AMD Ryzen R9 3900X Review Round Up

Mchart said:
So apparently Corsair iCue is the key cause of the high-idle issues. What's interesting is that even on my 2700x system iCue is doing the same thing, for whatever reason people are just noticing this issue now. With iCue running it basically never allows the CPU cores to go into idle state and drop voltage. I've tested this on my system with the 2700x dropped in and the 3800x dropped in. Both stay stuck at the normal low-workload idle voltages of around 1.4v instead of dropping to below 1v.

Now, if you have decent cooling this doesn't matter much, but it's still not working the way it should.

I've looked at AMD's posts about other logging software causing the issues, but generally, I don't see HWINFO64 etc causing any of these issues. I can keep those running, and as soon as I force quit iCue from running in the background the problem goes away.
Click to expand...
lol i think my vcore just dropped and my idle temp went down lol by closing it
 
I have thin eye lids and super sensitive eyes — if the blackout curtain isn't covering the window completely, I cannot sleep; alarm clock, flipped; laptop, covered. Phone, under pillow.

That said, all except the dimmest leds give me a headache. I had to tape over the logo and caps, num, etc. leds on my coolermaster keyboard. Computer is behind me, so I'm fine with the frag[H]arder disco lights in there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: N4CR
like this
Mode13 said:
Nothing wrong with Aesthetics. I think most of us (including me) are just put off by the amount of people who spend incredible amounts of money on custom loops, lighting, chassis, etc just to show off their computer and stare at it while the peak of their computing needs is solitaire :p
Click to expand...

I really don't care what other people do with their systems.

What peeves me is when I figure out what specs I want on - as an example - RAM, filter based on those settings and find that the only ones that meet my specification criteria are adorned with disco-lights.

Sure, I can turn them off, but I don't want to have to install software to do that. I don't want that software on my machine. I don't want those LED's and controllers draining power off of my RAM socket, and potentially impacting my stability and overclocks, and I don't want to be forced to pay to have that shit I never wanted in the first place on my RAM, when my ideal RAM would look something like this:

upload_2019-7-13_15-19-54.png


I mean,green is fine, I'd take a black or grey PCB if available , but that's about it. No decorative ramsinks, racing stripes or lights.

The fact that everyone else has tacky poor taste is forcing me to buy it too, and I am sick of it.

Not to mention that a grown ass adult decorating their PC with racing stripes and lights is sort of similar to a grown ass adult sleeping in one of these:

61k-3B-TtZL._SX425_.jpg
 
how is this any different then people buying fancy rims and racing tires only to drive the speed limit and get stuck in traffic. I am totally ok with RBG as long as i can turn it off.
 
I agree with the aesthetics causing price increases and other sacrifices. First time it really became obvious to me is the x570 launch, I'm sure a flat heatspreader copper piped over to a larger heatsink or vrm heatsink would have been more than enough to passively cool the chipset, but then the boards would look to have regressed 10 years into a 780i

Car beds are awesome though

 
Gigabytes high end x570 does just this. very large heatsinks with heatpipe going to chipset and no fan
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
grown ass adult sleeping in one of these:

View attachment 173797
Click to expand...

You just sound jealous now.

I agree and disagree, I’m fine with just plain jane green PCB Ram. Alternatively I don’t see anything wrong with going with a like a white sync and matching to a white PCB motherboard/GPU/case combo. Nothing extravagant but just nice looking.

Like buying a car, all things equal between two except one is your favorite color and the other is that color but matte. Unfortunately you had to sift through 30 models of neon pink and canary yellow to find those two you liked. I feel like that sums up RGB PC parts.
 
Does anyone know if the current AMD AGESA shipping with most x570 motherboards will post with a 3950x when they ship?

I'm tempted to order my motherboard now, so I make sure I get the one I want, but I don't want to wind up being stuck with a board I need to flash and no CPU to flash it with come September.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I really don't care what other people do with their systems.

What peeves me is when I figure out what specs I want on - as an example - RAM, filter based on those settings and find that the only ones that meet my specification criteria are adorned with disco-lights.

Sure, I can turn them off, but I don't want to have to install software to do that. I don't want that software on my machine. I don't want those LED's and controllers draining power off of my RAM socket, and potentially impacting my stability and overclocks, and I don't want to be forced to pay to have that shit I never wanted in the first place on my RAM, when my ideal RAM would look something like this:

View attachment 173796

I mean,green is fine, I'd take a black or grey PCB if available , but that's about it. No decorative ramsinks, racing stripes or lights.

The fact that everyone else has tacky poor taste is forcing me to buy it too, and I am sick of it.

