Are Ryzen CPUs still relavant in the field of DC? (Ryzen 7 2700 built)

[VirtualLarry]

I guess I got seduced by the whole mining thing. I've been doing it on my Ryzen R5 1600 rigs, each with dual RX 570 cards. Thing is, the RX 570 seems to be way better at mining than F@H (of which NV dominates the field).

I don't (yet? Maybe never?) have another pair of RX 570 or other RX cards (there's always Navi, I guess) for mining with on my new machine, so I'm thinking of just running a dedicated CPU DC'er, for a little while at least.

I've got an Ryzen R7 2700, B450 mobo, 16GB RAM, and some SSDs incoming.

Was thinking, do people still do DC on CPUs? It seems like GPUs are all the rage, and mine are aging a bit.

I'm on the verge of shutting down the mining. (Yeah, I know, I said that last time, but warmer weather is getting here kind of quick.)

So, maybe I'll do some CPU-only crunching. (Ryzen R5 1600 and Ryzen R7 2700 are both 65W-rated TDP. AVX loads can go a little over, IME.)

Thing is, even though I don't pay for my electricity., it's getting really hard to justify mining, if I did have to. I'm using that as my benchmark. If I'm not making more than the power I'm using, I'm going to stop.

CPU mining is only making a dime a day for me on the Ryzen R5 1600 CPUs. Maybe I could put them to better use, and idle the GPUs. (Other than desktop/browser/video watching, which is like 30-40W max worth of GPUs.)

Edit: Happy happy, Joy joy!

I downloaded and installed the newest BOINC client, and then went to add WCG, and it said I already added it. Whazzat? Then I clicked on Projects, and I already had like six listed. Guess I still had my data on here from before. Nice.

BTW, I have 32GB of DDR4-3000 in this Ryzen R5 1600 box, any high-memory-usage projects that I could run on here and help the TeAm with? I didn't install the VirtualBox version of BOINC.

Edit: Oye. I think I need a better heatsink on this box, or a WC AIO. Temps have crept up to 90C already on the CPU. Mining never got above 82-83C. Then again, mining only used four threads on the CPU. (Cache constrained algo for mining.) I have a 65W heatsink from a Ryzen R3 1200 currently on here, ugh. My other heatsinks are in my storage unit, which isn't open today.

Edit: This one's for @Markfw , I downloaded and installed the newest Ryzen Master software for Windows 10, and it says my CPU is at 93C. Too hot! I've set BOINC to only use 50% of CPU threads (6 rather than 12). Still pretty hot.

 

[ao_ika_red]

WCG, Rosetta, PrimeGrid, Rakesearch, CSG, to name few, are still heavily relying on CPU grunt. And some of them, I think, are still not utilising AVX so 1st and 2nd gen Ryzen are in the mix for years to come.

 

[crashtech]

Ryzens are pretty good at WCG. We are running Open Zika for the BOINC Pentathlon right now if you'd like to join in!

 

[VirtualLarry]

I can't even hold my hand on top of my case (Rosewill Magnetar, no top vents), for more than a few seconds. :/

 

[ao_ika_red]

Better get that heatsink, Larry. My ambient temp once reached 35°C/ 95°F but its fan was inaudible (about 1300rpm) and its core temp was about 57°C. I believe I was doing one of PG challenge which was more taxing on CPU than WCG.

 

[StefanR5R]

do people still do DC on CPUs?

CPU-only projects are still the majority (by number of projects, though perhaps not by number of users or by total processing grunt available to them).

Also, during the current Pentathlon, 4 out of 5 projects are CPU projects.

Temps have crept up to 90C already on the CPU.

Is the CPU cooler perhaps pulling air which already went through the GPU cooler?

 

[TennesseeTony]

Is the CPU cooler perhaps pulling air which already went through the GPU cooler?

If so, make a cardboard divider inside your case. But FIRST go and set WCG to only run Open-Zika during this Pentathlon.

 

[VirtualLarry]

But FIRST go and set WCG to only run Open-Zika during this Pentathlon.

Thanks, done. I aborted 17 ready to run tasks for MCM, hopefully I'll get some OpenZika. I set all my other projects to "No new tasks".

Part of my problem is, my ATX PC cases are in a "cubby" in my desk, and there is limited exhaust airflow available.

My current case(s) are Rosewill Magnetar cases, with dual 120mm Blue LED intakes, and one 120mm exhaust.

A significant drawback, is that these cases have a solid top, NO ROOM for top exhaust fans, radiators, or even just a vent.

The newer Rosewill Stryker M cases, have a large vent/ rad mount on top, with a magnetic dust filter. I'm probably going to put the 2700 into one of those cases.

 

[StefanR5R]

Also remember to switch "If there is no work available for the project(s) I have selected above, please send me work from another project" off.

