Final results: My CPU works perfectly at a max of 4.1 GHz @ 1.375. It freezes up regardless of voltage at 4.2 GHz...the max voltage I tried was 1.425. I can play with the BIOS settings in an attempt to push it, but damn, I was happy with 4.0 TBH. 4.1 is just a bonus, and I might even back it down to 3.8 or 3.9 to keep my office somewhat cool. It works great though.
Also, Nvidia's drivers HATE AMD CPUs. I am trying to get my hands on a Vega 64 to do a comparison. However, I've done a bit of profiling, and there is definitely something sketchy going on. I still get awesome framerates in most games (rocket league is hitting an apparent 250 fps cap @ 1440p on my system vs Anandtech's poor showing, ROTR is double Anandtech's result @ 1440p, and PUBG is over 100fps, which AT didn't test), but when the CPU isn't even hitting 30% utilization on a single core, even at 1080p or 720p on a 1080ti, something is up. If/when I get this GPU, I'll provide a further update. As it is, if you have an AMD CPU and an Intel user is claiming their CPU is faster, take it with a grain of salt until this issue is out in the open.
Note this isn't an attack on AT, though I DO wish they would investigate their results a bit further...I noticed they pulled the 'game mode' numbers off from bench...
For others with my setup:
1) Games that are CPU dependent aren't pulling even 20% CPU load (on a single core mind you, so this isn't a threading issue).
2) Games that are GPU dependent don't scale with GPU clocks, a bit of a lower level investigation points at Nvidia drivers bottlenecking a single core (doesn't show up in task manager...task manager actually does not show all that much for lower level stuff surprisingly...) and limiting FPS.
Running these games under a much older AMD GPU shows none of these behaviors, and in a few cases, the older AMD GPU gets much better framerates. I thought this may be a system issue, so I looked at various hardware sites, but my benchmarks are in line with their benchmarks. For now, keep that in mind. Threadripper is great at gaming, but either Nvidia cards have some serious issues, or their drivers do. Either way, I plan on investigating this further.
Also, Nvidia's drivers HATE AMD CPUs. I am trying to get my hands on a Vega 64 to do a comparison. However, I've done a bit of profiling, and there is definitely something sketchy going on. I still get awesome framerates in most games (rocket league is hitting an apparent 250 fps cap @ 1440p on my system vs Anandtech's poor showing, ROTR is double Anandtech's result @ 1440p, and PUBG is over 100fps, which AT didn't test), but when the CPU isn't even hitting 30% utilization on a single core, even at 1080p or 720p on a 1080ti, something is up. If/when I get this GPU, I'll provide a further update. As it is, if you have an AMD CPU and an Intel user is claiming their CPU is faster, take it with a grain of salt until this issue is out in the open.
Note this isn't an attack on AT, though I DO wish they would investigate their results a bit further...I noticed they pulled the 'game mode' numbers off from bench...
For others with my setup:
1) Games that are CPU dependent aren't pulling even 20% CPU load (on a single core mind you, so this isn't a threading issue).
2) Games that are GPU dependent don't scale with GPU clocks, a bit of a lower level investigation points at Nvidia drivers bottlenecking a single core (doesn't show up in task manager...task manager actually does not show all that much for lower level stuff surprisingly...) and limiting FPS.
Running these games under a much older AMD GPU shows none of these behaviors, and in a few cases, the older AMD GPU gets much better framerates. I thought this may be a system issue, so I looked at various hardware sites, but my benchmarks are in line with their benchmarks. For now, keep that in mind. Threadripper is great at gaming, but either Nvidia cards have some serious issues, or their drivers do. Either way, I plan on investigating this further.