboot. If these are set then the values are just changed and you can continue

a) Change "CAS Latency" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM
b) Change "Row Precharge Delay" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM
c) Change "Read Row-Column Delay" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM
d) Change "Write Row-Column Delay" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM
e) Change "Row Cycle Time" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM

Leave everything else on "Auto" and you can configure those sub-timings at your leisure.

7) Make sure that "DRAM Controller Configuration" is expanded
a) Change "Cmd2T" from "2T" to "1T". If you have good quality RAM then it should run at 1T. If not then change this back to 2T.

Now at the bottom click on "Save Profile" and then click on "Apply & Test" and the system will reboot.

Now as you will see, the CPU is limited to a maximum of 1.3 Volts and essentially you are just seeing how much clockspeed you can squeeze out of those 1.3 Volts. When the system is not under load then of course the operational voltage will decrease.

Now comes the best part about the 3950X.

If you are mainly gaming, then click on the profile "Game Mode" and do exactly the same as above EXCEPT:

1) Under the heading "Additional Control" turn "Simultaneous Multithreading" to "OFF". This will run your CPU as a straight 16 Core/16 Thread CPU.

2) Under "Cores Section" make sure the red circle is a green "X" and add 100 MHz to whatever was stable running 16 Cores /32 Threads with SMT ("Simultaneous Multithreading") ON

The one problem with the GigaByte BIOS is that this is not changed and you have to go into the BIOS and

1) In the Advanced Mode go to "Tweaker"
a) Under "Advanced CPU Settings"
i) Go down to "SMT Mode"
ii) Change from "Auto" to "Disabled"

Save and exit.

If you want to go back to using 16 Cores/32 Threads just choose the "Creator Profile" and then change this value back to "Auto" again.

That's it.

I know it looks like a lot, but it really isn't.

IMPORTANT!!

Every time you reboot the system you have to load Ryzen Master and apply the profile you want. Unfortunately there is no way as yet to automatically load a default profile, but I hope that option will be forthcoming in the future.

If you are applying the same Profile you had before you shut down then the system will not need a reboot.

After you have applied the profile you can close Ryzen Master.

Have fun.

 

[eidairaman1]

Stinginess, never had issue with chipset fans, infact that was an upgrade in past...

 

[Michael Nager]

Stinginess, never had issue with chipset fans, infact that was an upgrade in past...

The problem I had back in the day was that the PC kept on crashing and after going nuts trying to trouble-shoot the problem I finally noticed that the chipset fan wasn't spinning.

 

[moproblems99]

Yup till trolls from intel/nvidia show up

Let's not kid ourselves, trolls exist on either side. Although I think the AMD side is more akin to ostriches burying their head in the sand.

In either case, as 7nm plays out, it will be interesting to see what happens. It already seems like the writing is on the wall with Intel having issues. We'll get a better picture when NV pushes over.

 

[eidairaman1]

Let's not kid ourselves, trolls exist on either side. Although I think the AMD side is more akin to ostriches burying their head in the sand.

In either case, as 7nm plays out, it will be interesting to see what happens. It already seems like the writing is on the wall with Intel having issues. We'll get a better picture when NV pushes over.

I see most of the intel trolls in most AMD related threads, i dont bother intel threads unless if i can help with cooling...

 

[Mr McC]

Here is a comment I made on Buildzoid's video

entitled "The easy way to get a bit more performance out of Ryzen 3000 CPUs on Gigabyte X570 Motherboards"


From the outset, you have the same motherboard as I, the GigaByte X570 AURUS XTREME and the same CPU namely the 3950X.

If I were to put my hand on my heart and swear why I bought such an expensive mobo then the deciding reason was that it doesn't have a chipset fan. I have had mobos with a chipset fan in the past and I hated them.

Price is also a relative thing; I got the board for £580 but this would be considered "cheap" for a mobile phone, and yet for a mobo that will last me for a few years this is meant to be exorbitantly expensive?

But let's get to the meat and potatoes about why I am writing this rather lengthy comment and including a real guide on how to configure a 3rd Gen Ryzen system.

I watched a video from a guy called Major Hardware and he had a 3950X and a GigaByte board and pretty much everything went wrong for him and I felt sorry for him.

When I first started messing about with the Ryzen system (I started off with a GigaByte X470 AURUS Gaming 7 WiFi and a 3600X (I knew I wanted the AURUS XTREME board, but not at the price it was available and I also wanted the then rumoured 16 Core /32 Thread Ryzen if and when it ever came out).

