Possibly of a bad CPU ?

[Gh0sT-NoVa]

What a bad Month to build a PC. Been diagnosing a newly built PC for the past Week....
Long story short. Newly built PC, games suffer from inconsistent and high frametime but with very high good frametime, thus making the game stutters like mad...

So I've tried swapping out everything for another, re-install OS, the usual bull**** procedures basically whatever by the textbook....none of them works.
Till the very end tried swapping out my 1700X for a 1300X....and finally problem solve. The stutters are gone ( Hopefully that's the nail to the coffin to my problems, didn't test it intensively )

Well retailer agrees to warranty my CPU, sadly though he mentioned they can do it for me but if the manufacturer ( I'm guessing AMD themselves in US ? Or could be my local Distributor ) doesn't find any issue with the CPU they will just return it to me as it is.
So....to comfort myself....do you guys think there's any possibility that I may had like sort of a buggy / faulty CPU ??

Because I still have doubts. Since I ran Cinebench I got like 1500 + score ( Stock speed 3.4 Ghz even on Cinebench, weird it never Turbo up to 3.8 during the test but It does turbo up to 3.8 sometimes in some other applications )
FireStrike test Physics, about 50 + FPS @ 1440p if Res matters at all ( Forgot the score )
While I as playing games, I'm constantly monitoring my CPU Frequency no drops, Voltages as well. Total CPU Usage ain't much normally 20% ++ in every game, ranging from Doom, Titanfall 2, Killing Floor 2, Sniper Elite 4. ( The games I stutter the most is Titanfall 2 and Killing Floor 2, Doom as well not as bad )

So yeah really really weird issue here....do you guys think the CPU be the Culprit ? Least what I felt it's " fixed " after swapping to a 1300X since it's a completely different CPU which is giving me doubt.
I paired it with a VEGA 64 Liquid ( @ Stock ) and 16GB Trident-Z 3000mhz CL16 RAM ( @ Stock ).

 

[trents]

Please tell us more about the system. What motherboard are you using and what bios version? How are you cooling the R7 CPU? Stock cooler? What is the make and model of your PSU? How about your case and case fans? (ventilation?). Are you overclocking the CPU? You live in a very hot climate so some of my questions are related to th possibility of thermal throttling or even insufficient power. The 1700X will make more heat and draw more juice than the 1300X.

 

[Gh0sT-NoVa]

Please tell us more about the system. What motherboard are you using and what bios version? How are you cooling the R7 CPU? Stock cooler? What is the make and model of your PSU? How about your case and case fans? (ventilation?). Are you overclocking the CPU? You live in a very hot climate so some of my questions are related to th possibility of thermal throttling or even insufficient power. The 1700X will make more heat and draw more juice than the 1300X.

1700X @ Stock
Gigabyte X370 Gaming 5
Noctua NH-U14S 2X NF-A15 PWM Push-Pull @ 1300 RPM MINIMUM, MAX 1500 RPM when around 50C
Corsair HX1000
G.Skill Trident-Z @ Stock
Gigabyte VEGA 64 Liquid
Samsung EVO 850 Evo
2TB W.D Black
1TB W.D Blue
Corsair AIR 740
3X Noctua NF-P12 PWM Front Intakes
2X Noctua NF-A14 FLX Top Exhaust
1X Noctua NF-A15 PWM Rear Exhaust
( Overkill much ? )
Windows 10 64-BIT

It's not Thermal Throttling since as I mentioned, during in games I did monitor the Clocks it didn't drop at all !
But Cinebench when all Cores and Threads MAXED out it didn't boost up to 3.8 Ghz though, even that I had Cool and Quiet disabled and Turbo Boost enabled.
I'm even using Ryzen Balanced Power Plan, I've set the Minimum Frequency to 100% too.

