How much extra speed have you gotten on Threadripper by running 4 or 8 cores only ?

[Markfw]

I don't want to overclock aggressively, but with only 4 cores, curious if someone has run 4 or 8 and what speed can you run with almost no vcore change. 4.1 ? 4.2, 4.5 ? With a 360 AIO cooler. (the Enermax one)

 

[Markfw]

122 views, and nobody has tried this ?

 

[firewolfsm]

I wouldn't expect it to help more than 1-200Mhz. The process technology AMD used just doen't go that high, it's for low power, which allows them to run more cores but more slowly. Also the only way it would help is if through trial and error you disabled just the cores which are holding back your max overclock, you'd have to overclock to an unstable point, and figure out which core/s to disable to go higher. It would be time consuming.

 

[wilds]

I remember someone said 4.4 GHz on this forum, but idk where. That sounded extreme.

 

[The Stilt]

I've never seen a Ryzen running stable (i.e Prime95) above 4.1GHz at a sustainable voltage, no matter what Reddit posters or some reviewers might claim.
Efficiency wise there is absolutely no point in going above 3.8 - 3.9GHz anyway.

 

[eek2121]

Depends on how you define 'sustainable voltage'. AMD has stated 1.45V and above will significantly affect the quality of your chip. I can attest to that personally.

At any rate, I can get 4.125-4.15 without throttling below 1.45V on all 16 cores. I will check again today to see what the max I can get with 12, 8, or 4 cores is.

 

[eek2121]

I remember someone said 4.4 GHz on this forum, but idk where. That sounded extreme.

I used to be able to get 4.4 GHz benchmark stable on TR, but not at acceptable voltages. It was still awesome to see cinebench, cpu-z, etc. fly.

 

[eek2121]

Note that I am working on this now. I will test at a fixed 1.40 VCore and an LLC of 3. the chip may work with lower voltages, but tinkering with that would take far too long. I'll do at least 1 test run at 'small' settings. Once I find the highest achievable, I'll try 1.4375 and see if i can get it any higher. I will test 6,8,and 12 cores, although i can test 4 cores if requested. After trying a few diff freq combinations and finding the best one, I can tune the voltage and do extended testing.

EDIT: I will also edit this post with links to the full size images of each test result.

Oh and another edit for @The Stilt, The only limitation I've had thus far with overclocking my chip has been the number of amps pushed through the package. I can be at 1.4V with an aggressive LLC and have the chip throttle due to hitting a hard limit of 272 amps. Attempting to disable prochot stops appears to stop the throttling, but in some cases it causes system lockups and I worry about why prochot is fired off to begin with. Temps look normal, including VRMs, so I'm at a loss in this regard. Then again, MSI...

Another Update: After Mark's post, I decided to lower the core count to 4. Also my board is doing funky things. I think it's linked to Ryzen master, so I am testing 4.3GHz currently at quad core, but might need to reset CMOS before I continue testing. (this happens ALOT on msi boards. If i set a voltage in BIOS it doesn't stick, so i end up doing it in Ryzen master, then more stuff breaks, then the system stops rebooting, etc. They really need to get more developers on the BIOS stuff, the last BIOS build failed to properly read CPU temp, causing fan profiles not to work right)

Current Status: Done for now. Really need to reset CMOS to continue testing. Until then I will leave you with a teaster momentarily.

4 cores, 4.25 GHz: https://s3.amazonaws.com/anandtech/425@4.PNG
6 cores, 4.2 GHz: https://s3.amazonaws.com/anandtech/42@6.PNG

Reminder: Take voltages/temps with a grain of salt. I'm not testing minimum voltages/moderate LLC settings here. The goal is to find the highest 'usable' speed for a given core variant.

 

[Markfw]

Ryzen master has setting for 4,8 and 12, hence why I asked for those. I have a friend that needs really high single core speed sometimes, and a lot of cores other times. I thought if 4 cores would get to 4.4, then this would be the chip for him, its so easy to do in Ryzen master.

 

[eek2121]

Ryzen master has setting for 4,8 and 12, hence why I asked for those. I have a friend that needs really high single core speed sometimes, and a lot of cores other times. I thought if 4 cores would get to 4.4, then this would be the chip for him, its so easy to do in Ryzen master.

