AMD Ryzen 3000 Builders Thread

[Seba]

I added a second pair of 2x8GB modules (G.Skill Ripjaws V Black 16GB DDR4 3200MHz CL16 1.35v Dual Channel Kit F4-3200C16D-16GVKB), because one local store had a very good price. So now I have 32GB of RAM.

CPU-Z reports all 4 modules as having Samsung chips.

Motherboard: MSI X570-A Pro.

Initially after I added the second pair of RAM, the PC did not boot. DRAM diagnostic LED was lit and I had 3 beeps. After trying only the new pair of memory modules, it was OK so I put back all 4 modules and this time it worked. So I guess I did not properly inserted one of the new modules (in my defense, I inserted the new memory modules with the PC still under the desk; also this board uses those memory slots with latches only on one end).

With A-XMP disabled, when all 4 modules were inserted, they would run at 1866. SPD speed should be 2133 in this case. With only 2 modules (only with "old" pair or only with new pair) they would run at the correct 2133.

With A-XMP enabled and 4 modules, it would correctly run at 3200 (voltage automatically set at 1.35V). Same as with only 2 modules.

This was with 7C37vH4 BIOS (AGESA ComboPI 1.0.0.3 ABBA).

I updated the BIOS to 7C37vH6 (ComboPI 1.0.0.4 Patch B) and with A-XMP disabled and all 4 modules it now runs at 2133.

No difference with A-XMP enabled (still running at 3200/1.35V).

So in my case 1.0.0.4 is an improvement.

Also the boot time decreased with about 4 seconds. Not that I care much about the boot time (as long as we are not talking about minutes or worse).

 

[Hans Gruber]

I added a second pair of 2x8GB modules (G.Skill Ripjaws V Black 16GB DDR4 3200MHz CL16 1.35v Dual Channel Kit F4-3200C16D-16GVKB), because one local store had a very good price. So now I have 32GB of RAM.

CPU-Z reports all 4 modules as having Samsung chips.

Motherboard: MSI X570-A Pro.

Initially after I added the second pair of RAM, the PC did not boot. DRAM diagnostic LED was lit and I had 3 beeps. After trying only the new pair of memory modules, it was OK so I put back all 4 modules and this time it worked. So I guess I did not properly inserted one of the new modules (in my defense, I inserted the new memory modules with the PC still under the desk).

With A-XMP disabled, when all 4 modules were inserted, they would run at 1866. SPD speed should be 2133 in this case. With only 2 modules (only with "old" pair or only with new pair) they would run at the correct 2133.

With A-XMP enabled and 4 modules, it would correctly run at 3200 (voltage automatically set at 1.35V). Same as with only 2 modules.

This was with 7C37vH4 BIOS (AGESA ComboPI 1.0.0.3 ABBA).

I updated the BIOS to 7C37vH6 (ComboPI 1.0.0.4 Patch B) and with A-XMP disabled and all 4 modules it now runs at 2133.

No difference with A-XMP enabled (still running at 3200/1.35V).

So in my case 1.0.0.4 is an improvement.

Also the boot time decreased with about 4 seconds. Not that I care much about the boot time (as long as we are not talking about minutes or worse).

You lose OCing potential with 4 sticks. You may need to increase your voltage to better stability with 4 sticks. Toms hardware says having 4 sticks can increase performance up to 15%.

 

[Seba]

I know that it overclocks better with only 2 modules. But as long as it runs at A-XMP (and it does), I am happy.

 

[amrnuke]

Well, after a long and tortuous road of problematic Gigabyte BIOS updates and 3200/CL16 RAM being forced to run at 2400/CL16 or, worse, 2133CL/15, after replacing my DS3H B450M with an ASRock Pro4 B450M ($63!), all issues are resolved. Since I replaced the mobo I went ahead and slapped a CM 212 LED ($19.99 after rebate -- my son loves lights -- and damn, that's a beastly cooler!) and after confirming the RAM worked fine with the new motherboard, went ahead and upgraded the PSU to a Corsair RM650X since it was on sale for $75.

Everything is great and stable for now. And I think it's somewhat more future-proof if I choose to go down an 8C/16T or 12C/24T route for Zen3.

