Latest AMD AGESA that Nerfs Ryzen 7000X3D Voltage Control Also Limits Memory Overclocking

[evernessince]

Anyone who literally thinks either of these companies give two shits about you is extra special. To be a "team" requires them to well... notice you, and they do not care about you as an individual, I assure you.

Yep, 100% agreed.


On a side note regarding the AMD burnout issues in general, my number one question is how will all this be wrapped up after the issue is fully resolved. The issue is rare but people don't want to be left hanging on a thread wondering if their motherboard could have degraded their CPU. AMD should make it clear to customers the scope of potentially affected CPUs, whether that be all AM5 CPUs on any AM5 board or just certain motherboard models and only if EXPO was enabled and offer an expedited RMA to all those potentially affected CPUs. I think the worst thing AMD could do is fix the issue but not clarify to customers who could have had their CPUs potentially degraded, especially for those that enabled EXPO.

 

[AusWolf]

Zen 4 is the gift that just keeps on giving to Intel, So glad I didnt rush out and update my 3700X for 7800X(3D). Definitely hoping they get their crap together for Zen 5, but openSIL is years away so no guarantee AGESA won't continue to be a crap shoot for the next release. Arrow Lake is looking more and more appealing if those clowns can release on time.

I'm not saying that these issues aren't real, but the news are a bit overblown. You'll find many people here on TPU who have had a problem-free experience with Zen 5.

To be fair, I had more trouble with Zen 4 and B550 in its early days with the USB dropout issues and such.

 

[Why_Me]

Let's see how this works out for AMD.

AMD planning to replace AGESA firmware with open source alternative openSIL

AGESA, or AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture, has been performing platform initialization procedures on AMD UEFI-based motherboards since the first generation of Zen CPUs. AGESA "wakes up"...

www.techspot.com

 

[Minus Infinity]

I'm not saying that these issues aren't real, but the news are a bit overblown. You'll find many people here on TPU who have had a problem-free experience with Zen 5.

To be fair, I had more trouble with Zen 4 and B550 in its early days with the USB dropout issues and such.

I think you mean Zen 4 and Zen 3/B550.

Zen 4 like RDNA3 seem like beta products. I thought Zen was bad enough with all the BS memory issues. I'm sticking to Zen 2 and Zen 3 in my current PC's for a long while. Zen 5 will need to be a near flawless update for me to stick to them. I'm also having plenty of issues with 6800GT that are annoying all all hell.

 

[Zubasa]

My man you are literally posting in the TPU thread on the exact same news piece.

Yup and as usual it is the internet playing telephone all qouting the same twitter / reddit post.
Often the news sites cites each other as the source. At this point I feel like ChatGPT ain't so bad after all.

 

[AusWolf]

I think you mean Zen 4 and Zen 3/B550.

Yes. I'm at work and a bit tired, sorry.

Zen 4 like RDNA3 seem like beta products. I thought Zen was bad enough with all the BS memory issues. I'm sticking to Zen 2 and Zen 3 in my current PC's for a long while. Zen 5 will need to be a near flawless update for me to stick to them. I'm also having plenty of issues with 6800GT that are annoying all all hell.

I think we can count on everything being a beta product these days. Things are getting more and more complex, and development cycles tighter and tighter. Something's got to give.

6800 GT?

 

[R-T-B]

Let's see how this works out for AMD.

AMD planning to replace AGESA firmware with open source alternative openSIL

AGESA, or AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture, has been performing platform initialization procedures on AMD UEFI-based motherboards since the first generation of Zen CPUs. AGESA "wakes up"...

www.techspot.com

As an AMD user right now, I can only see that being a better approach. Of all the things I can say I do like about AMD, AGESA's model has not been one of them.

That said it is quite a ways off.

 

[laxman10100]

I must've gotten very lucky recently switching over from Intel CPUs to the 7800X3D with the motherboard that I chose.

Even before this CPU burn-up fiasco, my CPU SoC never went over 1.25V with EXPO enabled rocking 64GB 6000 CL28. Granted, I manually entered most of my settings (memory timings included) based on what I read was safe as I had done a ton of research on which BIOS settings should be modified since I wasn't at all familiar with the AMD platform...

Regardless, I believe that the default CPU SoC was 1.3V, however, my usage of the performance settings of -30mV CPU SoC & PBO 75°C limit kept the CPU voltage rather low. After the BIOS update with AGESA 1.0.0.7, nothing has really changed for me aside from my latency going from 64ns to 65ns. Which does seem a bit odd considering I have always set my BIOS to ignore AGESA so that my manually entered memory timings wouldn't be messed with/loosened.

I wonder if my CPU was at all a little degraded from all of this anyway and I just haven't realized...

 

[AusWolf]

I must've gotten very lucky recently switching over from Intel CPUs to the 7800X3D with the motherboard that I chose.

Even before this CPU burn-up fiasco, my CPU SoC never went over 1.25V with EXPO enabled rocking 64GB 6000 CL28. Granted, I manually entered most of my settings (memory timings included) based on what I read was safe as I had done a ton of research on which BIOS settings should be modified since I wasn't at all familiar with the AMD platform...