Not to mention that a grown ass adult decorating their PC with racing stripes and lights is sort of similar to a grown ass adult sleeping in one of these:

View attachment 173797
Click to expand...

If I’m spending thousands of dollars on computer parts they had damn well better look nice. Some people go overboard with lights and shit but whatever works for them.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Does anyone know if the current AMD AGESA shipping with most x570 motherboards will post with a 3950x when they ship?

I'm tempted to order my motherboard now, so I make sure I get the one I want, but I don't want to wind up being stuck with a board I need to flash and no CPU to flash it with come September.
Click to expand...

The CPU support list for boards should mention whether they support the 3950X or not. If not there are quite a few X570 boards with BIOS Flashback so you won’t need a CPU installed to update. I think MSI and Gigabyte have it along most of their X570 line.
 
Derangel said:
The CPU support list for boards should mention whether they support the 3950X or not. If not there are quite a few X570 boards with BIOS Flashback so you won’t need a CPU installed to update. I think MSI and Gigabyte have it along most of their X570 line.
Click to expand...

I mean if you're going to spend the $750 for a CPU like that, I'm sure you're not trying to drop it in your old B350 board. Most of the higher end boards support a CPU-less flash.
 
Dan_D said:
This isn't 1990. We don't all have beige boxes. You can have all the performance you want and or can afford while still having a sense of style to the machine.
Click to expand...

I also enjoy a little "style" which is why my case has a window and I have some blue LED fans. However there's a big difference between some subtle highlights and full out RAINBOW MADNESS. The machine is used to drive a display, which is where my eyes are focused on 99.5% of the time. The machine itself is just a means to an end, and doesn't need to be some sort of blinged out disco light that gives one seizures.
 
kirbyrj said:
I mean if you're going to spend the $750 for a CPU like that, I'm sure you're not trying to drop it in your old B350 board. Most of the higher end boards support a CPU-less flash.
Click to expand...


I didn't realize this was a thing. I haven't bought a high end desktop motherboard in a while. Last one was my Asus P9x79 WS in 2011.
 
kirbyrj said:
I mean if you're going to spend the $750 for a CPU like that, I'm sure you're not trying to drop it in your old B350 board. Most of the higher end boards support a CPU-less flash.
Click to expand...

Even some of the “cheaper” X570 boards do. It’s a lot more rare on the earlier chipsets. There seems to be more B450 boards with it than X370 or X470.
 
kirbyrj said:
I mean if you're going to spend the $750 for a CPU like that, I'm sure you're not trying to drop it in your old B350 board. Most of the higher end boards support a CPU-less flash.
Click to expand...

Derangel said:
Even some of the “cheaper” X570 boards do. It’s a lot more rare on the earlier chipsets. There seems to be more B450 boards with it than X370 or X470.
Click to expand...

So, how does this typically work? One of those, put the BIOS image in a specific place on a USB stick, and insert it in the specified USB port and it will be flashed once powered on?

Does the feature go by a specific name, I can look for in specs?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I didn't realize this was a thing. I haven't bought a high end desktop motherboard in a while. Last one was my Asus P9x79 WS in 2011.
Click to expand...
Yeah, a few have it. as far as I was aware, gigabyte did not, but maybe their more recent, top end boards do. My x370 doesn't, but it's also just "midrange", despite the aorus moniker.
 


If you look all the way on the right side, it denotes whether or not the board supports bios flashback without a CPU. Only place I've seen a comprehensive listing like that so far. I think the Bios has to be named a certain way and in the root of the USB stick, etc. Each board implementation is different I would think. Generally in a specific USB port though.

I'd definitely pull up the manual for the board you're looking at and confirm though prior to purchase. I can confirm that the CH8 Hero has it. That WS Ace board you like doesn't though (allegedly).
 
kirbyrj said:


If you look all the way on the right side, it denotes whether or not the board supports bios flashback without a CPU. Only place I've seen a comprehensive listing like that so far. I think the Bios has to be named a certain way and in the root of the USB stick, etc. Each board implementation is different I would think. Generally in a specific USB port though.

I'd definitely pull up the manual for the board you're looking at and confirm though prior to purchase. I can confirm that the CH8 Hero has it. That WS Ace board you like doesn't though (allegedly).
Click to expand...



Hmm. Looks like the board I am interested in (Asus Pro WS x570-Ace) does not have that feature checked. Who knows if this is accurate though.

The Asus CPU support page doesn't list the 3940x, but it also does not list the already launched 3900x??
 
IdiotInCharge said:
That's what I'm getting at- right now, you're not going to push clockspeeds higher, therefore, better cooling is really only going to net you less noise under load (once the CPU hits its limits).

