Processors

[Eagle74]

Looking to build a new system with 5600X, but don't have any experience with AMD CPUs.  Most of the heavy lifting with this PC will be gaming.  Here is my current thinking:

R5 5600X

GB B550 Aorus Pro

16 GB G Skill 3200 CL14

RTX 3060 Ti (if the price ever comes down)

1 TB PCIe SSD

Noctua NH-U12S

EVGA Super Nova GT 750

1-Is the NH-U12S enough for this CPU with PBO?  Would like temps <80 C.  And I don't do liquid in my case.

2-Does PBO even help with gaming?  If its close, I may just run stock CPU settings.

3-What is the issue people are having regarding stability issues running XMP?

4-What is max RAM config to stay in warranty on the CPU?

4-Please let me know your suggestions or experience if you have a similar config.

[ryzen_type_r]

The 5600X has a TDP of 65W and a temp limit of 95C.  Even with the Noctua, it's possible that under certain workloads you will see temps higher than 80C.....but that's okay.  These CPU's will try to run as fast as possible until it hits its thermal, frequency, or power limits.  According to AMD themselves, this is by design.

So don't worry about the temps, these CPU's can run hot when under load.

if you absolutely need to not exceed 80C for whatever reason, motherboard BIOS usually has an adjustable Platform Thermal Limit, which lets you lower that temperature limit to whatever you want and the CPU will respect it.  Just be aware you can lose performance.

PBO allows you to increase the power or frequency limits (you can also reduce power if you want) and the CPU will just try to take advantage of that increased headroom as best it can.  From what I've seen most people don't get very significant improvvements, especially considering all the time and energy spent on tweaking the settings, lol.  Diminishing returns...

It really depends on the game, but for example will you really notice a difference between 125 and 121 frames per second?

Don't know about the RAM stability issues, I'm running Corsair LPX at 3200 with no issues whatsoever.  And I torture tested my build for 72 hours straight in a non air conditioned room and my 5800X also using a NH-U12S was basically at a constant 90C the whole time.  No problems.

[Eagle74]

Thanks for the help.  If the 5600X likes to run to the frequency limit, I may slap a NH-D15S on it & give it room to run.  Does it throttle under load to keep you at a 65 w average or some other power limit?

Regarding the XMP stability issues, I have read posts both here & elsewhere that some people are having issues with the 5000 series & cannot prevent crashes with XMP enabled.   Don't know if most of that was just after release with the 1st out of the box BIOS versions or if it is still happening.  I don't plan to run anything extreme, probably 3200 MHz.   And I am under the impression that you can set the FClk to 1600 for a 1:1.  Or does leaving it in auto do that for you?

The AMD webpage says that it supports 3200 MHz RAM.  But, the only RAM I am aware of that runs at that speed without XMP is that CL22 part, which I don't plan to use.

On PBO, it doesn't sound like its worth the effort except maybe for some extended multi-core work.  A few FPS in games does not matter.

[ryzen_type_r]

These CPUs do a really really good job of monitoring themselves and staying within their limits.  Not like the old days where if your cooling was inadequate the CPU would overheat and shutdown, or even go up in smoke.

But which limits they hit first depend on the workload.  For example, a single threaded workload is far more likely to hit the frequency limit and still have plenty of thermal and power headroom.  In a case like that, better cooling would only drop temperatures a little, but wouldn't make the processor any faster because it is already at its frequency limit and won't go faster unless you overclock.

OTOH a multithreaded workload with, say, FMA or AVX instructions (AFAIK games don't use these instructions so this is an extreme example) can easily cause the CPU to hit its thermal or power limit befoer frequency.  You might get better performance in that case if you can improve cooling, but it would really need to be a significant improvement in cooling for you to notice a difference in actual usage.

Yeah 3200Mhz is the max supported mem frequency - anything above that is technically overclocking.  Maybe other users are trying to go above that, or mess around with the timings too much.  Or their boards were running flaky BIOS's....a lot of different possibilites.

On my motherboard (ASUS B550-F), out of the box it didn't read the XMP profile automatically so didn't run my memory at 3200 at first.  I had to set something called DOCP mode and then the mobo reads the XMP profile and set the correct timings and voltage and Fclk.  I can't speak to how other motherboards handle this.

[Gwillakers]

If you could extend your budget, I would seriously give the 5800x a look.

The difference between the 5800x and 5600x is about $150

Consider the silicon lottery.   Both of these dies were created to be 8 cores.

However the 5600x had two cores disabled.   Probably because they were not up to snuff.

If AMD disabled two cores on a given piece of silicon, might some of the other cores be just marginally acceptable?

I noticed this situation when I was comparing the 5900 with the 5950.

In so many of the reviews the 5950 had a much better single core benchmark.

The 5950 also seemed to run cooler.    

I first bought the 5900x because became available first. Later I bought the 5950.  For this one case, my suspicions were upheld.

BTW. I run the 5950 in an ITX Silverstone SUGO 14 (Love that case).  No problem overheating.  Run Noctua NH-U120A.

[Eagle74]

Thanks for all the help.  I will give the 5800X some thought, but don't think I need a serious multicore beast.  It would probably be wasted on me.

So, I read up on how these CPUs work. . .PPT, TDC, EDC.  If I get the 5600X is the socket power draw limited to 88 w (and 142 w for the 105 w parts)?  I assume the EDC lets it spike above that for short bursts.

Regarding cooling, it does not sound like it is difficult to cool the 5600X.  CPU lifespan or degradation usually goes with your voltage & temps.  Too much cooling is a lot better than not enough.

[ryzen_type_r]

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@Eagle74 wrote:

Thanks for all the help.  I will give the 5800X some thought, but don't think I need a serious multicore beast.  It would probably be wasted on me.

So, I read up on how these CPUs work. . .PPT, TDC, EDC.  If I get the 5600X is the socket power draw limited to 88 w (and 142 w for the 105 w parts)?  I assume the EDC lets it spike above that for short bursts.

PPT, TDC, EDC, and platform thermal limits are all 'do not exceed' limits, the CPU will not go past them.  But it will do its best to run right at whichever limit it hits first.  First time I saw my 5800X running at 90C I thought something was wrong with my heatsink or the way I applied the thermal paste.  But this was before I fully understood how these CPU's were designed to work.

Enabling PBO allows you to change these limits, and you can monitor (and even adjust) things in real time with the Ryzen Master software.

There is also the old school manual overclocking mode of setting a fixed voltage and frequency and the CPU will just lock itself to those values but this is pretty inefficient and basically removes the processor's ability to adapt itself to the workload.

The temperature and power limits can also be lowered if you want to maximize power efficiency for, say, normal desktop app use, and with a single click in Ryzen Master (once you've set up the profiles) unleash it for gaming.

Lots of flexibility in this platform, but it should be noted that even though AMD gives us these overclocking tools, overclocking does void the warranty.  lol

[Eagle74]

So, if what I read is correct, the 65 w part will quit at PPT 88 w, TDC 60 a or EDC 90 a.   And PBO just gives you a bigger window to operate, but, as you said, without warranty.  

Now, if I could just get a GPU close to MSRP b4 the bots get them all.  But, that's another subject altogether

[Eagle74]

So I am officially moving over to the red team at least on the CPU & MB.  Ordered the parts today & they are a bit different than my original specs at the top of the thread.