After two months of frustration I realised that pretty much everything I thought I knew after 37 years of being a techie with regard to setting up the system wasn't really applicable, and I had to do a lot of unlearning - which you still do not seem to have considered.

The overwhelming amount of videos put out by so-called Tech-YouTubers on the topic of configuring Ryzen 3rd Gen are not only garbage, but also, over time, will lead to the degradation if not outright frying of the CPU.

So after watching Major Hardware's video I decided to post a guide in the comment section of the video to help him out based on my experience and the knowledge I have gained.

Do I think I have done a competent job?

Because of my back problems (I have had two spine operations and have spinal arthritis) I have to keep the room temperature pretty warm.

The ambient temperature in my room is 28 - 29 °C and you should keep that in mind when I show you the following benchmark results of my system, and you can compare it to yours:

My R9 3950X with SMT On:

1) CineBench R20 all-core score of 10,170 and a single core score of 498

2) FireStrike EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 28,213, a Physics Score of 33,848 and a Combined Score of 15,488
3) FireStrike Extreme EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 14,130, a Physics Score of 33,821 and a Combined Score of 7,057
4) FireStrike Ultra EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 7,180, a Physics Score of 34,089 and a Combined Score of 3,902

5) TimeSpy EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 10,292 and a CPU Score of 15,390
6) TimeSpy Extreme EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 4,791 and a CPU Score of 9,421

7) Ghost Recon Wildlands benchmark 1080p everything at max FPS 86.33, CPU 14.7% (Min. 9.8% Max. 23.2%) and GPU 96.7%

8) 7zip Compression Average 124.906 MB/s, Decompression 199.303 MB/s


My R9 3950X with SMT Off:

1) CineBench R20 all-core score of 7,817 and a single core score of 513

2) FireStrike EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 28,295, a Physics Score of 30,052 and a Combined Score of 15,833
3) FireStrike Extreme EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 14,170, a Physics Score of 30,168 and a Combined Score of 7,076
4) FireStrike Ultra EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 7,186, a Physics Score of 30,164 and a Combined Score of 3,906

5) TimeSpy EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 10,271 and a CPU Score of 15,340
6) TimeSpy Extreme EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 I have a Graphics Score of 4,788 and a CPU Score of 7,564

7) Ghost Recon Wildlands benchmark 1080p everything at max FPS 86.51, CPU 23.4% (Min. 17.2% Max. 48.6%) and GPU 97%

8) 7zip Compression Average 103.106 MB/s Decompression 129.844 MB/s

The cooler I am using is the AlphaCool EisBaer 360 LT which as the name suggests has a 360 rad and I am running it with three Noctua NF-A12x25 fans.

So the following is the step-by-step guide to configuring the system which I wrote in his comment section whereby you will be able to maximise the performance without running the risk of frying your CPU and you don't have to live in a ice-locker as you seem to do, to get a result:

I have to preface this with some info that is woefully lacking in the videos or articles you may see or read.

The thing is that as opposed to Intel CPUs that you have been used to (and that I was used to) the BIOS is supplied to the motherboard manufacturers as a binary and is called AGESA.

So what you see displayed as "The BIOS" is in effect just a configuration menu for the AGESA. The problem about editing the AGESA portion found under "Settings" under the headings "AMD CBS" and "AMD Overclocking" directly is that with some of the options, if you enter a wrong value, then your system will not boot. What is worse however is that some of the settings cannot be removed with a "Clear CMOS" and your mobo is effectively bricked.

With the GigaByte board you have you are lucky that you have a Dual-BIOS and I would strenuously suggest that you change the switches to "Single BIOS" and have a clean. up to date Backup BIOS and you can then configure the Master BIOS to your hearts content.

So now to configuring your BIOS:

1) Go into Easy Mode (F2) and click on "Load Optimized Defaults (F7)

a) Switch to Advanced Mode (F2)

b) Under the heading "Tweaker" do the following:

a) Go down to the bottom of the page and open "CPU/VRM Settings"
i) Set "CPU Vcore Loadline Calibration to "Turbo"
ii) Set "SOC Loadline Calibration" to "High"
iii) Set "PWM Phase Control" to "eXm Perf" (eXtreme Performance)

2) Under the heading "Setting"
a) Go to "AMD CBS"
i) Go to "XFR Enhancement"
ii) Set the FCLK Freqency to the desired value (in your case 1800 MHz)
iii) Set the "UCLK DIV1 MODE" to "UCLK ==MEMCLK"

b) Go to "AMD Overclocking" under "Settings"
i) Click on "Accept"
ii) Go to "DDR and Infinity Fabric Frequency/Timings"
iii) Go to "Infinity Fabric Frequency and Dividers"
iv) Set "Infinity Fabric Frequency and Dividers" to the desired value (in your case again 1800 MHz).

