7950x, Asus TUF, Tustin Microcenter, Mini review

V

vxspiritxv

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 10, 2001
Messages
1,603
No real issues to speak of other than, don't turn on expo until you update the bios.
Runs fine with only one 8pin connected up top, but I'm not overclocking other than to say everything is at default with expo turn on.
VRM heatsink gets quite hot; Since I'm currently running commando, I laid a USB fan on it.
I'll upgrade my power supply and video card some time after AMD releases their new cards, for now, seems to work fine on 750watts.
https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/56924294
Running right where it should per https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-ryzen-9-7950x-review,10.html
1669420077536.png


1669420218172.png

As for Microcenter, what a' mess. Lots of issues could have been solved by providing the QR code as people came in the store. I don't think they were expecting a line that extended past their property line.
Only took 2 hours to purchase it :cautious:
$952.49 after tax, about $150 less than making the same purchases on newegg (currently out of stock).
Free memory provided is 32gb 6000mhz CL36.
Video card is gtx1660.

Wall power usage:
3watts - powered off
200watts - boot up
350watts - cinebench
300watts - furmark
450watts - furmark + cinebench
 
I got the exact same bundle, but avoided the crowds at my local Microcenter by going there on Wednesday. Are you planning on undervolting and doing a PBO curve? Let me know what you're able to get stable. -15 boots up and is somewhat stable, but idle crashes. -10 passed an all night Cinebench stress test but still idle crashed after a few hours of mixed use. Currently at -8 and it seems stable so far.
 
Syntax Error said:
I got the exact same bundle, but avoided the crowds at my local Microcenter by going there on Wednesday. Are you planning on undervolting and doing a PBO curve? Let me know what you're able to get stable. -15 boots up and is somewhat stable, but idle crashes. -10 passed an all night Cinebench stress test but still idle crashed after a few hours of mixed use. Currently at -8 and it seems stable so far.
Click to expand...
You need to run Hydra on your chip just to get an idea where to start on negative offsets. I can run stuff all day with my 5950x (older generation that you of course) with -10 across the board, but it will reboot on me in the middle of the night when nothing is happening. Hydra actually shows that I need a positive offset on 2 cores and then 0 on one core. After that, I have negative offsets ranging from -2 up to -20 I think on the rest of the cores. I believe my chip got magically degraded in one fail swoop though with a power blip, I have a whole thread on that.
 
Found a tip while running hydra. On CCD0 Core 1&3 I couldn't do any negative offset. In the manual for hydra it states you should Set LLC to Auto. I changed it to that and -12 on Core 0, -10 core 3 works with 125mhz boost override. Not only that all of the cores are undervolted much more. Most of ccd2 is maxed at -30. Had to manually input it in bios since hydra is buggy with my board. Gave me good baselines though. Just can't apply. Some should be -40 when it works.
 
equinox654 said:
Found a tip while running hydra. On CCD0 Core 1&3 I couldn't do any negative offset. In the manual for hydra it states you should Set LLC to Auto. I changed it to that and -12 on Core 0, -10 core 3 works with 125mhz boost override. Not only that all of the cores are undervolted much more. Most of ccd2 is maxed at -30. Had to manually input it in bios since hydra is buggy with my board. Gave me good baselines though. Just can't apply. Some should be -40 when it works.
Click to expand...
This is for your 7950x? I believe I already have LLC set to Auto in BIOS.
 
Yeah maybe I changed It at some point. Can’t remember. I’ve just been setting it to a middle value for ages.
 
I'm completely stable at -20 on the curve. Had a no boot at -25. Still hit 95 on the cooler, but gets there a tad slower & gained like 200 points on cinebench. I can only fit a 280 rad in my case, prob not worth it for me to change to AIO.
 
I'm giving Hydra a go to determine per-core Negative PBO offset. I suspect I have one or two bum cores that don't like even -8, so hopefully I can identify which cores and set them accordingly.
 
How are you guys reliably checking for instability with negative offsets? I understand stress testing on load using things like Cinebench, but the issue I see seems to be when the cores downclock on idle or after a load and that's when you really see instability.
 
Syntax Error said:
How are you guys reliably checking for instability with negative offsets? I understand stress testing on load using things like Cinebench, but the issue I see seems to be when the cores downclock on idle or after a load and that's when you really see instability.
Click to expand...

I turned my offsets way back up for this reason. All cores on my 7950x will run -30 all day in CoreCycler with either ycruncher or Prime95, but I don't trust their stability at idle. Once or twice I've run into a bug where core 0 got stuck at idle clocks (< 1 GHz) despite a CoreCycler load running on it and at -30 it was failing with a rounding error immediately and repeatedly. Edge case maybe but to me it says light transient loads could be running on an unstable near-idle core.

Maybe playing with LLC could help tune the v/f curve to have higher voltages at idle? I have it set to auto on my X670E Taichi and have not tried changing it.
 
Syntax Error said:
How are you guys reliably checking for instability with negative offsets? I understand stress testing on load using things like Cinebench, but the issue I see seems to be when the cores downclock on idle or after a load and that's when you really see instability.
Click to expand...
The only thing that clued me in on my 5950x is seeing that the computer has rebooted overnight. I leave my machine running 24/7, so pretty much every time I went to use it, I would have to log in. Regular use didn't show me any problems.
 
Well for now I have most of my cores set to -25 at the 105W TDP settings so I'm not unnecessarily roasting my CPU (and saving a bit of power), with a cores 2,3, & 5 as indicated by Hydra as the sub-optimal ones set at -10. So far it seems "stable" since it hasn't crashed on load testing or through "normal use", but it's hard to say if it's 100% stable due to the lack of methods to consistently test for idle crashes.

I thought the maximum negative offset was -30 per the AMD specs, but Hydra appears to say some of my cores are capable of doing -40 or more? Is this correct or some kind of glitch in the program? To be fair, Hydra does say Zen 4 support is still on the way.
 
Finally got my 7900X dialed in and fairly silent under load in a small ~21L case
-30 offset, 135W power limit -> ~71C, 138W package power, very slightly faster multi- and single-core results
Stock -> ~94C, ~188W package power

So far, so good. Perfectly stable in Prime95, Core Cycler, and a few days of plain old idling

Very, very different than OCing the 920 D0 or 4770K, and definitely different than ye olde days of swapping clock crystals :)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top