CPU struggling, no clear reason...
CPU struggling, no clear reason...
I've been experimenting with the AMD Ryzen 3950x and several motherboards, including the ROG Strix X570-E. The setup features a 64GB Corsair DDR4 3200GB RAM, a 1080TI MSI 1050TI, and various storage options like HDDs, SSDs, and M.2 drives, plus RGB lighting. Recently, I decided to try overclocking, but it didn't go as planned. The system became unstable, so I switched everything back to auto settings, which also failed. I reset the CMOS and started anew, only to discover that removing the battery unexpectedly changed the base speed from 3.8 GHz to 3.49 GHz. In Task Manager, the CPU speed reads between 4.1-4.2 GHz, occasionally spiking up to 6.4 GHz briefly—though it never overheated. When under load with Cinebench or Blender, speeds drop to 1.9-2.1 GHz without any temperature rise. This inconsistency is puzzling, and I've tried resetting the CMOS, adjusting voltage manually, tweaking power management, and even rebooting multiple times. No solution seems to work. If you can help, it would be a huge relief. I'll share screenshots if needed.
The recommended frequency should consistently be 3.49GHz (within a small margin). This is the standard clock speed for AMD CPUs on their official pages. There are only two reliable tools for hardware tracking: HWinfo in sensor mode and Ryzen Master. Other options tend to be either restricted, faulty (like NZXT CAM), or not suited for this purpose (Task Manager).
Windows' task manager struggles to accurately display clock speeds for non-OEM devices. According to AMD, it should display a base frequency of 3.5 GHz, which seems correct. The maximum boost reaches 4.7 GHz, but achieving full core utilization typically requires either a specially engineered chip or unusual BIOS behavior.
So far everything seems fine. I refreshed the BIOS again and this time it worked properly. Instead of relying on the online BIO update via UEFI, I installed it from a flash drive. It’s still running at 4.1-4.2 GHz, but under load it now operates at 3.79-3.8 GHz, which is nearly doubling my Cinebench score and bringing it back to where it was before. This improvement is around 50-100 points. I plan to run some stress tests to see how it performs. I was thinking of using Prime95, but are there other options I should consider? Thanks a lot for all the support so far.