Regardless, I believe that the default CPU SoC was 1.3V, however, my usage of the performance settings of -30mV CPU SoC & PBO 75°C limit kept the CPU voltage rather low. After the BIOS update with AGESA 1.0.0.7, nothing has really changed for me aside from my latency going from 64ns to 65ns. Which does seem a bit odd considering I have always set my BIOS to ignore AGESA so that my manually entered memory timings wouldn't be messed with/loosened.

I wonder if my CPU was at all a little degraded from all of this anyway and I just haven't realized...

Like I said earlier (or maybe in another thread), the issue is way overblown, as always. Most people never had any problem with their setups.

Welcome to the forum, by the way!

 

[beedoo]

My 2x16 GB GSkill EXPO profile became unstable after my BIOS update (DDR5 6000 CL 30 at 1.35V). Which memory are you all using that keeps the speed and latency but is stable?

This weekend I built a new machine with ASRock Taichi X670E and 2 x G.Skill 16GB EXPO 6000 CL30 at 1.35v, latest BIOS and been totally stable.

 

[laxman10100]

Like I said earlier (or maybe in another thread), the issue is way overblown, as always. Most people never had any problem with their setups.

Welcome to the forum, by the way!

Ahh, yes. I believe that it was earlier on in this thread. I do recall reading that message. But also, I agree. From what I have read, it seems that the issue depended on which particular motherboard you had, as specific boards from specific manufacturers would most likely be affected by the issue. Also, thanks for the welcome =D.

Edit - I just scrolled up and it was only a few comments above mine. I suppose that I am occasionally too forgetful, haha.

This weekend I built a new machine with ASRock Taichi X670E and 2 x G.Skill 16GB EXPO 6000 CL30 at 1.35v, latest BIOS and been totally stable.

Yep! That board should be good - as I have the Carrara version of that board and it was stable before the latest few BIOS updates with my 7800X3D. But perhaps that was due to what I mentioned in my comment above with the undervolting setting that I had selected. *shrugs*. I have also been told by a few users on a different forum that their non-ASRock DDR5 motherboards did not have voltage options for both CPU SoC and Mem_SoC/VDDIO_Mem. So, I imagine that those particular motherboards applied the same voltage to the CPU and the Memory. Of course, I am not sure if that is true at all, but our ASRock boards have separate voltage settings for all three of those things.

 

[Slizzo]

I haven't had any issues with my 7950X3D system. -30 all core offset, had memory at 6000C30 or 6400C32, either worked just fine for me. I'm using an Intel kit of memory purchased well before the rest of the parts, so haven't been using EXPO profiles.

Actually, haven't ever used the XMP profiles either. I've been using the Memory Try it! profiles that MSI baked into the board to run different speeds just to test etc...

 

[Braegnok]

Asus dropped AGESA 1007a today, I loaded it this morning, it's working very well on my system.

 

[harm9963]

So glad I went for a new GPU, not a new platform, my 5950X is servings me well .

 

[Taraquin]

AMD’s biggest weakness is the memory controller. It needs improvements across the board (pun intended).

Yeah, same shit as Ryzen gen 1 and 2 usually maxing out at 3333-3466. On gen 3 compability was finally very good and most could to 3733/3800.

 

[Zubasa]

"Our 'Scumbag ASUS' video is up -- not relating to the Ally. We want to note also that ASUS emailed us last week after Part 1 of exploding CPUs - an unprompted email - and asked if they could fly out to our office this week to meet with us about the issues and speak "openly." We told them we'd be down for it but that we'd have to record the conversation. They did say they wanted to speak openly, after all. They haven't replied to us for 5 days. So... ASUS had a chance to correct this. We were holding the video to afford that opportunity. But as soon as we said "sure, but we're filming it because we want a record of what's promised," we get silence. Wanting to comment on something and provide a statement is not only fine, but encouraged; we're always happy to provide that opportunity. See: Newegg interview with the executives. However, we're not going to let it be done without accountability and in the shadows. They could have done this the right way."

Note that this is Auto SOC voltage not memory voltage.

 

[b.infinite]

I mean that's just some basic common sense. If AMD is setting new maximum limits & RAM vendors selling RAM kits that run outside of spec, there will be incompatibility.
Just looked at the listenings over at heise.de. 170 kits listed with AMD EXPO, and their voltage specs:

View attachment 295040

If you narrow it down to kits that are specified for 6000MHz (AM5 sweet spot) there are left 65 kits. Their specified voltages are:

View attachment 295041

Which means you have only 5 kits that run within AMD's specs at 6000MHz (from TeamGroup, Apacer & Lexar). 60 kits are certified by RAM vendors to run outside of AMD's specs! Which btw. does not mean they won't run with lower voltages. It's just not guaranteed to run at lower voltages. Each kit is of different qualitiy and RAM vendors just set higher voltages to guarantee compatibility across the board.

