AMD Ryzen CPU

[Vinkman]

FINALLY!!!!!

My AM4 retention bracket has been shipped thru USPS so most likely middle of next week..................

 

I thought you meant Finally it's here!!

That was anticlimactic Pudgie. 

[Pudgie]

I thought you meant Finally it's here!!

That was anticlimactic Pudgie. 

Hey, you gotta start somewhere, Vinkman!

 

But now it's official............

FINALLY!!!!!!

My AM4 retention bracket HAS arrived at Pudgieland this morning!!!!

 

So ole Pudgie will be signing off for a while to perform some surgery on the ole box.

Win 10, here I come..........again!

Hopefully the 2nd time around will go better than it did the 1st time..................

 

[Vinkman]

Hey, you gotta start somewhere, Vinkman!

 

But now it's official............

FINALLY!!!!!!

My AM4 retention bracket HAS arrived at Pudgieland this morning!!!!

 

So ole Pudgie will be signing off for a while to perform some surgery on the ole box.

Win 10, here I come..........again!

Hopefully the 2nd time around will go better than it did the 1st time..................

 

Godspeed my friend. 

[oboe]

Remind me - did you guys both get the 1800X?    For my next build I'm looking at something less than that, but more $$ into the video card.

Good Luck Pudgie, hope it goes smoothly.

[Pudgie]

Ok folks, ole Pudgie's back in the saddle riding on Team Red.................

Got all squared away and enough of my stuff loaded back on her to take it for a test run w\ AHIII. All was set up in same order & configuration as I was running my Intel I7 5820K but set CPU affinity for the game to use the last 4 CPU's to remain within this CCX module to limit\stop the cross CCX module data switching..........yep AMD has got a good one going here (I got the Ryzen 7 1800X CPU for my purposes but most should be fine w\ the Ryzen 5 1600\1600X) as it performed as good or better as the I7 5820K.

As soon as the new mem kit gets here I will record a video of this box running the game using the overlay combo of RivaTuner & HWINFO.

This is gonna be a good platform, even for gaming........

More to come. Gonna get back to loading more stuff up..............

 

[Pudgie]

Oh, 1 more item to put out there...................

From my testing so far w\ this new AMD Ryzen 8-core CPU, it does show to perform better on this box of mine w\ SMT disabled (running 8 physical CPU cores) instead of running w\ SMT enabled (running 16 logical CPU cores), as had been reported in some reviews online.

The CPU performance was more crisp, stable and faster due to a lot less latency within the CPU so there is something to be said not only for looking into tuning\optimizing the Infinity Fabric interconnect architecture within this Ryzen CPU but also some tuning within MS Win 10 schedulers on better thread allocation management to the new AMD Ryzen CPU, not just CPU core recognition\thread assignment between a physical and logical CPU core (this is the part that the reviewers at PcPer debunked). It clearly showed that by using CPU priority\affinity running AHIII I could get a better result out of this Ryzen CPU than leaving this to the OS to do on it's own using 8 physical CPU cores (SMT disabled).

Once I get the new G-Skill FlareX 3200 DDR4 CL14 16Gb 8Gb x 2 mem kit (specifically designed & tested for use w\ this CPU and chipset) to eliminate the weirdness that I was seeing going on from time to time (box would sometimes go into a perpetual startup loop w\ the UEFI showing to be hung at times until I stopped trying to reset the UEFI to run my mem @ 2933--even though it showed to take it in the UEFI) and removed 2 of my mem sticks (was using all 4 mem slots prior so there is some issue w\ filling all 4 mem slots w\ the current mem I'm using....all 4 mem sticks are good) then this stopped. The larger issue w\ this is that this issue would cause the UEFI to reset itself entirely & switch back to the backup F1 UEFI which made this issue even worse as the original F1 UEFI don't like these Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 DDR4 modules at all (these were specifically designed to perform on Intel X99 platforms so this is most likely the main cause) when set anywhere other than the native freq @ 2133.

The AMD Ryzen 7 1800X CPU performance should also go up in a dramatic way as well.....just as I saw w\ my Intel X99 I7 5820K platform when I swapped out the Corsair Vengeance LPX 2133 DDR4 16Gb 4Gb x 4 mem kit w\ this same Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 DDR4 16Gb 4Gb x 4 mem kit.

 

[Vinkman]

So I down loaded UEFI version 0613 and loaded it up and ran on the first try. 

after installing, I was able to use the Ryzen OC software to increase DDR4 speed to 2666, and set CAS to 14. rebooted and worked without issue. 

I have yet to boot up to ASUS screen and check to see if SMT can be disabled in the new version. There was no option to do that in v0503.  There is no option in the Ryzen software to do that either. I have not checked for a new version of the Rysen OC software, I will do that and see if there is an update. I will try that tonight. 

