The old Offset Voltage game

[Theagg]

I'm still trying to understand exactly how this works on this motherboard. Having read through an article dating back a few years on these forums regarding the topic, it didn't really clarify matters. It talked about using a negative offset, which in my case does not work. It didn't really clarify the starting point for the proceedure either.

Here's my process. Having set a manual voltage that gave a stable overclock (1.42 in my case), then run a sttress test in which the voltage displayed in CPU-z and AIDA64 stayed at around 1.395 (with occasional peaks too 1.417), I then decided to, as per the earlier guide, to apply a small negative offset. (0.001) Why these two programmes fail to show the set manual voltage I don't know...but anyway

Result, failure to boot. Every time a negative offset was used, whatever value, failure to boot.

And when getting back into the bios, the CPU voltage would be reading 1.1v (or something similarly low)

So, I decided, as an experiment, to try a positive offset (0.05v to start).

Succesful boot and stress test had the volts at again, 1.395. So, I dropped the positive offset to 0.025v. Again, successful boot and this time the stress test indicated a pretty solid 1.375v. (@ 4015mhz)

So, negative offset doesn't work, whatever the value, positive offset works. I'm not sure why, nor am I sure in each case, which voltage is being offset ?! Any further explanations ?

[MNMadman]

There is no set CPU core voltage or SoC voltage for Ryzen using standard settings. Each CPU will choose its own base values. If you choose to use Offset values, it will be offset from the CPU's chosen base voltages. That's why other people might have the same offset values but end up with different voltages.

The CPU core voltage setting only affects the CPU core voltage.
The SoC voltage setting only affects the SoC voltage.

And the reason why your stress test voltage is less than your manually-set voltage is called vdroop. As you load your CPU, the voltage gets lower. Load Line Calibration (LLC) fights against vdroop.

Example: If your CPU's chose base core voltage is 1.35v, an offset of +.1 will give you 1.45v at idle. During stress tests, that voltage might droop to 1.35v or lower.

[Theagg]

MNMadman wrote:
There is no set CPU core voltage or SoC voltage for Ryzen using standard settings. Each CPU will choose its own base values. If you choose to use Offset values, it will be offset from the CPU's chosen base voltages. That's why other people might have the same offset values but end up with different voltages.

The CPU core voltage setting only affects the CPU core voltage.
The SoC voltage setting only affects the SoC voltage.

And the reason why your stress test voltage is less than your manually-set voltage is called vdroop. As you load your CPU, the voltage gets lower. Load Line Calibration (LLC) fights against vdroop.

Example: If your CPU's chose base core voltage is 1.35v, an offset of +.1 will give you 1.45v at idle. During stress tests, that voltage might droop to 1.35v or lower.

Hmm, I should have pointed out that even with the voltage set manually at 1.42, CPU-Z and AIDA64 still displayed 1.395 when the system was at idle (and the displayed value remained at 1.395 when under stress....so idle and stress, same displayed voltage, which was not the manually set 1.42 ?!

But so far then I have learned that, using offset voltages on the Ryzen doesn't work in the way they are described in numerous online posts (usually regarding Intel CPU's or older AMD's) correct ?

Second, everything on auto when overclocking results in an idle voltage of about 1.49v. Too high for idle. And so setting a positive offset, rather than auto, improves this for the same OC (1.375v, both idle and stress vs 1.49v)

In essence, for the Ryzen overclocked, offset is better than auto and manual doesn't make much sense given that whether the pc is idling or under stress, the software doesn't display the manually set voltage...! Ahhh. slightly confuisng..

[AfterShock]

programs only read sensor data so they can't see what you entered for voltage settings only what is being reported. If you're not using power saving options like custom p states to lower vcore and clock speeds while the pc is idle then using offsets doesn't provide any benefit over manual mode.

[Theagg]

AfterShock wrote:
programs only read sensor data so they can't see what you entered for voltage settings only what is being reported. If you're not using power saving options like custom p states to lower vcore and clock speeds while the pc is idle then using offsets doesn't provide any benefit over manual mode.

And yet, using an offset, rather than manual in my case does seem to provide a benefit, and I'm not using p states.

For the same OC

Manual, around 1.42 volts required. Idle/load voltage reads 1.395 -1.417v
Offset, +0.01875v Idle/load voltages read 1.352v

Odd then

[MNMadman]

You shouldn't ever overclock using Auto settings, on any CPU. That will nearly always result in over-volting. Comparing Offset to Auto is a no-brainer, as Offset doesn't use the Auto voltage.

As AfterShock said, sometimes the software readings will be different than the voltages you enter. Might be confusing at first, but it's normal.

I have a hard time believing that your overclock was only stable at 1.42v manual, while the same overclock is stable at 1.35v using offset. You should be able to set the voltage manually to get the same voltage as the offset and have it be stable. There is functionally no difference between using manual settings to get 1.35v and using offset to get 1.35v.

Also, use the massive amount of information that's available for Ryzen on the C6H board -- Link. That's only one source, but it's a good one.

[Theagg]

MNMadman wrote:
You shouldn't ever overclock using Auto settings, on any CPU. That will nearly always result in over-volting. Comparing Offset to Auto is a no-brainer, as Offset doesn't use the Auto voltage.

As AfterShock said, sometimes the software readings will be different than the voltages you enter. Might be confusing at first, but it's normal.

I have a hard time believing that your overclock was only stable at 1.42v manual, while the same overclock is stable at 1.35v using offset. You should be able to set the voltage manually to get the same voltage as the offset and have it be stable. There is functionally no difference between using manual settings to get 1.35v and using offset to get 1.35v.

Also, use the massive amount of information that's available for Ryzen on the C6H board -- Link. That's only one source, but it's a good one.

I will do some more testing with both manual and offset, with LLC both on and off to see if that is giving me my stable offset vs unstable manual, as I don't think I have checked all variables yet.