Ryzen: Strictly technical

[PhonakV30]

$160 for a motherboard and no custom P-states and broken fan control is simply unacceptable when my wife's $100 ASRock board has the same features and perfect fan control.

So other MBs does have custom P-stats? like Gigabyte and MSI ?

 

[mat9v]

Is there any way to make a custom voltage curve and bind it to multiplier? So I can have 1.15V for 3Ghz and 1.35V for 4Ghz?

 

[JimmiG]

To top it off their last BIOS update seriously broke memory compatibility. I went from being able to run 2933 to now not being able to post above 2133. I'm seriously considering buying a new motherboard that has better RAM support.

I would hold out for a few more weeks. There's another AGESA update coming out in May. If that doesn't improve the situation with your memory, then maybe switch to a different board (the way RAM prices have kept increasing, that's probably cheaper than getting different RAM).

I think Asus went a bit too far with the cutting of features compared to the C6H. They're mostly software-based UEFI features that they could have kept on the Prime if they wanted. I get it that they'd rather you pay more for the C6H, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are plenty of other X370 boards from other vendors, with more options at lower prices.

 

[Magic Hate Ball]

Is there any way to make a custom voltage curve and bind it to multiplier? So I can have 1.15V for 3Ghz and 1.35V for 4Ghz?

That would be custom P-States if I am not mistaken.

 

[looncraz]

So other MBs does have custom P-stats? like Gigabyte and MSI ?

The Prime X370 is the first X370 or B350 motherboard I've seen without them.

 

[Veradun]

The Prime X370 is the first X370 or B350 motherboard I've seen without them.

And while I'm not ready to give it back to Amazon and get an ASRock instead (that was my top choice, but I couldn't find any K4 or Taichi here in Italy), I'm actually considering it, just to punish ASUS as they really underdelivered badly this time. I still have time, but Amz IT still as no choice of ASRock x370 MBs at correct prices :/

 

[looncraz]

Swapped the Prime X370 Pro with an ASRock Fatalwhatever Gaming K4. Generally better options, though not all fan headers can run in DC mode... only real downside I could find.

Did not resolve virtualization issue, so I will assume that we will just have to wait for the software ecosystem to catch up. Boot times, interestingly, decreased by about 5 seconds when using RAID (fast boot vs fast boot - most of the benefit occurring during Win 10 boot, so that could simply be a matter of Windows reorganizing its boot-time drivers).

Having full AMD extended options available, VRM temperature monitoring, and an extra M.2 slot makes it a pretty easy choice, IMHO... two of those things aren't even advertised, so you'd never know.

 

[Dresdenboy]

And while I'm not ready to give it back to Amazon and get an ASRock instead (that was my top choice, but I couldn't find any K4 or Taichi here in Italy), I'm actually considering it, just to punish ASUS as they really underdelivered badly this time. I still have time, but Amz IT still as no choice of ASRock x370 MBs at correct prices :/

I assume prices are the main concern. I got a Taichi via Amazon.de for € 266 (directly from ASRock) as they had it in stock. I think you should be able to get it EU wide, just not at US prices ($200+VAT).

 

[Veradun]

I assume prices are the main concern. I got a Taichi via Amazon.de for € 266 (directly from ASRock) as they had it in stock. I think you should be able to get it EU wide, just not at US prices ($200+VAT).

I can survive to 266€, but Amzn IT has it for 376€

 

[Malogeek]

The Asus Prime X370-Pro seems to be the red headed step-child of their AM4 boards. They focus almost everything on their CH6 and even their B350 gets more attention and updates, but more specially, their other boards didn't completely break memory speeds on the latest BIOS.

 

[IEC]

Robert Hallock explains the various settings related to high speed memory overclocking and what they do. From the press event with MSI in Austin, TX:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZgpHTaQ10k

 

[IEC]

Buildzoid (Actually Hardcore Overclocking) reviews the VRM on the MSI B350M Gaming Pro (cheapest B350 motherboard):
https://youtu.be/3BYAdyO9nZo

TLDW: The board is 3+2 and at realistic maximum ratings (125C, 100A, 1.42V vcore) the board will be dissipating 22W of heat through the vcore VRMs. He is pretty critical of the FETs used by MSI (which are the same PK616BA and PK632BA FETs on all their AM4 boards) because they are 1) cheap and 2) inefficient. Which is actually okay IMO on a $69.99 motherboard (price has dropped since I purchased).

BTW I wasn't able to set vcore voltage higher than 1.40V on any EFI for this board, so MSI clearly knows the board's limits and added an extra margin for safety.