[Pudgie]

So I down loaded UEFI version 0613 and loaded it up and ran on the first try. 

after installing, I was able to use the Ryzen OC software to increase DDR4 speed to 2666, and set CAS to 14. rebooted and worked without issue. 

I have yet to boot up to ASUS screen and check to see if SMT can be disabled in the new version. There was no option to do that in v0503.  There is no option in the Ryzen software to do that either. I have not checked for a new version of the Rysen OC software, I will do that and see if there is an update. I will try that tonight. 

Hi Vinkman,

The only place you will find that setting is in the UEFI..........and it should be there as this setting is standard issue (or should be).........

Whereever in your UEFI the settings for the "Advanced CPU Settings\Options" are located within your UEFI vers this setting "SMT Mode" should also be there.
Default is "Auto" (UEFI determines whether to enable SMT or not (simultaneous multithreading technology)..........always will)
Set this to "Disable" to shut down SMT (turns off the 16 logical CPU cores so only the 8 physical CPU cores will be seen\used by the OS on startup).

Disabling this won't hurt anything on your box. Only instructs the OS to assign 1 thread per CPU core to execute at a time instead of 2 threads per CPU core to "execute" at a time.

Then once booted back up go into Task Manager, Performance, hit Resource Manager at bottom then hit CPU tab then check all CPU cores to right to make sure that all show to be 100% utilization (top right of each CPU core window...). If any of them say "parked" then you will need to go into the Windows Power Plan & set it to "High Performance" so the OS will not park any of the CPU cores.

Disregard if you have already done so....................

You running Win 7 or Win 10?

Remember you loading Win 7..................., right?

 

PS---My GSkill FlareX 16Gb DDR4 CL14 3200 8Gb x 2 mem kit should arrive tomorrow.................. 

 

[Vinkman]

Win 7. It's amazing the the last versions of the UEFI did have that option.  Been tied up and am out of town so it looks like Monday will be next chance to try.

[Pudgie]

Update:

My GSkill FlareX 3200 DDR4 CL14 16Gb 8Gb x 2 mem kit didn't make it to Pudgieland until a short time ago today. This is the mem kit specially designed & tested to be compatible w\ AMD Ryzen CPU's\X370, B350 chipsets.

Shut down, swapped out the mem then rebooted & went into the UEFI......F2 UEFI (has the new AMD AGESA 1.0.0.6 firmware) had already read the mem, switched to the XMP Profile1 setting & set itself to 3200, 14, 14, 14, 36, 1T.

COOL!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Rebooted into Windows and................WOW!
This thing is really flying now!

Checked all thru AMD RyzenMaster software.......all is set up as it should have been thru XMP (SMT is disabled.....using the 8 physical CPU cores only).

I am stoked now!

 

The mem latency & performance improvements are VERY, VERY noticeable as this AMD Ryzen 7 1800X has now been unleashed...........

Went in AHIII and flew around........now seeing some of the Ryzen CPU cores clocking up to 3.9 GHz on their own while flying!
Game ran beautifully using Win 10 Game Mode (shows to consistently spread out the game threads across both CCX modules so I stopped manually setting CPU affinity & have installed Prio to auto set CPU priority for AHIII to High) & AHIII using CPU priority alone.

Yeah, I believe this AMD platform is gonna be a winner. Now waiting on Rx Vega to show what it has to offer.

 

[Masherbrum]

What is more amazing is that I haven't done a single thing to my 7700K and I get max settings in every game.   

[Vinkman]

Feedback time.

I downloaded the new version of the Ryzen Master O.C. software and loaded it, I also downloaded the latest ASUS MOBO AM4 Drivers 0613. This allowed me to set the CAS to 14, and DDR4 speed to 2666MHz.  Once that was accepted I was able to set the  DDR4 Mem Speed in the ASUS BIOS to 2666MHz as well. booted and ran with no issues. Attempts to clock Mem faster than 2666MHz failed.  I do have the same mem kit as you Pudgie. G-Skill 3200 14 blah blah.  I did notice that the Ryzem software still only had speed increments of 1033, 1200, 1333, then it jumps to 1633. Not sure why there is no 1600, or 1466. So I think my ASUS prime B350 may be limited to 2633.

Then I played around with SMT which is now in the new version of the ASUS software. Turning SMT off did not work as well for me with respect to Freezes. The frequency and duration increased dramatically. so I went back to SMT enabled. So switching between real cores created more freezes than switching between virtual cores.  I'm running Windows 7. IT did not improve with affinity or priority changes.

I don't know how to tell if my UEFI has the AMD AGESA 1.0.0.6 firmware.

