Overclock AMD Ryzen 5 2600 + Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming + Corsair Vengeance LPX

[fjsarmiento]

AMD Ryzen 5 2600 (Base 3.4GHz, Boost 3.9GHz)
Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming
Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x16GB 3200MHz CMK32GX4M2L3200C16
EVGA GTX 1070 Ti FTW2
EVGA CLC 240 AIO
EVGA DG-76 Case
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000W G2 80+ GOLD PSU
SanDisk Extreme Pro 240GB SSD Boot OS Drive
Crucial MX500 1TB SSD Game Install & Storage Drive
WD Black NVMe 500GB SSD Scratch Drive (x2 in Raid 0 with RAIDXpert2)
(you can find more in my profile)

Hi All & Happy New Year!

I took advantage of Black Friday and Boxing Day sales and built a new work/gaming rig and have since been obsessed with overclocking. I made sure to download the latest bios and used the Flash utility to update. After that, I enabled XMP for my memory (D.O.C.P.) and the mobo matched the 3200MHz profile.

I've read that the 2600 can easily hit 4.1-4.2 GHz with enough voltage (differing opinions about the safety and longevity of 24/7 OC at 1.4-1.425v) but I don't think I won the silicone lottery. I've tried a number of recommended settings I've found online (ex. 4.1 Ghz, 41 multiplier, 1.375v vcore, 1.1-1.15 soc, LLC medium) but nothing I found online worked for me. Even though Cinebench and 3DMark would pass with validated results, Prime95 would either freeze, crash, reboot, or best case scenario, run for several hours but half the threads produced errors. I then saw videos and posts regarding the B450-F Gaming mobo with not-so-great reviews (particularly re: lackluster vrm).

My temps were max 62degC during Prime95 Blend (idle around 32-37degC) with my EVGA 240 AIO.

I was prepared to give up and revert to factory default settings out of the box but I noticed only 3 cores would boost to 3.9GHz at a time and Prime95 only pushed all the cores to 3.7GHz at full load. Then I read about XMP not always working well so I decided to try something different. After numerous stress tests with various settings, I've finally achieved *stability* (~20hrs Prime95 Blend with no errors).

Here are my BIOS settings with AI Tweaker:

Ai Overclock Tuner = D.O.C.P. Standard
D.O.C.P. = D.O.C.P DDR4-3200 16-16-18-36 1.35V (exact specifications of my RAM)
BCLK Frequency = 100
Performance Enhancer = Auto
CPU Core Ratio = 40.00
Performance Bias = Auto
Memory Frequency = DDR4-2800MHz
Core Performance Boost = Auto
SMT Mode = Auto
TPU = Keep Current Settings

DRAM Timing Control = Left it untouched
DIGI+ VRM: Left it untouched
VDDCR CPU LLC = Auto
VDDCR SOC LLC = Auto
VDDCR CPU Power Phase Control = Optimized
VDDCR CPU Switching Frequency = 300
Tweaker's Paradise = Left it untouched

CPU Core Voltage = Auto
CPU SOC Voltage = Auto
DRAM Voltage = 1.350V (set by D.O.C.P.)

Any higher than 2800MHz on my memory resulted in a crash or unintended reboot (I tried 2866, 2933, 3000, 3200). 2800 looks to be the sweet spot. HWMonitor showed all cores hovering around 4GHz during full load from Prime95, temps 59-62degC, vcore hovering between 1.36-1.38v, vid 1.33-1.35v. Having said that, the max vcore showed 1.428v and max core clock showed 5.6GHz. I have a feeling this is Performance Enhancer (Precision Boost / XFR2) at play?

I know I wanted to keep temps on the cooler side and I wanted to keep my voltage sub 1.4 for safety and longevity and whenever I tried manual settings for 3.9-4.1 GHz at 1.35v or 1.375v vcore, I would still see vcore spikes as high as 1.45v and max core clock spikes up to 6GHz, even with Performance Enhancer set to Default, Performance Bias set to None, and Core Performance Boost Disabled.

Am I missing something here? I am no expert by any means. I only started OC'ing a few months ago with my old 2010 build (Intel i7 970 on Intel DX58SO) knowing I was going to build a new computer in the near future.

Like I said, ~20hrs Prime95 stable. Am I "safe" with those vcore spikes hitting 1.428 and clock spikes 5.5+GHz? When I tried the same stable settings but with a 41 multiplier, computer froze after 10mins of Prime95 Blend. Would my memory be able to fully utilize its 3200MHz spec with a future bios update?

Thanks so much for any info!

Sincerely,
FJ

[Varmintbaby]

fjsarmiento wrote:
I came home and Prime95 was still running with no errors. I'm going to try to bring my ram voltage back down to 1.35v (set manually) and bring my SOC down to 1.15v. Keeping my multiplier to 40.5 for now, I'm going to keep my ram manually set at 3200MHz and timings set manually as well according to profile. Everything else I've kept to auto/default.

I'll report back with my progress.

What are your bios settings for your oc? (Also, can you fill out your PC Specs in your profile so I can see your full build?)