I'm going to go ahead and assume that the core-limited boost clocks will be raised with future BIOS updates, and potentially all-core clocks as well. It just doesn't seem reasonable that we're not seeing more than ~4.3GHz.
Click to expand...

It has nothing to do with the OEM BIOS. It all has to do with AMD's AGESA Combo PI versions. Version 1.0.0.3 patch AB does raise the clocks, but unfortunately, this doesn't necessarily equal more performance. Whatever variables are used to increase the clocks actually hurt performance in some tests. I'm writing an article that talks about this now actually. For reference, I have now seen 4.573GHz boost clocks on my Ryzen 9 3900X. So it is possible. However, this will vary greatly by individual boards depending on the Combo PI used as well as the design of the motherboard. For example, PBO should simply work better on better motherboards. The PPT, EDC and TDC values are set by the board makers. This is assuming you don't override the values yourself. The BIOS and Ryzen Master allow this, although I have no idea how well this really works.

odditory said:
Valid opinion, but I'm reminded that when I posted the Nvidia Super cards leak, people were screaming fake because the name sounded so implausible.

Every tech blog and forum is discussing this, so it's a matter of Intel is issuing a denial now.
Click to expand...

I'm even one of the ones who said the name seemed implausible. It didn't fit with any established naming convention NVIDIA has ever used in the past. Intel could very well use that stupid naming convention. It may also be something that was leaked to see how people reacted to the names. The model numbers could very well change when new CPU's are released.

Zarathustra[H] said:
I didn't realize this was a thing. I haven't bought a high end desktop motherboard in a while. Last one was my Asus P9x79 WS in 2011.
Click to expand...

There are a number of differences between high end and lower end motherboards. People tend to fall on one side of the extreme or another. You have people that buy the cheap boards believing that the high end boards are artificially inflated cost wise, or that the features they have are all fluff and that their cheaper option will always work just as well as the higher end ones. Then you have the other crowd that thinks the high end motherboards are better in every way and that the low end boards are all time bombs when paired with a more powerful CPU. The fact is, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

If you go to a super high end motherboard, chances are its overbuilt for everything but LN2 cooling. If you go for the ultra-low end, you strip features, but you also end up with something that meets only the barest minimum requirements to run these chips at stock speeds. Even when they are capable of some overclocking, their longevity is questionable at best, and when you see a multi-generational socket like AM4, the weaknesses of these designs becomes far more readily apparent.

This is especially true on the AMD side where the limitations are much more likely to be realized than on the Intel side. The fact is, AMD has been a bit of a bargain basement option for years now and as a result, there is a considerable amount of cost cutting done on the motherboards and Intel has always set certain minimum standards on any board that will use their chipsets and CPU's. They have far more control over the OEMs than AMD does. However, things like a 128Mbit BIOS ROM chip on an Intel system probably isn't going to matter. On an AMD system, it obviously does as companies like MSI have to ditch BIOS features to make room for Ryzen 3000's AGESA code. As we get into the higher end CPU's with 12 and 16 cores, those cheaper VRM's and their limitations start to become more apparent. Back when those B350 motherboards were engineered, no one dreamed of installing 16c/32t CPU's on them. Therefore, their VRM's were never built for that.

Of course, AMD engineered their CPU's to work within the TDP's of existing motherboard designs, and at stock speeds you'll probably be fine. Just don't expect that much in the way of boost clocks (which are beyond the stock TDP) or anything out of PBO or manual overclocking. You should be OK with eight core and lower CPUs, but those 12c/24t and 16c/32t CPU's potentially have the ability to pull 200A, which is wishful thinking on some of these boards. Of course good airflow, environmental conditions and other factors come into play.

The thing is, I've seen some cheap ass hardware last well beyond anyone's predictions. I've seen high end crap blow up immediately. However, for my money, I'd rather buy something with VRM's that are well in excess of what I need for the highest end CPU's at the time of release. This is especially true of AMD motherboards. You can roll the dice on a B350 and Ryzen 9 3900X, but I wouldn't.

Doing reviews, I have to deal with all kinds of issues. At my day job, I fix computer related issues for a living. The last thing I want out of my personal machine are problems. Experiencing issues on that system is nothing short of maddening. When you want to sit down and get some work done or just play some games, the last thing you want to do is smoke your VRM's. And trust me, I've smoked enough of them over the years to know that the smell lingers for awhile.

Derangel said:
Even some of the “cheaper” X570 boards do. It’s a lot more rare on the earlier chipsets. There seems to be more B450 boards with it than X370 or X470.
Click to expand...

That's because the minimum standards on the X570 boards has gone up as AMD is positioning themselves as a premium option rather than a budget alternative to Intel.
 