Vinkman

[Pudgie]

Update:

Noticed Gigabyte has come out w\ another UEFI update for my AX370 Gaming K5 mobo......F3c Beta UEFI.

Has the new AMD AGESA 1.0.0.6 firmware w\ the new addition of EZ Overclock Tuner which can give the user the choice to now set up the CPU\mem power control to control the power output to the CPU\mem modules themselves or the driver will now auto-control the power regulation to both CPU\mem modules to better align the 2 to provide more stability in operation as this is also 1 of the nagging issues concerning AMD Ryzen CPU's w\ mem modules compatibility across Infinity Fabric interconnect over PCI-E to the X370\B350 chipsets....especially when a user is installing mem modules that range past the specified 2667 limit of the onboard mem controller (controller can overclock higher) that controls this across the Infinity Fabric interconnect (like the GSkill FlareX 3200 mem kit that I have in my box) to compliment the new AGESA firmware upgrade.

Have d'ld & flashed my mobo w\ it & set the EZ Overclock Tuner to Auto (default)...........so far this box now shows to be performing since this UEFI upgrade just as stable as the Intel X99 platform that I was using prior....after I figured out the quirks that I had w\ it when I 1st got it.....which is no different w\ this AMD Ryzen platform now...............

Just saying...................

Then I ran across a section of the MS Windows Developers site that dealt w\ optimizing the Windows Power Plans to facilitate the workloads that would be run thru servers using multi-core CPU's under Windows Server 2016 (which is the basis for Windows 10 Power Plan setup as MS used their results of tuning this for optimum Windows Server 2016 usage for Power Saver, Balanced & High Performance power plans then ported these to the consumer version of Win 10 as is). In reading over these I also found out some other good stuff that can be done w\ these plans for the process of how to go about tuning them to meet specific workloads parameters and accomplish the right mix of CPU, mem subsystem, networking performance, power usage & utilization a user (read IT personnel here) desires from their systems.

The 1 that caught my attention was the specific usage scenario that was specifically discussed and laid out in detail on how to tune the Windows Balanced Power Plan to perform in every aspect as the High Performance Plan but retain good power usage control\savings to get better CPU, mem utilization\performance as the High Performance Plan can give as currently setup but retain good power usage control when running light to medium workloads that require very quick CPU\mem response times to run well (such as games.......MS terms as workloads that are "bursty in nature" but can still give good sequential CPU, mem utilization\performance when the workloads require it) by resetting the parameters within Powercfg.exe that determine all this in the background of all Windows Power Plans....then they listed the parameters that were necessary to do all this for the Balanced Power plan w\ the default settings given as well as the optimized settings to use if 1 wanted to revert back to the default settings if desired.

I was game to try it out so I went into Command Prompt w\ Admin & made the MS recommended Powercfg.exe power parameters setting changes to the Balanced Power Plan (can make these to any of the 3 Windows Power Plans you choose to) in my Win 10 Home OS and it took every one of them (5 changes in all). Then I entered the command to activate the new Powercfg.exe settings parameters then exited out and started up AHIII (all other settings as set in the Balanced Power plan that I had already set prior were not affected in any way so these settings reside within the background and can only be accessed thru the Windows Command Prompt...............).......

I can report that these settings do achieve exactly what MS said they would do as the CPU performance\utilization was greatly improved. The game ran so smooth w\ much better control response that it threw my coordination off for a while until I started adjusting to it. Still got a couple of screen freezes during my flying time last night but the rest of the flight time was very enjoyable.......so much so that I stayed up until 1:10 hrs this morning flying....................... ....

There was a section devoted to optimizing a CPU under the NUMA std (thinking bout Ryzen's CCX modules & how this could fit in w\ all this) but I'll have to read up some more to get a good understanding before I make any attempts to try any of it w\ this Ryzen CPU.

We're getting there...............1 step at a time.

I have to say......I am loving my tinkering time w\ this here AMD Ryzen 7 CPU\X370 chipset platform so far......

 

[Pudgie]

Update:

All is performing very well at this time. This AMD Ryzen 7 1800X CPU is very stable since upgrading the UEFI to F3c Beta set up using all stock CPU UEFI settings except SMT Mode (disabled). GSkill FlareX 16Gb 8Gbx2 3200 DDR4 mem is running at XMP SPD settings (14-14-14-34-1T @ 3200).
So the only CPU core overclocking being done is thru the UEFI TurboCore settings. AMD Radeon R9 FuryX graphics card is also running at stock settings thru Radeon WattMan control settings (all at default).
The background CPU power parameter setting changes made thru Powercfg.exe within the Windows Balanced Power plan have made a very noticeable & positive CPU performance improvement in all areas of computing on this box but especially when playing AHIII due to the improved CPU response time to game needs in addition to the game getting increased CPU priority % for thread execution.