I just tried AI Overlock on Manual, with 100 BLCK and CPU ratio 4.1. I tried to set the DRAM Timing but I don't have all the numbers. Only like 6 from CPUID. Do I need all of those fields? I have like the 1st 5 or 6 and the others are set to auto. Also, I tried upping the SOC and DRAM voltage and that didn't fix it. It keeps defaulting to 2133mhz with those settings and if I change the Memory frequency to 3000mhz it won't boot. I have to wait until it fails post and resets to go in and try again. What are your settings is what I should be asking you. Yours is working. I have the same mobo and CPU as you but I"m using Gskill Aegis 8GB RAM at 3000mhz.

[fjsarmiento]

Varmintbaby wrote:
I just tried AI Overlock on Manual, with 100 BLCK and CPU ratio 4.1. I tried to set the DRAM Timing but I don't have all the numbers. Only like 6 from CPUID. Do I need all of those fields? I have like the 1st 5 or 6 and the others are set to auto. Also, I tried upping the SOC and DRAM voltage and that didn't fix it. It keeps defaulting to 2133mhz with those settings and if I change the Memory frequency to 3000mhz it won't boot. I have to wait until it fails post and resets to go in and try again. What are your settings is what I should be asking you. Yours is working. I have the same mobo and CPU as you but I"m using Gskill Aegis 8GB RAM at 3000mhz.

In my ram timings I matched the values with what is rated for my ram. Yes, just the first 5 values. My ram shows 16-18-18-36. There's a third 18 field in the bios so I put 18 in there too. Everything else I kept auto.

I don't understand why yours is defaulting to 2133. Did you manually select 3000? Double check that after you back out of the timings page, that you are still selecting 3000. The bios is finicky and automatically changes some of my values back to default without my doing it.

[fjsarmiento]

Varmintbaby wrote:
I just tried AI Overlock on Manual, with 100 BLCK and CPU ratio 4.1. I tried to set the DRAM Timing but I don't have all the numbers. Only like 6 from CPUID. Do I need all of those fields? I have like the 1st 5 or 6 and the others are set to auto. Also, I tried upping the SOC and DRAM voltage and that didn't fix it. It keeps defaulting to 2133mhz with those settings and if I change the Memory frequency to 3000mhz it won't boot. I have to wait until it fails post and resets to go in and try again. What are your settings is what I should be asking you. Yours is working. I have the same mobo and CPU as you but I"m using Gskill Aegis 8GB RAM at 3000mhz.

I found this, is this your ram? Use these timings:
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820232419&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwordsCA&cm_mmc=KNC...

so in your bios, set 16-18-18-18-38 (the cas read and write are the same, I'm assuming).

[fjsarmiento]

So I took it one step further and set my SOC voltage back to auto. My suspicion is that the DOCP std is solely to blame for the errors.

Over 25mins Prime95 Blend and no errors yet.

[Varmintbaby]

fjsarmiento wrote:
I found this, is this your ram? Use these timings:
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820232419&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwordsCA&cm_mmc=KNC...

so in your bios, set 16-18-18-18-38 (the cas read and write are the same, I'm assuming).

Yeah that's what I was using. It must be the RAM. My settings are exactly the same as yours. I even set my ratio to 40.5 like you had hoping that may be it. It wasn't . The PC won't even boot and it goes into BIOS safe mode and resets back. I can't boot at 3000mhz for some reason. That really sucks too. Oh well. Thanks for trying.

[fjsarmiento]

Deleted a couple posts earlier as I'm back to testing. Bringing down the SOC back to auto or too low led to crashes. I'm trying to avoid going up to 1.2v and raising the ram voltage.

Currently testing 1.15v SOC and 1.355v ram. I'll post back with my final stable settings.

[Arne_Saknussemm]

fjsarmiento wrote:
trying to avoid going up to 1.2v and raising the ram voltage.

A good thing to try.

Maybe run some RealBench too to test stability...sometimes Prime isn't the best indicator these days...

[fjsarmiento]

Arne Saknussemm wrote:
A good thing to try.

Maybe run some RealBench too to test stability...sometimes Prime isn't the best indicator these days...

Got bsod with 1.15v SOC and 1.355v RAM.

Now at 1.15625v SOC and 1.36v RAM and Prime95 Blend at 1.5hrs with no errors. Looking good.

Just downloaded RealBench, I'll give it a try. Should I just stop Prime95 now then?

[fjsarmiento]

It's been over 40mins and Prime95 is running with no errors. I think we found the culprit, guys! The DOCP standard was unreliable. Manually setting the ram seems to have done the trick. I'm going to try to bump the SOC down to 1.1 to see what happens. Keeping everything else the same.

[Arne_Saknussemm]

Stability testing is a bit of weird one. Everyone has their own idea of what is stable etc....and often stable for one application might mean unstable for something else.

RealBench tries to hammer the whole system integrally which is why I'd recommend you try that (just remember to select all memory for the stress test.)

If you've passed 1.5Hrs Prime then yeah I'd try an hour of RB.

Basically if you are stable on both I'd switch to using the system for whatever you do normally...gaming video etc....which is the real stability you are looking for