Last edited:
Dan_D said:
There are a number of differences between high end and lower end motherboards. This is especially true on the AMD side where the limitations are much more likely to be realized than on the Intel side. The fact is, AMD has been a bit of a bargain basement option for years now and as a result, there is a considerable amount of cost cutting done on the motherboards and Intel has always set certain minimum standards on any board that will use their chipsets and CPU's. They have far more control over the OEMs than AMD does. However, things like a 128Mbit BIOS ROM chip on an Intel system probably isn't going to matter. On an AMD system, it obviously does as companies like MSI have to ditch BIOS features to make room for Ryzen 3000's AGESA code. As we get into the higher end CPU's with 12 and 16 cores, those cheaper VRM's and their limitations start to become more apparent.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I only buy high end motherboards once every few years when I upgrade my desktop. I do plenty of builds in between (pfsense router, systems for other people, HTPC's) but for those the high end motherboards don't matter, so they get the cheaper ones.

The Sandy-E chip lasted me much longer than I expected, so I am a bit out of the loop on the high end boards.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Yeah, I only buy high end motherboards once every few years when I upgrade my desktop. I do plenty of builds in between (pfsense router, systems for other people, HTPC's) but for those the high end motherboards don't matter, so they get the cheaper ones.

The Sandy-E chip lasted me much longer than I expected, so I am a bit out of the loop on the high end boards.
Click to expand...

I'm by no means saying that high end motherboards are mandatory. Frankly, what you really want are the beefier VRM's. Now we know that on the AMD side you want the 256Mbit BIOS chip. The blind flash feature has always been something you want on the AMD side. The rest are just features. You want them, need them, or don't want or need them. That's basically it. There is nothing wrong with a less is more approach. On one hand, I like these ridiculous motherboards like the MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE. They are amazing pieces of hardware and are nice to even just look at. However, reviewing one is a huge pain in the ass. When you have three or four network solutions, NVMe RAID, and whatever else, it can make for tedious work. In contrast, a motherboard like ASUS' Maximus XI APEX has beefy VRM's and features that are all geared around overclocking. Aside from that, its stripped down. It doesn't even have power phases for integrated GPU's and has no output for them. Sometimes less really is more. Such motherboards are also easier to work with.

When I built my girlfriend's machine, I used an ASUS ROG STRIX X470 motherboard. A few weeks later I got the B450 version. The two are virtually identical. The B450 version is cheaper of course, and in the mini-ITX form factor the differences between the chipsets are meaningless. Had I had the B450 version ahead of time, I wouldn't have bothered with the X470 version. Her system doesn't get overclocked unless I do it and frankly, she's at 2560x1600 where she's a bit more GPU limited. I couldn't care less about bleeding edge overclocks on that thing. She's also not going to be able to use any more than eight cores. A Ryzen 3700X would be a fantastic upgrade for her. I could probably get away with a 3600/3600X, but she's got eight cores now so I don't want less.
 
Dan_D said:
I'm by no means saying that high end motherboards are mandatory. Frankly, what you really want are the beefier VRM's. Now we know that on the AMD side you want the 256Mbit BIOS chip. The blind flash feature has always been something you want on the AMD side. The rest are just features. You want them, need them, or don't want or need them. That's basically it. There is nothing wrong with a less is more approach. On one hand, I like these ridiculous motherboards like the MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE. They are amazing pieces of hardware and are nice to even just look at. However, reviewing one is a huge pain in the ass. When you have three or four network solutions, NVMe RAID, and whatever else, it can make for tedious work. In contrast, a motherboard like ASUS' Maximus XI APEX has beefy VRM's and features that are all geared around overclocking. Aside from that, its stripped down. It doesn't even have power phases for integrated GPU's and has no output for them. Sometimes less really is more. Such motherboards are also easier to work with.

When I built my girlfriend's machine, I used an ASUS ROG STRIX X470 motherboard. A few weeks later I got the B450 version. The two are virtually identical. The B450 version is cheaper of course, and in the mini-ITX form factor the differences between the chipsets are meaningless. Had I had the B450 version ahead of time, I wouldn't have bothered with the X470 version. Her system doesn't get overclocked unless I do it and frankly, she's at 2560x1600 where she's a bit more GPU limited. I couldn't care less about bleeding edge overclocks on that thing. She's also not going to be able to use any more than eight cores. A Ryzen 3700X would be a fantastic upgrade for her. I could probably get away with a 3600/3600X, but she's got eight cores now so I don't want less.
Click to expand...

I tend to like workstation boards, which really narrows the selection these days. Everything has gone "gamer".

