Help with OC 3800x MSI B350 Tomahawk

[KillA_KIA]

Greetings!
I have already messed with some OCs on my 3800x with the B350 Tomahawk, however, I am wondering if there are any other users of the same board sporting the same CPU that can help me optimize for more stable clocks. I have had it at 4.525 (IIRC) stable and ran some tests in which it worked great, but the heat and the voltage used scared me; think it was 1.453v and temp was nearing 73c on custom EKWB waterloop with 280 rad. I have had it undervolted and running stable at 1.239v and 4.425 and heat was never above 67c (again IIRC [Just moved IRL and PC is in a box atm ]). I am using the 7A34v1OS(Beta version) Bios for the board, so, it looks different than the standard and I am unable to find a youtube with someone with the same setup and bios to help me tweek the settings. I have 32gb DDR4 3000 @ 3ghz (Trident Z Royal Gold dual channel kit ), PSU is an OCZ 750w Semi Modular PSU, MSI 2070 Super Ventus OC, 2x CoolerMaster 230mm fans (Front intake and side exhaust), 1 Corsair 120 mm fan (rear exhaust) EKWB custom waterloop has 2x vardar fans in a top exhaust through the 280 rad, large water pump at the bottom of case with soft tubes going to the cpu block and rad in the loop. Case is the HAF 932 Advanced with the little half window thing. I stated all the stats for a power draw perspective. Best I can figure is with all of it I can pull near 450 watts, which leaves about 200 watts extra safe. I will post pics later, when I can get to it as well as my current stats for it via Bios picks. It did get real hot during summer so I dropped the 4.4 OC to standard AC game mode 4.2Ghz until it cools down more. Thanks in advance!

Edit: LOL! Okay, so, long work day. Stats are in my sig for HDDs etc.

 

[FlawleZ]

What are you using for stress/heat test? If that 73C is a temp reached with sustained all core load, that's really good for that much voltage. 1.45 is a lot though. I run my 3800X at 4.4Ghz all core typically but but I'll see what mine needs for 4.5Ghz but its nothing near 1.4v.

 

[KillA_KIA]

Prime 95, MSI Kombuster (whatever the latest is using CPU Physics Hard), OFC time spy, but that is mostly GPU, however, it helps to test stability. Space Engineers at 2k res with everything up and loading large ships or having large mock battles (physics is CPU based in that + Clang), Folding at Home. Might be a few others, but, that is what I use. Anything that pushes CPU side

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Greetings!
I have already messed with some OCs on my 3800x with the B350 Tomahawk, however, I am wondering if there are any other users of the same board sporting the same CPU that can help me optimize for more stable clocks. I have had it at 4.525 (IIRC) stable and ran some tests in which it worked great, but the heat and the voltage used scared me; think it was 1.453v and temp was nearing 73c on custom EKWB waterloop with 280 rad. I have had it undervolted and running stable at 1.239v and 4.425 and heat was never above 67c (again IIRC [Just moved IRL and PC is in a box atm ]). I am using the 7A34v1OS(Beta version) Bios for the board, so, it looks different than the standard and I am unable to find a youtube with someone with the same setup and bios to help me tweek the settings. I have 32gb DDR4 3000 @ 3ghz (Trident Z Royal Gold dual channel kit ), PSU is an OCZ 750w Semi Modular PSU, MSI 2070 Super Ventus OC, 2x CoolerMaster 230mm fans (Front intake and side exhaust), 1 Corsair 120 mm fan (rear exhaust) EKWB custom waterloop has 2x vardar fans in a top exhaust through the 280 rad, large water pump at the bottom of case with soft tubes going to the cpu block and rad in the loop. Case is the HAF 932 Advanced with the little half window thing. I stated all the stats for a power draw perspective. Best I can figure is with all of it I can pull near 450 watts, which leaves about 200 watts extra safe. I will post pics later, when I can get to it as well as my current stats for it via Bios picks. It did get real hot during summer so I dropped the 4.4 OC to standard AC game mode 4.2Ghz until it cools down more. Thanks in advance!

Edit: LOL! Okay, so, long work day. Stats are in my sig for HDDs etc.

Don't mean to thread jack, but OP, in order to get the 3800 to work on the B350 Tomahawk, you had to use the latest beta BIOS (7A34v1OS) right?

How stable have you found this beta BIOS to be? I am considering sticking a 3800x or 3800xt in my stepsons rig, (depending on what I can find a good deal on during the Zen3 launch fire sale) but I don't want to do it if the only BIOS that provides support for the CPU is junk and unstable.

 

[KillA_KIA]

Don't mean to thread jack, but OP, in order to get the 3800 to work on the B350 Tomahawk, you had to use the latest beta BIOS (7A34v1OS) right?

How stable have you found this beta BIOS to be? I am considering sticking a 3800x or 3800xt in my stepsons rig, (depending on what I can find a good deal on during the Zen3 launch fire sale) but I don't want to do it if the only BIOS that provides support for the CPU is junk and unstable.

Zarathustra[H] That is the BIOS I used and it has been very stable. I have not had issues OCing with it, although I am really a newb to OCing and it reports the correct CPU etc. I would say go with it if you have that model mobo. Before my 3800x, I was running my 1600 non x using the bios that came with the board and when I upgraded the bios with that chip still in it, no flaws and all worked well.