1 thing I will say here, AMD's Cool & Quiet CPU power\frequency control (same as Intel's CEIST....CPU Enhanced Intel Speed Step Technology) shows to do a much better job of controlling this Ryzen 7 CPU vs Intel controlling the I7 5820K CPU w\ the default min power % setting of 5% in the Windows Balanced power plan as I have never witnessed this box having any stuttering show up in the game when the CPU cores were lightly loaded w\ this AMD Ryzen 7 1800X 8-core CPU as I witnessed happening w\ the Intel I7 5820K 6-core CPU platform I was using prior-simply due to Cool & Quiet not allowing the CPU core frequency to drop below 2.1 GHz under full game load whereas CEIST would allow the CPU core frequency to drop as low as 1.2 GHz under the same scenario causing the GPU to stutter.

So from seeing this I then reset the min power % setting in the WBPP from the default of 5% to 75% so that the 1800X will not drop below 3.1 GHz since this CPU's TDP is so low (95W at full load). So now while playing AHIII this Ryzen 7 1800X CPU frequency is running under full game load between 3.1 GHz-3.7 GHz on all 8 cores w\ the occasional bump up on a couple of CPU cores to 3.9 GHz-4.0 GHz.

With Windows 10 Game Bar enabled (necessary to manually set up the new Win 10 Game Mode control for AHIII) Windows 10 schedulers show to consistently divide threads across the 2 CCX units in a 60-40 to 70-30 pattern (CCX unit w\ CPU cores 0-3 getting the larger percentage of threads) w\ the CPU usage operating around 10%-16% on avg......this is lower than what I saw using the Intel I7 5820K CPU which avg between 16%-22%. Now in the whole scheme of things this is a moot point as neither of these CPU's were showing to be anywhere near loaded by AHIII under a full game load but this also shows, at least to me, that this Ryzen 7 CPU is a little better in total CPU core latency performance when the threads are managed across both CCX units instead of just 1 CCX unit alone and any context switching of threads across the CPU cores within the CCX units STAY w\ the CPU cores within each CCX unit & not being passed across to cores from 1 CCX unit to the other CCX unit thru the shared L3 caches of the CCX units over Infinity Fabric interconnect. It is this pattern of CPU thread management that seems to suggest that Win 10 is seeing this Ryzen 7 CPU's CCX units thru Game Mode as "semi-NUMA nodes".....which would somewhat explain the schedulers dividing the threads as such which is a good thing IMHO for AMD CPU's....even the old FX series. I hope MS refines this to get even better.
As for whether using SMT or not is mostly a judgement call at this time since the Windows schedulers really do a good job of managing threads on it's own, IMHO w\ this many available physical CPU cores running CPU loads that can't even use all the physical CPU cores, much less the extra logical CPU cores, a user will get slightly better CPU latency performance improvement by disabling SMT to assist Windows schedulers in thread management when running medium to light CPU loads by actually using more of the available physical CPU cores than having Windows using SMT to effectively use FEWER physical CPU cores by loading these fewer CPU cores at a higher percentage load.......which is the MAIN reason why you'd want higher CPU frequencies to make up for this to maintain the same level of total CPU performance.....and also why Windows will park all these "unused" CPU cores by default. This goes for Intel's HEDT platform as well.....the major difference between the 2 now is CPU core overclocking ability & mem compatibility w\ Intel having the lead here for the time being............

Provided below are some snippets of the AHIII Video Settings & Ingame Settings, AMD Radeon Crimson driver settings & MSI AB graphs of this AMD Ryzen 7 1800X\Radeon R9 FuryX performance running AHIII as of this morning. Please note that this Ryzen 7 1800X CPU is only making use of 4-5 CPU cores max....3-4 CPU cores are pretty much on standby.

From all this I can see that the best AMD Ryzen CPU to get for gaming right now IMHO would be the AMD Ryzen 5 1600\1600X from a performance\price ratio......as most review sites have already laid out & depending upon how a user sets them up will perform a lot closer to Intel's I7-7700K CPU than some would admit.

 

[Pudgie]

Update:

Here is a little video of this new all Team Red box of mine featuring the new AMD Ryzen 7 1800X CPU\Radeon R9 FuryX graphics card.
This was recorded using Win 10 Game DVR set for Standard video quality @ 60 FPS (Win 10 since updating to Creators Edition will not allow AMD's ReLive to run...).

Game was set up as per the snippets provided in prior post running at 2560 x 1440 res w\ MSI AB RTSS\HWINFO32 overlay running showing all vitals of this setup in real time as it ran under Win 10 Game Mode set up thru Win 10 Game Bar..............

Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/ZWOm-XIO6IA