3) Under the heading "Boot" do the following
a) Set "Full Screen LOGO Show" to "Disabled"

Of course setting the boot drive etc. should be obvious and I don't think I need to explain that.

Do NOT set anything else, like "Extreme Memory Profie(X.M.P)" for instance.

There that's you done with the BIOS part of the configuration

Boot into Windows and install "Ryzen Master".

When Ryzen Master has loaded, click on "Creator Mode" on the left hand side.

1) Make sure "Control Mode" is expanded and under that heading click on "Manual"

2) Make sure that the section "Cores Section" is expanded
a) Expand "CCD0" and "CCD1"
b) Click on the red circle on the right hand side so that it changes to what looks like a Green "X"
i) Click in the first field beside "C 01" and change the clockspeed. You should have absolutely no problems setting it to "4250". When you have done the rest of the configuration then test it and increase it (in my case it is set to 4300 and I have no problems). When you set one field, because the Green X is activated, all the other values will change to what you set.

3) Make sure "Voltage Control" is expanded
a) Set "Peak Core(s) Voltage to 1.3 Volts

4) Make sure Memory Control is expanded and that it is "Included"
a) "Coupled Mode" should be "On"
b) Set your memory clock speed (in your case it would be 1800) remember this is the data rate. Infinty Fabric runs at the data rate and RAM runs at double data rate.

5) Make sure "Voltage Contols" is expanded
Unless otherwise stated, leave the values on "Auto"

a) MEM VDDIO should be set to 1.35
b) MEM VTT should be set to 0.675
c) VDDCR SOC should be set to 1.05

6) Make sure "DRAM Timing Configuration" is expanded

Now I have found that unless these values are set then every time you change something (like the voltage or the clockspeed) the system will want to reboot. If these are set then the values are just changed and you can continue

a) Change "CAS Latency" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM
b) Change "Row Precharge Delay" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM
c) Change "Read Row-Column Delay" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM
d) Change "Write Row-Column Delay" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM
e) Change "Row Cycle Time" from "Auto" and you should see the correct value for your RAM

Leave everything else on "Auto" and you can configure those sub-timings at your leisure.

7) Make sure that "DRAM Controller Configuration" is expanded
a) Change "Cmd2T" from "2T" to "1T". If you have good quality RAM then it should run at 1T. If not then change this back to 2T.

Now at the bottom click on "Save Profile" and then click on "Apply & Test" and the system will reboot.

Now as you will see, the CPU is limited to a maximum of 1.3 Volts and essentially you are just seeing how much clockspeed you can squeeze out of those 1.3 Volts. When the system is not under load then of course the operational voltage will decrease.

Now comes the best part about the 3950X.

If you are mainly gaming, then click on the profile "Game Mode" and do exactly the same as above EXCEPT:

1) Under the heading "Additional Control" turn "Simultaneous Multithreading" to "OFF". This will run your CPU as a straight 16 Core/16 Thread CPU.

2) Under "Cores Section" make sure the red circle is a green "X" and add 100 MHz to whatever was stable running 16 Cores /32 Threads with SMT ("Simultaneous Multithreading") ON

The one problem with the GigaByte BIOS is that this is not changed and you have to go into the BIOS and

1) In the Advanced Mode go to "Tweaker"
a) Under "Advanced CPU Settings"
i) Go down to "SMT Mode"
ii) Change from "Auto" to "Disabled"

Save and exit.

If you want to go back to using 16 Cores/32 Threads just choose the "Creator Profile" and then change this value back to "Auto" again.

That's it.

I know it looks like a lot, but it really isn't.

IMPORTANT!!

Every time you reboot the system you have to load Ryzen Master and apply the profile you want. Unfortunately there is no way as yet to automatically load a default profile, but I hope that option will be forthcoming in the future.

If you are applying the same Profile you had before you shut down then the system will not need a reboot.

After you have applied the profile you can close Ryzen Master.

Have fun.

Thanks for the very detailed post, can you expand on the reason why you simply didn't enable XMP settings? Cheers