Some basic Asrock questions and any tips?

[haibane]

Hi everyone,
I am new to the forum. I am currently using an Asrock Killer SLI/AC with a Ryzen 5 1600 OC'ed to 3.8GHz. I am trying to get it above that. Cooling is using a Scythe Mugen 5.
For Ram I have a pair of Corsair 8GB vengeance LPX 3200.
I have a few questions when it comes to this system.

1. What is the difference between CPU voltage and Vcore on Asrock bios?
See pictures below

My question is what is the difference between these two. Also are there any suggestions to avoid throttling on the chip? When I push it hard on the voltage, it drops down to 1.5Ghz sometimes or just the stock settings.
I'm currently using SpeedFan to control my fans. I am wondering if that may be the issue as it doesn't boot up with windows. However, my CPU never exceeds 50C when I check it. Looking for any pointers or suggestions.
I know there is no need to go above 3.8GHz, but I am just trying to tinker and get it to about 3.9-4Ghz. I can live with the RAM sticking at 2933 at the moment too.

 

[Johan45]

Welcome to OCF haibane
Try disabling the CPU OCP and see if that helps your throttling.
Not sure why you have 111 set for BUS (APU/PCI) frequency should be left at 100 unless it's intentional for RAM speed.
That first pic I think just shows the current voltage and the second one is where you adjust the core voltage.
Most BIOS will let you take pics using F12 and saves them to a USB flash drive

 

[haibane]

Ah... I'll try taking pictures. Yeah The APU/PCI thing is not valid. I was just trying to grab some screenshots to give an idea. I just found the two sets of CPU voltages confusing since both are adjustable, and everyone just talks about adjusting VCore. I'll grab some screenshots when I'm home of what I have using F12. Thanks for the help .

 

[Johan45]

That is kind of odd. I can't see what else it would be unless SOC/NB voltage but that should be labelled as one of those two options. When you change the V_Core does the other entry change

 

[haibane]

When I change VCore on the bottom, it auto adjusts other entries to meet. If I change the CPU voltage as listed above, I am not sure. Let me check.
For reference, there is already a SOC section.

 

[haibane]

@Johan45 Any thoughts on Speed Fan while I have you hear? what do you use for fan control?

 

[Johan45]

I just use BIOS settings for fans and attached to a fan hub

 

[haibane]

So these are the actual config at the moment. There is no OCP setting I could find.

 

[bassnut]

I don't know why ASrock did this but my Tiachi was the same..... 2 CPU voltage adjustments. I set both to the same value. I didn't experience any throttling on my chip 4GHZ @ 1.3750v but then I have a rather large custom loop for cooling. Fans were / are controlled by a fan hub currently or in the past by a fan controller by me, when I needed the cooling I would just crank the fans up.

 

[Johan45]

That setting I saw in you second pic you posted https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GdkqyH8zXao/maxresdefault.jpg

 

[haibane]

That setting I saw in you second pic you posted https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GdkqyH8zXao/maxresdefault.jpg

Ah. Yeah sorry I should have just left those pictures off. Those were just screen grabs of similar Asrock boards. Mine doesn't have those options.
Current options are in the last comment I made.

Seems like I am hard limited to 3.8Ghz at 2933 even using Pstates at a 1.39V boost. Tried (a0, 8, 19) Also tried (9c, 8, 19)

 

[Johan45]

What about 3850? I know from my own experience that the Hynix based ram seems to take a bit more out of the CPU. It's possible you could gain more CPU speed by dropping the RAM speed. I really noticed that when I was trying to stabilize a set of "cheap" 3000 MHz sticks. Swapping those for some Samsung based ram just seemed to let it breathe a bit more.

 

[haibane]

I may try some minor tweaking like that. I kind of wonder if it isn't a bios issue.
Is this considered cheap ram? Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory

 

[haibane]

Another thought would be switching from my massive Heatsink to an AIO, but so far I haven't noticed the chip getting hot at all. According to tests its maybe a 4-6C delta anyhow.

 

[Johan45]

The heat isn't the issue. These CPUs tend to max out between 3.8 and 4.0 regardless it's a chip limitation. The amount of voltage needed for the next 50-100 MHz typically isn't worth the stress it puts on the CPU.
I wasn't saying your ram was cheap ram but that I had some "cheap" Hynix based so a bit lower quality than yours and it was hard on my overclocking headroom. The Hynix based RAM sticks just don't play as well with Ryzen. I'm not suggesting different RAM for the ~100 MHz you might gain either.
One thing you can try is setting your max voltage at 1.4V which is still fine for the CPU and then raise the CPU Load Line Calibration to Level 3 or even 4 and try for 3.9 GHz again. What this does is prevent V_Droop. Which is a voltage drop when the CPU is under load. Most Ryzen/AM4 motherboards have quite a bit at stock.

 

[haibane]

The heat isn't the issue. These CPUs tend to max out between 3.8 and 4.0 regardless it's a chip limitation. The amount of voltage needed for the next 50-100 MHz typically isn't worth the stress it puts on the CPU.
I wasn't saying your ram was cheap ram but that I had some "cheap" Hynix based so a bit lower quality than yours and it was hard on my overclocking headroom. The Hynix based RAM sticks just don't play as well with Ryzen. I'm not suggesting different RAM for the ~100 MHz you might gain either.
One thing you can try is setting your max voltage at 1.4V which is still fine for the CPU and then raise the CPU Load Line Calibration to Level 3 or even 4 and try for 3.9 GHz again. What this does is prevent V_Droop. Which is a voltage drop when the CPU is under load. Most Ryzen/AM4 motherboards have quite a bit at stock.

Johan,
Thanks I'll try that. I figured what you had meant. I just didn't know if mine was hynix or not.

 

[Johan45]

If it's CL 16 then yes like 16-18-18 for base timings which I see in your BIOS pic
It's not bad just doesn't play well with Ryzen, now that BIOS have matured a bit it's better but initially people had a hard time getting it to run 2400-2666

 

[haibane]

I don't know why ASrock did this but my Tiachi was the same..... 2 CPU voltage adjustments. I set both to the same value. I didn't experience any throttling on my chip 4GHZ @ 1.3750v but then I have a rather large custom loop for cooling. Fans were / are controlled by a fan hub currently or in the past by a fan controller by me, when I needed the cooling I would just crank the fans up.

This actually appears to be my issue... hmm. Once they were both set the same its working again.

 

[bassnut]

Good .... glad you got it sorted out. now bump your VDDR_SOC a bit ..... around 1.1v ish this should help with memory and get your CPU_LLC sorted to what you need and you should be all set unless you plan on tweeking your memory.

 

[haibane]

Good .... glad you got it sorted out. now bump your VDDR_SOC a bit ..... around 1.1v ish this should help with memory and get your CPU_LLC sorted to what you need and you should be all set unless you plan on tweeking your memory.

Yeah I believe its already at the 1.1V and the LLC was settled on at Level 3.