 

[Muadib]

I just had my first bad experience with my Asrock x570 motherboard. The latest BIOS added AGESA Combo-AM4 1.0.0.4 Patch B, so I upgraded. The next day, I switched the sound from my headphones to my speakers, to watch some youtube. To my surprise, I had no sound, so I switch back to my headphones. They worked, so I went back to the speakers, and soon learned they weren't working. I recently added a sound card, so I put the blame on that, and sure enough, when I hooked the speakers directly to the motherboard, they worked. My next step was to RMA the sound card, and 2 days later, I had a replacement. I was shocked when after I installed the card, I still had no sound. I went a little nuts, moving the card to a different slot, switching my nic card to the possible bad slot, nothing I did worked. I was out of ideas.

Suddenly it hit me, could it be the new BIOS? I didn't think so at first, but I said to myself, lets go back to what worked. I went back to the BIOS I was on. Sure enough, when I booted back to Windows, I had sound again! I couldn't believe it, but the evidence was clear. I'm now stumped, and afraid to do another BIOS update. In all my years of using computers, I've never had something like this happen. I mean you hear about it, but I've never experienced it. I'm dumbfounded now, but at least everything is working again.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@Muadib

Some Gigabyte x570 boards are having problems with a particular soundcard as well. They won't boot with one particular card installed. It's weird. It's all linked to the latest 1.0.0.4-based UEFI revisions.

 

[Muadib]

@Muadib

Some Gigabyte x570 boards are having problems with a particular soundcard as well. They won't boot with one particular card installed. It's weird. It's all linked to the latest 1.0.0.4-based UEFI revisions.

That's good to know. I could get mine to boot, but it took over a minute before I was on the desktop sometimes. If it's occurring on different manufacturers, does that mean AMD is at fault?

 

[DrMrLordX]

That's good to know. I could get mine to boot, but it took over a minute before I was on the desktop sometimes. If it's occurring on different manufacturers, does that mean AMD is at fault?

Possibly. Wish I could find the posts about it but I remember seeing it yesterday.

 

[Ajay]

So, my ancient x58/Gulftown box died hard, no post. Anyway, wanted to hold out till Black Friday, don’t know if i can stand it. So, the build I’m looking at:

Asus x470 Crosshair VII (Top quality x570 boards are at HEDT prices).
Ryzen 7 3700X. (I finally had to admit the 3900X was overkill for my needs).
Crucial Ballistix Elite 16 GB 3600MHz/CAS 16.
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB NVMe.

Already have EVGA 1070 FTW, Corsair 800D, Newish Seasonic PSU, NH-D15, HDDs, etc.
oh, and full backups of prior Win 10 install.

Any advice is welcomed.

 

[Seba]

oh, and full backups of prior Win 10 install.

Any advice is welcomed.

1. Discard those old Windows installs.

2. Wait for Black Friday.

 

[Muadib]

So, my ancient x58/Gulftown box died hard, no post. Anyway, wanted to hold out till Black Friday, don’t know if i can stand it. So, the build I’m looking at:

Asus x470 Crosshair VII (Top quality x570 boards are at HEDT prices).
Ryzen 7 3700X. (I finally had to admit the 3900X was overkill for my needs).
Crucial Ballistix Elite 16 GB 3600MHz/CAS 16.
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB NVMe.

Already have EVGA 1070 FTW, Corsair 800D, Newish Seasonic PSU, NH-D15, HDDs, etc.
oh, and full backups of prior Win 10 install.

Any advice is welcomed.

I don't know how good it is, but if you can wait, Newegg will have the ASRock X570 PHANTOM GAMING motherboard for $105 after a $30 rebate.
They will have the 3800x for $339. The 3700x is $329, so for $10 why would you not?

 

[Ajay]

1. Discard those old Windows installs.

2. Wait for Black Friday.

I’ll do a clean install, but, obviously, I need my data off the old installs.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Asus x470 Crosshair VII (Top quality x570 boards are at HEDT prices).

That's a good board, but you're going to get also-ran UEFI support for the life of the product. I see the current prices on the standard C7H as being $220, which doesn't save you much over some of the best x570 boards. Is there some particular feature you need from that board? If there isn't, you may wish to shop around and find exactly the one you want. If I were going X470, I'd be looking at the $190 x470 Taichi instead.

Ryzen 7 3700X. (I finally had to admit the 3900X was overkill for my needs).

I'm going to second @Muadib 's recommendation that you look at NewEgg's deal on a 3800x.

Crucial Ballistix Elite 16 GB 3600MHz/CAS 16.