I just wish AMD had given better guidance than '1.45 and above will significantly impact the life of your chip'. I'm getting rid of this chip when the next Threadripper refresh comes out as long as there is a meaningful performance increase, so If running at 1.5V meant the chip would only last 2-3 years at X GHz I'd be all into it. As it is, I've had my chip at 1.675V and that DID cause degredation, either that or a BIOS update broke something. Also at high voltages cooling is a BIG issue. Then there is the 272amp thing...

 

[eek2121]

Mark, my best advice is to avoid Ryzen Master. It does very odd things. On my machine it corrupts CMOS settings somehow. Instead stick with BIOS Options, anyway, just tested 4 cores @ 4.25 GHz successfully, results will be posted in a moment. Still looking for a jumper. You'd think a guy with 20 years worth of computer hardware could find one...

 

[Markfw]

What motherboard ? I have push buttons for reset and power, and I think a button for cmos, and never had any problems with Ryzen master. I have the Taichi

 

[eek2121]

What motherboard ? I have push buttons for reset and power, and I think a button for cmos, and never had any problems with Ryzen master. I have the Taichi

The MSI X399 carbon. The Reset CMOS button only does a 'soft' reset of the CMOS, not a 'hard reset'. I was trying to work on RAM overclocking and I found out that it did not reset the RAM timings. There appears to be a little wire that hooks up to the a couple pins labelled 'batt'. Unhooking that wire did NOT clear CMOS, but after that, the button worked as intended. There is also a jumper that WILL do a hard reset of the CMOS, but it is also in the most difficult area to reach imaginable.

 

[eek2121]

I took a break for a while, but I'm started playing with it again.

 

[Kenmitch]

The MSI X399 carbon. The Reset CMOS button only does a 'soft' reset of the CMOS, not a 'hard reset'. I was trying to work on RAM overclocking and I found out that it did not reset the RAM timings. There appears to be a little wire that hooks up to the a couple pins labelled 'batt'. Unhooking that wire did NOT clear CMOS, but after that, the button worked as intended. There is also a jumper that WILL do a hard reset of the CMOS, but it is also in the most difficult area to reach imaginable.

You can take the power/reset cable out of a old case and attach to those hard to get to reset pins if needed. It works pretty good in time of need.

 

[Markfw]

I took a break for a while, but I'm started playing with it again.

Is that set at 1.4 vcore ? and what are the temps ?

 

[eek2121]

Is that set at 1.4 vcore ? and what are the temps ?

Unfortunately not. I would have to go back and see if I can recall the settings. I don't recall it being all that stable, but I didn't play with it too much. Right now I'm charting some voltages at various speeds so I can get a better idea of what the chip is looking for....especially at higher clocks.

 

[Lawrence Wang Tian]

122 views, and nobody has tried this ?

I don't know if this helps, but I can get 4.2 ghz stable @ 1.4vcore using a 1900x cpu.

Let me know if anyone else can achieve this reliably?

 

[eek2121]

I haven't played with this in a LONG time. Not since I had to replace my board. I should try this again on this ASUS board. It has an 8+3 VRM setup as opposed to the 10+3 VRM setup of the MSI, but who knows, it surprised me with RAM overclocking or tightening timings. I actually got my Hynix MFR down to CL15 stable and possibly CL14 (haven't run memtest, but it appeared to be stable when I tried it). The MSI wouldn't tolerate tightening timings or overclocking the RAM. This may be a project I work on tomorrow.

 

[geekpreson]

more than before i guess

 

[SlowBox]

I don't want to overclock aggressively, but with only 4 cores, curious if someone has run 4 or 8 and what speed can you run with almost no vcore change. 4.1 ? 4.2, 4.5 ? With a 360 AIO cooler. (the Enermax one)

Why does the AIO matter at this point, if your not going to change the vcore ? 360 or 480 rad both are pointless unless you want to overclock a bit and have things be quiet in doing so. For your not too aggressive overclock you can reduce your fan speeds. I doubt 4.1Ghz or higher. Possibly 4Ghz but I wouldn't bet on it. I mean, there's no such thing as a free overclock. Unless you overclock maybe 200Mhz or so.