But chances are good that you receive OpenZika work, now that the initial rush for it is over.

Part of my problem is, my ATX PC cases are in a "cubby" in my desk, and there is limited exhaust airflow available.

Does this mean it can happen that air which is pushed out of the back of the case is channeled by the desk towards the case front fans, meaning the cases recycle part of their own air?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Does this mean it can happen that air which is pushed out of the back of the case is channeled by the desk towards the case front fans, meaning the cases recycle part of their own air?

It's not really that bad. It's completely open on the front for fresh air to get in, but the back side has openings only at the top and bottom of the rear panel. (Top hole is for wires.) So there's not really much of any exhaust venting, and the hot air kind of just rises and drifts over the top of the case and out the front again, I guess.

 

[biodoc]

It's not really that bad. It's completely open on the front for fresh air to get in, but the back side has openings only at the top and bottom of the rear panel. (Top hole is for wires.) So there's not really much of any exhaust venting, and the hot air kind of just rises and drifts over the top of the case and out the front again, I guess.

I would shut down the computer and shop for a case with decent airflow.

 

[crashtech]

Surely that rear 120 can move some air with the right fan/fan curve?

 

[StefanR5R]

@biodoc, nah, VL just needs to dremel the furniture a little bit. ;-)

 

[biodoc]

Or put it next to the desk if he's got room.

The MB manufacturers of the 2 ryzens I've built, namely asus and asrock, use bios settings for gamers who want maximum performance over relatively short periods of time. The downside is massive heat generation due to overvolting the processor. For those of us in DC, who run 24/7, it's important to get into the bios settings and get the vcore voltage under control. If you have a negative vcore offset setting in the bios, that's a good place to start or alternatively, you can set the vcore manually to some reasonable level and disable core performance boost. Both my 2700x builds are running at 3.9 GHz and the temps are about 50 C at full load. I cheated a little by moving them to a chilly basement and removed the side covers from the cases though.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would shut down the computer and shop for a case with decent airflow.

Surely that rear 120 can move some air with the right fan/fan curve?

nah, VL just needs to dremel the furniture a little bit. ;-)

Honestly, when I picked these cases up, I thought that because they had dual 120mm intake fans, which is better than what I had before, and they were big, roomy, ATX cases, that they would be OK.

But with dual RX 570 cards in there cranking away, and a miniscule CPU heatsink.

I pulled the PC slightly out of the cubby, and now the temps have dropped to 79C on the CPU, but it honestly feels much like a hair dryer coming out the back.

The stock fans, though, don't move all that much air. Not like my Antec double-ball-bearing fans. Fan RPMs look OK at first glance, in HWMonitor, CPU fan is 1950RPM, FANIN1 is 980RPM, FANIN2 is 1025, FANIN3 is 1211RPM.

Maybe I need some better fans, AND/OR dremel the top of the case and add a blow-hole (just like the good old 90s cases), AND/OR dremel the back of my cubby to add some ventilation.

I mean, the drinks that I set on my keyboard tray, if they're cold from the fridge, they become very warm within a half hour.

Edit: I recalled that I may have done a "reset settings to default" at some point in the BIOS/UEFI in the past, so I went into BIOS, went to "Speed Fan 5 Controls" (Gigabyte board), and set the CPU and all three SYSTEM fans to "Full Speed" from "Normal", and now booted into Win10, HWMonitor is showing CPU fan RPMs as 1940RPM,. but the fans are at 1230RPM. A little bit better, but not too substantially different, I don't think.

Edit: I fired up BOINC again, and now I'm running six threads of PrimeGrid (*), rather than three threads of WCG:MCM, and my package power is bouncing between 64-67W (the limit of the Wraith Stealth heatsink on there), and my Package Temp in HWMonitor (corresponds with Ryzen Master pretty well), is now 65C. (Was 63C about 15-20 minute ago.)

(*) Had some of those left over from when I first fired up BOINC this morning. I aborted 17 WCG:MCM tasks after setting my prefs on the web site to OpenZika (thanks @Markfw ), I hope that WCG isn't pissed at me, and will send me the appropriate tasks when these PrimeGrid tasks are over.

Edit: Ok, I aborted the last group of untouched PrimeGrid tasks, and I got a whole boat-load of WCG:OpenZika tasks. Nice. Finally on target here.

Somewhere around here, I have a 120mm CM AIO WC kit, but I can't really recall where it ended up, whether it's in my apt in a storage bin, or in my "warehouse".

 

[Orange Kid]

Try one of these.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Ok, the Ryzen R7 2700 rig is built. CoolerMaster 240mm AIO WC kit ( Markfw has one too ), and 16GB RGB DDR4-3600 (GSkill), ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F ATX mobo, and a pair of Intel 660p 1TB NVMe SSDs.