Is that Micron e-die? If so, should be good stuff, though I think you can get downbinned e-die in some DDR4-3000 and DDR4-3200 kits as well (just requires some tweaking on your part to get DDR4-3600 out of it).

Samsung 970 EVO 1TB NVMe.

No arguments here. I have the same drive, and it's good. You can save money on a Sabrent drive though:

Choose Storage

pcpartpicker.com

Alternatively you can get the Sabrent Rocket 4.0 on x570, and get full PCIe 4.0 speed for $20 more than the PCIe 3.0 EVO. That''ll require you to pick a different board, obviously.

I don't know how good it is, but if you can wait, Newegg will have the ASRock X570 PHANTOM GAMING motherboard for $105 after a $30 rebate.

That board screams CHEAP. It isn't that great. NewEgg is dumping them for a reason.

They will have the 3800x for $339. The 3700x is $329, so for $10 why would you not?

Agreed.

 

[Seba]

I’ll do a clean install, but, obviously, I need my data off the old installs.

Obviously I was not talking about your data.

 

[Ajay]

That's a good board, but you're going to get also-ran UEFI support for the life of the product. I see the current prices on the standard C7H as being $220, which doesn't save you much over some of the best x570 boards. Is there some particular feature you need from that board? If there isn't, you may wish to shop around and find exactly the one you want. If I were going X470, I'd be looking at the $190 x470 Taichi instead.

I'm going to second @Muadib 's recommendation that you look at NewEgg's deal on a 3800x.

Is that Micron e-die? If so, should be good stuff, though I think you can get downbinned e-die in some DDR4-3000 and DDR4-3200 kits as well (just requires some tweaking on your part to get DDR4-3600 out of it).

No arguments here. I have the same drive, and it's good. You can save money on a Sabrent drive though:

Choose Storage

pcpartpicker.com

Alternatively you can get the Sabrent Rocket 4.0 on x570, and get full PCIe 4.0 speed for $20 more than the PCIe 3.0 EVO. That''ll require you to pick a different board, obviously.

I look at motherboards as the heart of a system. So i only buy overbuilt, well featured boards (and I've had cheaper boards die prematurely). I also don’t upgrade often anymore. I like Asus, they have always had extremely comprehensive BIOS/UEFI. That said, when I built a a B450 MSI system for my mom, I liked it, even though the UEFI seemed to be on the simple side, but that wasn’t an overclockers board. The MSI Unify looks like a very solid board with everything I want (and it’s not blingy). Spending more than $300 for a non-HEDT seems nuts to me, particularly because Ryzen's tends to hit a wall pretty fast, unless you’re an extreme overclocker.

I didn’t look it up yet, but given the price, I expect the dram to be e-die. I don’t know if I could get myself to buy anything other than Samsung SSD.

Even though it's eating me up, I think I can wait till Black Friday (actually, doesn’t Amazon start early).

 

[DrMrLordX]

@Ajay

There isn't much you're going to get out of the C7H that you won't get out of the x470 Taichi (maybe some VRM overcurrent tweaking, that's about it). Though ASRock UEFI tends to be worse, I'll agree. But hey if that's the board you want, go for it. Just be careful about which UEFI revision is on the board that you buy. If it's too old, Matisse just flat-out won't boot. If your mobo budget is $300 then there are some decent-to-good x570 boards in that range. Sorry about the high mobo prices, but if you looked at Z390 launch prices, well . . . AM4 boards aren't much different anymore.

 

[Ajay]

Recalculating....

PCPartPicker is going to see my IP allot the next few days. Warming up to x570. Thanks @DrMrLordX

Haven't been too keen on Asrock because several reviewers really didn’t like the UEFI.

 

[anj2208]

Can someone confirm 3700x works on asrock ab350,
Looking to retire my 1700

 

[Markfw]

Can someone confirm 3700x works on asrock ab350,
Looking to retire my 1700

(tapatalk redacted)

With bios 5.8, yes it will. See the notes on that bios update(below), and follow them. You may have to update back a few version, and do each one until current. The oldest you can run I think is 5.8

1. Supports AMD next generation Ryzen™ processors
2. Update AMD AGESA Combo-AM4 1.0.0.1.

* Please install "AMD all in 1 with VGA driver ver:18.50.16.01_WHQL" or a later version before updating to this BIOS.
** If you updated the BIOS before updating the AMD all in one driver, please refer to the Display recovery SOP to recover your system.
*** If the current BIOS version is older than P5.40, please update BIOS to P5.40(PinnaclePI-AM4_1.0.0.6) before updating this version.
**** User will not able to flash previous BIOS once upgrading to this BIOS version.