I'm pretty sure temp isn't an issue here. We did the testing at the retail shop which is there are A/C ( though the room for my PC doesn't have it but doesn't matter I was still keeping the PC cooled properly )
As Temps goes, of course I did monitored and make sure it's running properly.
I will take the readings based on my own house which is the hottest it can get. The 1700X only tops out at 50C - 60C max...not lying. Readings took off from Ryzen Master and HW64INFO ( which this is the most accurate 3rd party software to monitor it )
But this is during torture test. While gaming is a lot cooler.

I've even check the exhaust from my CPU cooler it's pretty cool. But my VEGA 64 on the other hand which I mounted the Rad on the front bottom it's producing ton of heat I can't even touch the Rad / GPU itself without burning myself....but it doesn't matter it's not affecting my CPU cooling.
Since while in games, my GPU maybe running hot but in games the CPU is only about 50C or so. Even the most it's 60C like during benchmark / torture test as I mentioned above, but it doesn't even hover around 60C. Usually max out at 50C or so.

Lastly.....the only power issue I can think of is the one from my house wall power socket....but then again, since I didn't have spare parts I had to test it at the Retail shop.
It's the same thing I'm stuttering even during the test at the shop. What are the coincidence that both my house and the shop's wall power socket is faulty ??

Let's say even if it's power issue, maybe it be true for the 1700X having hard time pairing with a VEGA 64, but it's the same thing when I paired with my Fury.
And what's funny is that a 1300X is doing better job keeping up with my 1700X pairing with a VEGA 64 lol....

 

[trents]

What bios version are you running on the motherboard? Have you tried flashing the bios to a newer version? It could be that the bios is not managing the P states correctly for the 1700x.

 

[Gh0sT-NoVa]

What bios version are you running on the motherboard? Have you tried flashing the bios to a newer version? It could be that the bios is not managing the P states correctly for the 1700x.

F6 it was the latest at that time, but recently there's F7 which is frying people's CPU here and there by pumping 1.7V to the CPU LOL !
It shouldn't be BIOS, since I mean the board is out for so long and people been using it for such a long time with the F6 BIOS but couldn't find a single Thread about the issue I'm facing...
If I'm facing this issues on Launch Day I'm not surprise. Also I think we can't adjust the P-State on Gigabyte boards, I'm not too sure but I heard some people mentioned it. I know you can do it on the Crosshair VI
( F6 for Gaming 5 / K5 boards but F5 for Gaming 7 / K5 boards, I don't know why...Gigabyte seriously need to get their **** together, may I mention their BIOS sucks ?? I'm planning to change to the Crosshair VI board instead and I had to RMA my damn board as well since 2 of the USB 3.0 ports at the rear isn't working ! )

 

[trents]

So you're saying you RMA'd the original gigabyte board with bad USB ports and the one you are now using is the replacement? Or are you saying you are planning to RMA the present board? I'm a little confused. At any rate, you need to sort out if it's the board causing the issue before you return the processor, so if the board has bad usb ports send it back and hope for a better one.

Quite frankly, I have had bios issues on most of the Gigabyte boards I have owned down through the years. I think they are sloppy with their bios building. I buy mostly ASRock boards anymore.

 

[Gh0sT-NoVa]

So you're saying you RMA'd the original gigabyte board with bad USB ports and the one you are now using is the replacement? Or are you saying you are planning to RMA the present board? I'm a little confused. At any rate, you need to sort out if it's the board causing the issue before you return the processor, so if the board has bad usb ports send it back and hope for a better one.

Quite frankly, I have had bios issues on most of the Gigabyte boards I have owned down through the years. I think they are sloppy with their bios building. I buy mostly ASRock boards anymore.

Sorry for the confusion.
So this is what happened. As I mentioned we swapped out every component already even the Mobo for a B350 board to test out my 1700X but ended up same issue, stuttering like no tomorrow. So the very last thing was the CPU itself so we swapped a 1300X and ran it on my Gigabyte Gaming 5 X370 board, and the stutters were gone.
So it's not the Mobo problem but sadly two of my Mobo's Rear USB 3.0 isn't working so I sent it for RMA as well.
Since we found out it's the CPU causing the stutter we sent the CPU for RMA as well.