I guess the solution would be to use/develop RAM kits that run with lower voltages. It kinda reminds me of the DDR3 times when all vendors had kits running on 1.5+V and G.Skill came around the corner with their "G.Skill ECO Series" which did run on only 1.35V. It also marked the rise of the 1.35V kits.

G.Skill ECO Kit 4 GB PC3-12800U CL7-8-7 Review

G.Skill is offering a full range of P55 compatible memory kits, with the ECO being one of them. As the name implies, the memory aims to deliver the most performance while only requiring a mere 1.35V to run at 1600 MHz CL7-8-7.

www.techpowerup.com

Those aren't the soc voltages everyone is talking about. Those voltages won't cause this problem or explosion, from what gn reported.

 

[Hugh Jass]

AMD’s biggest weakness is the memory controller. It needs improvements across the board (pun intended).

I agree it would be nice, but it's already running twice as quickly as Intel's is, so I'm not really sure what you're expecting this early on in the DDR5 game.

Good explanation video

 

[Nino88]

My 2x16 GB GSkill EXPO profile became unstable after my BIOS update (DDR5 6000 CL 30 at 1.35V). Which memory are you all using that keeps the speed and latency but is stable?

I have a 7800x3d CPU, a 7900xtx, on a mobo B650M ASUS TUF PLUS WIFI, and im currently working with the T-Group Create Expert 6400Mhz CL34-44-44-84 memories but my motherboard did not recognize the ram memory, so I boot with frequencies of 4800mhz, and different latencies, what I had to do was set it manually without any EXPO profile, since I just changed to one of those profiles to try to establish my memories as they are predestined by the factory and I started the system and everything, but playing it felt very unstable, playing Fortnite it crashed twice, so I have to manually re-establish a configuration leaving them working at 6000 MHz, with voltages specified by the same memory 1.35V and lower latencies 30-36-36-74.

Once these changes have been made, my device works so far without any crashes, I will continue testing to see how it goes.

 

[Taraquin]

I have a 7800x3d CPU, a 7900xtx, on a mobo B650M ASUS TUF PLUS WIFI, and im currently working with the T-Group Create Expert 6400Mhz CL34-44-44-84 memories but my motherboard did not recognize the ram memory, so I boot with frequencies of 4800mhz, and different latencies, what I had to do was set it manually without any EXPO profile, since I just changed to one of those profiles to try to establish my memories as they are predestined by the factory and I started the system and everything, but playing it felt very unstable, playing Fortnite it crashed twice, so I have to manually re-establish a configuration leaving them working at 6000 MHz, with voltages specified by the same memory 1.35V and lower latencies 30-36-36-74.

Once these changes have been made, my device works so far without any crashes, I will continue testing to see how it goes.

You will probably get 6200cl30-37-37 working with 1.4v voltage Most important is lowering RFC and raising REFI. M-die can do 450-500 RFC and 65536 REFI, those 2 changes alone counts for 5-10% better performance

 

[rv8000]

You will probably get 6200cl30-37-37 working with 1.4v voltage Most important is lowering RFC and raising REFI. M-die can do 450-500 RFC and 65536 REFI, those 2 changes alone counts for 5-10% better performance

M-die will bottom out around 160ns for trfc, its best not to recommend a timing value as that depends on the speed they're running at.

(tRFC value x 2000)/effective memory frequency = tRFC in ns

Lowest on m-die that is likely stable would be 496 @DDR5 6200 (exactly 160ns)

 

[Taraquin]

M-die will bottom out around 160ns for trfc, its best not to recommend a timing value as that depends on the speed they're running at.

(tRFC value x 2000)/effective memory frequency = tRFC in ns

Lowest on m-die that is likely stable would be 496 @DDR5 6200 (exactly 160ns)

M-dies RFC scales with voltage. I build a setup recently and it did 480@6200 with 1.4v. At 6000 it ran at 470, but had tobraise it to 480 with 1.35v. If you are really lucky with binning 450-460 at 6000@1.5v should be doable

 

[rv8000]

M-dies RFC scales with voltage. I build a setup recently and it did 480@6200 with 1.4v. At 6000 it ran at 470, but had tobraise it to 480 with 1.35v. If you are really lucky with binning 450-460 at 6000@1.5v should be doable

What are you using and how long are you running said tests to establish stability?

Afaik its pretty common m-die isnt 100% stable below 160ns. Of the three M-die kits I have none go below 160ns at 6400 c30 1.45-1.46 vdd.

Once you’ve increased your refresh window by raising tREFI to max, theres little to gain by over tightening tRFC.

 

[Taraquin]

What are you using and how long are you running said tests to establish stability?

Afaik its pretty common m-die isnt 100% stable below 160ns. Of the three M-die kits I have none go below 160ns at 6400 c30 1.45-1.46 vdd.

Once you’ve increased your refresh window by raising tREFI to max, theres little to gain by over tightening tRFC.

20 rounds of TM5 usmus cfg without errors. Build it for a friend, no crashes since May so seems stable I agree REFI counts the most, but I got a small boost from lowering RFC after REFI. Guess I was a bit lucky with that M-die kit.