 

[Magic Hate Ball]

Buildzoid (Actually Hardcore Overclocking) reviews the VRM on the MSI B350M Gaming Pro (cheapest B350 motherboard):
https://youtu.be/3BYAdyO9nZo

TLDW: The board is 3+2 and at realistic maximum ratings (125C, 100A, 1.42V vcore) the board will be dissipating 22W of heat through the vcore VRMs. He is pretty critical of the FETs used by MSI (which are the same PK616BA and PK632BA FETs on all their AM4 boards) because they are 1) cheap and 2) inefficient. Which is actually okay IMO on a $69.99 motherboard (price has dropped since I purchased).

BTW I wasn't able to set vcore voltage higher than 1.40V on any EFI for this board, so MSI clearly knows the board's limits and added an extra margin for safety.

It's not great but for $70 that's still a great buy for a R5 1600 or less to pair with for overclocking moderately.

 

[IEC]

It's not great but for $70 that's still a great buy for a R5 1600 or less to pair with for overclocking moderately.

Yep, I have a Ryzen 1600 on the way and will likely be doing a modest OC using a Spire cooler to 3.7GHz all-core to match a 1800X stock (minus 2 cores, of course).

 

[Malogeek]

Well really people shouldn't be buying $70 motherboards to overclock their CPUs with.

 

[looncraz]

Well really people shouldn't be buying $70 motherboards to overclock their CPUs with.

Nothing wrong with that when the power draw is as low as with Ryzen.

I don't see many boards at all having difficulty handling 1.4V 8-core at 4Ghz.

 

[Magic Hate Ball]

Well really people shouldn't be buying $70 motherboards to overclock their CPUs with.

Until your silicon hits a voltage wall Ryzen is very power efficient. I'd say until you start going north of 1.35v even middling quality B350 motherboards are very acceptable.

 

[Timur Born]

Does someone have an explanation why 50% core-parking (aka CCX1 fully parked) nets slightly worse benchmark results for 7-Zip and WinRar single-thread benchmarking? Shouldn't it be the other way around with the level 3 cache being utilized on a single CCX?

 

[krumme]

Robert Hallock explains the various settings related to high speed memory overclocking and what they do. From the press event with MSI in Austin, TX:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZgpHTaQ10k

Ok good vid.
Takeaway from ram is soc voltage at 1.1v ram voltage at eg 1.4 to 1.5 no probs. But keep soc high.
For cpu never go higher than 1.45 to remain longterm life.
That pretty high btw. So people shouldnt be scared of eg 1.42v considering lifespan.

 

[Rifter]

The Asus Prime X370-Pro seems to be the red headed step-child of their AM4 boards. They focus almost everything on their CH6 and even their B350 gets more attention and updates, but more specially, their other boards didn't completely break memory speeds on the latest BIOS.

Yeah if they dont get there shit together with the next bios update or two im selling it off and buying a ASrock.

 

[JimmiG]

Yeah if they dont get there shit together with the next bios update or two im selling it off and buying a ASrock.

It's ridiculous that Asus have reps answering questions and giving support for the C6H in forums threads, but they don't give a crap about the Prime. Sure the C6H is $100 more, but I thought that was only supposed to buy you more hardware features, not a private tech support team from Asus.

 

[looncraz]

Does someone have an explanation why 50% core-parking (aka CCX1 fully parked) nets slightly worse benchmark results for 7-Zip and WinRar single-thread benchmarking? Shouldn't it be the other way around with the level 3 cache being utilized on a single CCX?

Cache aware algorithms expecting access to 16MB of L3 cache and allocating pools that are larger than 8MB.

 

[Timur Born]

Wouldn't that be a problem for both cases, 50% parked and everything unparked? It's still 2x 8 mb cache instead of 1x 16 mb regardless of whether both CCX are active or only one, isn't it?

 

[Dresdenboy]

Cache aware algorithms expecting access to 16MB of L3 cache and allocating pools that are larger than 8MB.

The interesting part is that these are single threaded tests. so that one thread could never fill and then use the 8 MB L3 of the second CCX, regardless if it's active or not.

Wouldn't that be a problem for both cases, 50% parked and everything unparked? It's still 2x 8 mb cache instead of 1x 16 mb regardless of whether both CCX are active or only one, isn't it?

It's a victim cache. So if one CCX is completely parked, no core would fill the associated 8MB of L3 by throwing out L2 cache lines.

 

[looncraz]

Wouldn't that be a problem for both cases, 50% parked and everything unparked? It's still 2x 8 mb cache instead of 1x 16 mb regardless of whether both CCX are active or only one, isn't it?

The interesting part is that these are single threaded tests. so that one thread could never fill and then use the 8 MB L3 of the second CCX, regardless if it's active or not.
.

This is when kernel thread leveling acts to improve performance by forcing both L3s to have the data. If a CCX is parked, it will never have the data.