My goal of this thread is to confirm is there such possibility of such a weird faulty CPU ?? Since I did search Google for such a similar problem I'm facing there are tons but it's not the CPU but something else. But for my case swapping it out for a 1300X fixed the problem.
But then again it is a completely different CPU that's why I have my doubts. But what are possible cause is there ?? We tried everything and I'm using all my components to test the 1300X to make sure it isn't something else.

Off Topic, not just their Mobo, their GPU department seems to kinda mediocre too....I mean they look nice and kinda " powerful " ? But on AMD side barely anything worth looking at....NVIDIA side....well there are few cards that looks good, but I'm not sure myself. They aren't very popular....
Many people even willing to pay more to get ASUS as for ASUS GPU are overpriced as hell and IMO isn't that great either....
The only thing keeping ASUS on my list is their awesome Mobo BIOS....GPU wise I would rather go for Sapphire ( AMD ) or EVGA ( If I ever gonna touch NVIDIA cards )

 

[trents]

Yes, it certainly is possible you have a bad CPU. We seem to be seeing more of that lately, mostly on the Intel side but also a case here and there with AMD.

 

[Gh0sT-NoVa]

Yes, it certainly is possible you have a bad CPU. We seem to be seeing more of that lately, mostly on the Intel side but also a case here and there with AMD.

I'm no expert and I'm no " Veteran " but this is by far the weirdest problem I've encountered. Even the retail shop people were scratching their heads trying to find out what was the cause...
I could be wrong, but it does feel like CPU problems are kind rare...even looking at reviews chance of a bad CPU are like 1 - 5% out of hundreds of customers....almost never DOA or something like that.
Well hopefully I'm able to RMA and after RMA it actually solves my problem. If not I seriously have no idea what else to do. Since we tried everything already.

Anyways, lately I've been getting a lot of recommendation and hearing good things for ASRock boards. 2 - 3 Years back people told me to avoid them.
Now I'm uncertain what to think of ASRock boards....aren't they using similar BIOS as ASUS ? Their boards are lot cheaper than ASUS though but on paper the specs are amazing. Especially the VRM they provide like their Taichi boards.

 

[trents]

ASRock has moved up in the world in the last few years. Originally, they were a subsidiary of Asus (producing OEM boards) but branched out on their own so it's probably true their bios formats are very similar to Asus. In my opinion, ASRock without a doubt offers the best bang for the buck in motherboards. My only caution with them would be that they are fond of using doublers in their power phase schemes so that what they advertise about their power phase rating may be a little inflated. Heavy overclockers need to be aware of that. But that's mostly a matter of researching the individual board. It's really not an issue with Ryzen anyway because Ryzen CPU don't pull large amounts of power. And it's not as though other board manufacturers never use power phase doublers either because they do.

 

[DaveB]

ASRock has moved up in the world in the last few years. Originally, they were a subsidiary of Asus (producing OEM boards) but branched out on their own so it's probably true their bios formats are very similar to Asus. In my opinion, ASRock without a doubt offers the best bang for the buck in motherboards. My only caution with them would be that they are fond of using doublers in their power phase schemes so that what they advertise about their power phase rating may be a little inflated. Heavy overclockers need to be aware of that. But that's mostly a matter of researching the individual board. It's really not an issue with Ryzen anyway because Ryzen CPU don't pull large amounts of power. And it's not as though other board manufacturers never use power phase doublers either because they do.

I had a couple of ASRock B350 boards. All OC'd well, were rock stable, but all had trouble running memory at speed even after multiple BIOS updates. In 3 different ASRock B350 boards I was pretty much stuck at 2666. I tried communicating with ASRock tech support to provide evidence of BIOS issues, but it just got them annoyed and they told me if I didn't like the motherboard, return it for and get an Asus or Gigabyte board.

Because I still have doubts. Since I ran Cinebench I got like 1500 + score ( Stock speed 3.4 Ghz even on Cinebench, weird it never Turbo up to 3.8 during the test but It does turbo up to 3.8 sometimes in some other applications ).