What further narrows it, is that I like workstation boards that overclock well and have good VRM's
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I tend to like workstation boards, which really narrows the selection these days. Everything has gone "gamer".

What further narrows it, is that I like workstation boards that overclock well and have good VRM's
Click to expand...

Not always. Workstation motherboards generally have good VRM's but they don't always overclock well. Everything has gone gamer because that's what most DIY PC's are built for. Its a matter of companies targeting the demographic that makes them the most money.
 
Dan_D said:
Not always. Workstation motherboards generally have good VRM's but they don't always overclock well. Everything has gone gamer because that's what most DIY PC's are built for. Its a matter of companies targeting the demographic that makes them the most money.
Click to expand...

I understand this full well. I'm used to being a disgruntled minority when it comes to my requirements for engineered products of all kinds.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I tend to like workstation boards, which really narrows the selection these days. Everything has gone "gamer".

What further narrows it, is that I like workstation boards that overclock well and have good VRM's
Click to expand...

I would prefer workstation boards as well. I just don’t understand how the Asus WS board doesn’t have windows 2016 drivers. Just win10
 
  • Like
Reactions: N4CR
like this
Yep. I upgraded to a 3800x from my 2700x, but I knew it wouldn’t mean anything at 4K. It was more for the novelty of it..
 
mjz_5 said:
I would prefer workstation boards as well. I just don’t understand how the Asus WS board doesn’t have windows 2016 drivers. Just win10
Click to expand...

Wow. That is surprising.

I mean, can't you just find the chip models that are on board and grab the drivers straight from Realtek or wherever?
 
HubDoubleDub said:
I still remember the "Blowdozer". Turned me away from AMD for life.
Click to expand...

Well, you do realize that the only reason we got Bulldozer is because AMD didn't have enough money to spend on R&D, and the reason for that was that Intel illegally blocked them out of OEM sales and sabotaged performance in their popular compiler.

Sure, they settled for a billion dollars, but that was a fraction of the damage Intel did. They just had a near bankrupt AMD over a barrel and more or less forced them to settle for peanuts because they needed the money as soon as possible.

In the absence of competition - however - Intel have given us generation after generation of embarrassingly bad single digit performance increases.

I welcome this turn of events, and although AMD may not be quite as fast as Intel for gaming purposes, I look forward to buying one of their chips.

The true evil here is Intel. They have been a shady company from day one, with no qualms about using shameful litigation tactics to try to kill any competition.

Intel and the x86 Architecture: A Legal Perspective

I have reluctantly been using Intel for several years now, as I hated giving a shitty company like that my money, and finally I don't have to anymore.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Well, you do realize that the only reason we got Bulldozer is because AMD didn't have enough money to spend on R&D, and the reason for that was that Intel illegally blocked them out of OEM sales and sabotaged performance in their popular compiler.

Sure, they settled for a billion dollars, but that was a fraction of the damage Intel did. They just had a near bankrupt AMD over a barrel and more or less forced them to settle for peanuts because they needed the money as soon as possible.

In the absence of competition - however - Intel have given us generation after generation of embarrassingly bad single digit performance increases.

I welcome this turn of events, and although AMD may not be quite as fast as Intel for gaming purposes, I look forward to buying one of their chips.

The true evil here is Intel. They have been a shady company from day one, with no qualms about using shameful litigation tactics to try to kill any competition.

Intel and the x86 Architecture: A Legal Perspective

I have reluctantly been using Intel for several years now, as I hated giving a shitty company like that my money, and finally I don't have to anymore.
Click to expand...

As far as milking the mainstream with low core counts and new sockets/chipset goes.. Intel definitely deserves all the criticism they get.

However, regarding single digit performance gaines, since AMD hasn't actually surpassed Intel yet, I'm not yet convinced that Intel hasn't wrung x86 for almost everything they can get. We need to wait and see if AMD can actually surpass Intel and kick off some real performance leapfrogging to know if they were holding back.
 
ryan_975 said:
As far as milking the mainstream with low core counts and new sockets/chipset goes.. Intel definitely deserves all the criticism they get.

However, regarding single digit performance gaines, since AMD hasn't actually surpassed Intel yet, I'm not yet convinced that Intel hasn't wrung x86 for almost everything they can get. We need to wait and see if AMD can actually surpass Intel and kick off some real performance leapfrogging to know if they were holding back.
Click to expand...

Zen 2 IPC is pretty close to, if not above, current gen Intel stuff across the board. The big reason Zen 2 doesn't win out across the board is simply clock speed. Intel is promising big IPC gains from their Icelake mobile chips. If that holds true on the 10nm desktop parts I think we'll have proof of Intel resting on its laurels.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top