Thus far, I've only mucked around in BIOS, and haven't installed Windows 10 yet. I'm trying to figure out if the board supports NVMe RAID-0, because I wanted to try that out, but other than that, I think that I'm ready to install.

Edit: OK, I got Windows 10 installed, couldn't quite figure out how to create a RAID-0 array out of the two 1TB Intel 660p NVMe SSDs, oh well. Maybe later on. I did install Windows 10 on the RAID drivers, so maybe I'll have to use AMD's RAID Tool. Or maybe not. Not sure.

Anyways, OCed to 3.80Ghz on all 8 cores. Originally, I left Vcore on Auto, but that crashed about like 15 minutes of BOINC WCG:OpenZika, so I tried Offset Voltage of +0.05V, but that didn't work either, crashed on boot. So I did a fixed vcore of 1.35V or so, seems OK thus far.

Edit: I discovered AMD RaidXpert2 in the BIOS Advanced section, probably appeared there after I enabled "NVME RAID" in another section and rebooted, and I just never saw it. Or maybe it required scrolling the list downward, and I didn't just casually see it.

I had to re-install Windows 10 from scratch again, but I'm in a RAID-0 config with 2x 1TB NVMe PCI-E 3.0 x4 drives. Benchmarks for both drives combined, are close to a single Samsung 970 EVO, at least in sequentials. When you think about the price for a 2TB 970 EVO, though, I really came out ahead on 2x $88 for these 660p SSDs.

 

[crashtech]

Pretty terrible that "Auto" settings don't result in a stable system! I have a 1700PRO that has been giving me problems running NFS, after reading about your new setup, I wonder if all it needs is some manual voltage love.

 

[biodoc]

Anyways, OCed to 3.80Ghz on all 8 cores. Originally, I left Vcore on Auto, but that crashed about like 15 minutes of BOINC WCG:OpenZika, so I tried Offset Voltage of +0.05V, but that didn't work either, crashed on boot. So I did a fixed vcore of 1.35V or so, seems OK thus far.

Try negative offset voltage, like -0.1V. My 2700X's are stable at 3.9 GHz @ 1.21V vcore.

Pretty terrible that "Auto" settings don't result in a stable system!

It's crazy isn't it! Both my ryzen motherboards had default bios settings that were trying to roast my processors.

 

[TennesseeTony]

Well why we are at it.....if rumors are true, there will be no new Threadripper chips, and why would there be? The 3rd round of Ryzens will have 64 threads at the top end, and for only $500 or so! (Rumors rumors rumors, but I sure hope so!) Can you imagine 64 threads for $500, then a cheap $80 mobo, and some RAM?

Okay, so back to not excited. We will find out in a few months perhaps if the rumors are true or not. A short time IMO.

Hope you get her stable Larry! Congrats on a cool new build!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hope you get her stable Larry! Congrats on a cool new build!

Thanks, right now she's at 4.0Ghz, 1.325V, doing WCG on 15 threads. 74C max under 240mm AIO WC.

 

[StefanR5R]

Re #20, I haven't been following the rumor mill this time. But 64 processor threads on a dual channel RAM architecture won't do you much good.

My 56 threads of BDW-EP supported by 8 channels DDR4-2400 work very well for a lot of applications. But the 88 threads of BDW-EP on the very same RAM spec are showing scaling issues with RAM access intensive applications like Rosetta@home.

As a side note, the processor package for AMD only has room for 2 CPU chiplets + I/O chiplet. This makes 24-thread and (perhaps later) 32-thread SKUs on AM4 quite likely. But there are several more unknown factors involved, hence the top end for AM4-type Ryzens (as opposed to TR4-type Ryzen Threadrippers) could end up below or (unlikely) above that.

PS,
I am worried about AMD's big cloud customers probably causing difficulties for enthusiasts to get their hands on the respective 7nm generations of either Threadrippers or retail Epycs for quite a while.

 

[IEC]

I agree that the anticipated demand for Epyc parts is the real reason why Threadripper 3XXX vanished off the roadmaps.

Kind of a bummer, but I can wait for 7nm+ to upgrade the sTR4 rigs so not a big deal. AM4 I'm waiting to see what X570 brings to the table.

 

[TennesseeTony]

64 processor threads on a dual channel RAM architecture won't do you much good.

Excellent point. That would be one heck of a bottleneck.

 

[Markfw]

Well why we are at it.....if rumors are true, there will be no new Threadripper chips, and why would there be? The 3rd round of Ryzens will have 64 threads at the top end, and for only $500 or so! (Rumors rumors rumors, but I sure hope so!) Can you imagine 64 threads for $500, then a cheap $80 mobo, and some RAM?

Okay, so back to not excited. We will find out in a few months perhaps if the rumors are true or not. A short time IMO.

Hope you get her stable Larry! Congrats on a cool new build!

I thin 16 core 32 thread is the highest I have heard for AM4.