That is what is expected. The turbo to 3.8 GHz is only for up to 2 cores, since Cinebench uses all cores and threads, it stays at stock speed.

 

[Johan45]

ASRock has moved up in the world in the last few years. Originally, they were a subsidiary of Asus (producing OEM boards) but branched out on their own so it's probably true their bios formats are very similar to Asus. In my opinion, ASRock without a doubt offers the best bang for the buck in motherboards. My only caution with them would be that they are fond of using doublers in their power phase schemes so that what they advertise about their power phase rating may be a little inflated. Heavy overclockers need to be aware of that. But that's mostly a matter of researching the individual board. It's really not an issue with Ryzen anyway because Ryzen CPU don't pull large amounts of power. And it's not as though other board manufacturers never use power phase doublers either because they do.

Actually most all manus use doublers the thing with asrock is they don't. That's why they get labelled fake phases. They split the signal at the driver to run two phases where doublers split the signal and each signal has it's own driver

 

[trents]

Thanks for the clarifiction, Johan45. So are doublers okay and better than split phases?

 

[Johan45]

Quality parts mkes a difference too but yes doublers are fine and much better than the split phase approach under heavy load. Look at the two best FX boards the Sabertooth and CHVz both use doublers and we all know how well Asrock handled them
Here's all you need and more great article for understanding power design http://sinhardware.com/index.php/vrm-articles/82-vrm-guide

 

[trents]

Quality parts mkes a difference too but yes doublers are fine and much better than the split phase approach under heavy load. Look at the two best FX boards the Sabertooth and CHVz both use doublers and we all know how well Asrock handled them
Here's all you need and more great article for understanding power design http://sinhardware.com/index.php/vrm-articles/82-vrm-guide

"Them" is referring to what? Not sure I follow what you said here.

 

[Johan45]

How a lotof Asrock boards were overheating when paired with an FX CPU
This was one of their later release 970 killer boards. Looks like it should have the parts to push an 8350 but that discolouration is from heat the board died.

 

[Gh0sT-NoVa]

Now I'm debating with myself whether should I buy the Crosshair VI or Taichi. Crosshair VI is pricey as hell....but offers ton of features and loads of USB ports...
I don't actually like OCing, but having those features it can come in handy if I ever wanted to use them...you would never know. Like the Start button it's kinda handy to diagnose a dead casing front panel start button or maybe even the board's own power on pin, I know you can use a screw driver to jump start it but I mean hey if I have the Start button it sure make my life lot easier lol...
But of course I'm not saying I'm willing to pay an extra 100$ just for that button but what I'm saying is the Crosshair VI board do come with lot of handy features like this and etc....but real shame such an expensive board no Dual BIOS ???

 

[trents]

Johan45, I have read the article by sin you linked before and read it again just now. I don't have any background in electronics and it's just a bit over my head. So why is dividing the phase at the driver level bad? What is the end result impact on power phase?

I found this in some ways to be more helpful: http://www.levolution.us/overclocki...-vrm-phase-control-mosfets-motherboard-safety

"Is it easy to tell how many phases there are on a motherboard? Yes. See those big black squares called chokes? (They're inductors, boxes containing coils that basically help filter and limit the current). Count them. If you see 10... usually means an 8+2. 5... usually a 4+1. Sometimes there are different combinations depending on the platform. Note that amount of chokes will not necessarily mean that you have that amount of phases (due to such things as split phasing), however a split 4+1 phase with 8+2 chokes is still capable of handling more current than a 4+1."

"OCN member mdocod has found that as of 3 March 2011, at least 71% of the VRM cooling failure incidents in the compiled list of horror stories have happened on a cooling that deviates from stock cooling. This value may be higher due to the amount of situations where cooling was not described."

 

[Droidene]

Maybe im blind, couln't see what kind of monitor are you using?

 

[Alaric]

ASUS GPU are overpriced as hell

Don't look at Galax prices.