 

[Ajay]

Info on Crucial Ballistix Elite e-die for posterity: https://www.overclockers.com/crucial-ballistix-elite-ddr4-3600-review/

 

[anj2208]

With bios 5.8, yes it will. See the notes on that bios update(below), and follow them. You may have to update back a few version, and do each one until current. The oldest you can run I think is 5.8

1. Supports AMD next generation Ryzen processors
2. Update AMD AGESA Combo-AM4 1.0.0.1.

* Please install "AMD all in 1 with VGA driver ver:18.50.16.01_WHQL" or a later version before updating to this BIOS.
** If you updated the BIOS before updating the AMD all in one driver, please refer to the Display recovery SOP to recover your system.
*** If the current BIOS version is older than P5.40, please update BIOS to P5.40(PinnaclePI-AM4_1.0.0.6) before updating this version.
**** User will not able to flash previous BIOS once upgrading to this BIOS version.

Hey, thanks markfw, i appreciate it.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Haven't been too keen on Asrock because several reviewers really didn’t like the UEFI.

You might want to look at x570 Strix-F Gaming. VRMs are rock solid, and it's otherwise identical to Strix-E gaming except that it has one less Ethernet port, no built-in AX200 wifi, and two fewer phases on the secondary. You might want to do a deeper dive into the VRM layout differences between Strix-F and Strix-E but I think they're similar. I personally don't like the prices on the Asus lineup this time around, but if you gotta have Asus, that seems to be the sweet spot for a $300-and-under budget.

 

[Ajay]

You might want to look at x570 Strix-F Gaming. VRMs are rock solid, and it's otherwise identical to Strix-E gaming except that it has one less Ethernet port, no built-in AX200 wifi, and two fewer phases on the secondary. You might want to do a deeper dive into the VRM layout differences between Strix-F and Strix-E but I think they're similar. I personally don't like the prices on the Asus lineup this time around, but if you gotta have Asus, that seems to be the sweet spot for a $300-and-under budget.

I’ll take a look at the Strix. I’ve been watching buildzoid's mobo breakdown videos. Dude has excellent knowledge but needs to write a script, lol. I don’t have to have ASUS, it’s just the brand I’ve used the most and some of the longest lasting boards I’ve had (running F@H in 'retirement'). I think, mainly, that I was surprised by the scarcity of board in the $250-300 range. There are a lot more in the sub $250 space, but these often leave off features I want. The $300+ boards have 6-8 layers and excellent, overbuilt VRMs - which makes then HEDT class boards, hence the HEDT prices. So, It’ll take me a bit to get over the sticker shock.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I was surprised by the scarcity of board in the $250-300 range.

Outside of maybe ASRock with their $299 x570 Taichi, all the boards you would expect in that range got price-jacked to the $350 level instead. The upside is that some of those boards are arguably better than their x370 equivalents from two years ago. OEMs are starting to take AM4 a little more seriously now. The downside is, as you say, sticker shock.

Anyway, if you are not getting a C8H, MSI MEG ACE, or Aorus Master, you'd better be prepared to make some compromises on x570. Fortunately some of those compromises really aren't so bad. Main thing is to try to avoid the cheap 4-layer boards and to look for common complaints. OCN has a lot of owners' threads you can pore through as time permits (those threads are ridiculously long).

 

[Hans Gruber]

I’ll take a look at the Strix. I’ve been watching buildzoid's mobo breakdown videos. Dude has excellent knowledge but needs to write a script, lol. I don’t have to have ASUS, it’s just the brand I’ve used the most and some of the longest lasting boards I’ve had (running F@H in 'retirement'). I think, mainly, that I was surprised by the scarcity of board in the $250-300 range. There are a lot more in the sub $250 space, but these often leave off features I want. The $300+ boards have 6-8 layers and excellent, overbuilt VRMs - which makes then HEDT class boards, hence the HEDT prices. So, It’ll take me a bit to get over the sticker shock.

What good are overbuilt VRM's and motherboards if they cannot OC the CPU much beyond boost frequency?