 

[KillA_KIA]

In RE to the post above that I just made, My issue is understanding of the different settings in the bios and how to make things work better for my OCs. Since all board manufacturers are not the same, I was hoping someone would have the same board and bios, as that beta is different in how it looks etc than the one it came with. I enjoy OCing and have been wanting to push this thing |H|ard with my custom waterloop, and, now that we had some freezing weather come in, push it to the MAX

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Zarathustra[H] That is the BIOS I used and it has been very stable. I have not had issues OCing with it, although I am really a newb to OCing and it reports the correct CPU etc. I would say go with it if you have that model mobo. Before my 3800x, I was running my 1600 non x using the bios that came with the board and when I upgraded the bios with that chip still in it, no flaws and all worked well.

Thanks for the input. I appreciate it.

In RE to the post above that I just made, My issue is understanding of the different settings in the bios and how to make things work better for my OCs. Since all board manufacturers are not the same, I was hoping someone would have the same board and bios, as that beta is different in how it looks etc than the one it came with. I enjoy OCing and have been wanting to push this thing |H|ard with my custom waterloop, and, now that we had some freezing weather come in, push it to the MAX

It used to be easier back in the day, you just had to worry about clocks, and voltages. Now there are a lot more things interacting that can make it complex and confusing.

I guess my question is what your goal is.

Personally I haven't bothered overclocking any of my newer AMD systems. Last system I overclocked was my 2011 vintage I7-3930k, so I can't really help when it comes to the particulars of overclocking Zen2. 1.45v seems crazy high though. That would have made my 32nm 3930k unhappy, and CPU's have only become more sensitive to overvolting as the process node size has gone down. I'd be careful there.

The problem is this. Every CPU die ever made has process variability. There are good spots on the die, and less good spots on the die. Traditionally CPU's treated all cores the same, but with the Ryzen Arch, in order to maximize yields on the difficult 7nm process, AMD does per core turboclocking, to allow the best core to hit max turbo clocks, but not the worse ones. In other words, the best cores on your dies can clock higher in normal use than the worst cores.

When you manually overclock on Ryzen, you are overclocking all cores the same, but, since all cores are not the same, you can rarely expect to hit the max turbo clock on all of them, unless you really win the silicon lottery.

Usually overclocking Ryzen without extreme cooling goes something like this:

Stock:
Base Clock: 3.9Ghz
Max Single core turbo clock: 4.5Ghz.

Manually Overclocked:
All core fixed clock: 4.3Ghz

In this scenario, the stock clocks will actually do slightly better in lightly threaded apps like games and desktop apps, but the manual overclock will do better in heavy loads, like rendering and encoding.

I don't do very much rendering or encoding myself, so despite my beefy water loop, I've never bothered overclocking my Threadripper. For what I do, it performs better at stock settings.

If I were to need some more power out of it, I'd probably try PBO, as the dynamic clocks would probably work better for me, than an all core fixed clock.

As for your current overclock of 4.525, that already seems to me like you have beaten all expectations of Ryzen overclocking, at least unless it is on extreme cooling. From what I understand (but bear with me, haven't read up on it since Zen2 first launched) getting an all core clock above the published single core max boost is rare.

I'd keep an eye on that voltage though. That seems positively insane for a 7nm CPU. AMD lists the max safe voltage as 1.35v under all core, and a little higher for single core, though the manufacturers are usually more conservative than most overclockers. conservative I'd be worried about ruining that chip running it at 1.45v

In the past when you damaged a chip from over-volting, it would slowly become less stable at higher clocks. Your initial max stable overclock may have been 4.8Ghz, but a few months later it may only be stable at 4.7, and then a few months later 4.6, etc. This might still happen in some cases, but I have heard way more stories of just outright frying the chips and them being dead on the spot. These 7nm chips have very thin leads, and are much easier to burn up by forcing too much current through them than in the past.

Heck, Hardware Unboxed fried a 3900 by just turning up Load Line Calibration with voltages on auto. Though that was on a system with an early BIOS, so it may not be reflective of the current state.

Again, take everything I've said with a pinch of salt. I'm not up to speed on the latest architectures. That 1.45v scares me though, I have to admit.

The old adage used to be, do not take shortcuts. Do the overclock incrementally. Every chip is different, and if you jump to some settings some guy online used, chances are you at best get a suboptimal overclock, but at worst damage something.

The old school method went something like this:

1.) Set everything to stock.
2.) Keep a log
3.) Raise clock a tiny bit (+0.1Ghz, whatever one multiplier is)
4.) Run a short 15 min stability test.
5.) If it passes, go back to 3 and raise a little more.
6.) If it fails, raise voltage a tiny bit. Maybe +0.1v
7.) Redo short stability test.
8.) If it passes, go back to 3, raise clocks more.
9.) If it fails go back to 6, raise voltage more.

Continue doing this until reach either:
- Max safe temperature at load with your current cooling; OR
- Max safe voltage

At that point, back down to the last clock at which it was stable and under safe temp and voltage. Return voltage to the lowest voltage that was stable at that clock.

Run your real stability test. 48 hours of Prime95 or equivalent. if it passes, great, you are done. If not, raise the voltage a tiny bit, and go for 48 hour stability test again.

Very few people seem to have the patience for this method anymore, but it really does produce the best results, with the lowest amount of risk to the health of your chip.