My budget 3950x build

[Michael Sherwin]

I finally got tired of my i7-3930k 6 core 12 thread from 2013. So I purchased the:
3950x $747.00 (just before the price drop)
b450 Tomahawk Max $114.00
G.Skill 3600 Neo 32 mb 18cl $179.00(did not know to buy 16cl)
BeQuiet Dark Rock 4 pro $86.00
Total : $1125
Needless to say all the other components are from the old computer. I went with an air tower cooler because I like quiet. And my case is an Antec full tower designed for quiet operation.

The teardown and build went incredibly smooth. It booted up and went into windows the first time. And yes I did it myself.

Set to stock Stockfish 10 all 32 threads ~ 3900kn/sec
Setting the memory speed from 2100 to 3600 and the infinity fabric to 1800 - 4050kn/sec
Manual OC (after many tries) first 8 cores at 4.4 GHz second 8 cores at 4.2 GHz and a vcore at 1.2875V
Searched to 40 ply opening position 12:48:35 at 46,069kn/sec

PBO would only go to 4.2 GHz on all cores with a vcore of 1.54V and would only run at 43,139kn/sec. The speed was fine but the temperatures were not. It ran 98c. The manual OC not only got 3,000kn/sec more it runs cooler, 88c which is very acceptable. On a good 360 rad it would do a little better but I am very happy with the absolutely quiet operation. Another note is that it has only been two days and I saw several videos that claim that thermal paste takes 3 or 4 days to set and after that one can expect 2 or 3c better tempetures.

[MikeB]

I finally got tired of my i7-3930k 6 core 12 thread from 2013. So I purchased the:
3950x $747.00 (just before the price drop)
b450 Tomahawk Max $114.00
G.Skill 3600 Neo 32 mb 18cl $179.00(did not know to buy 16cl)
BeQuiet Dark Rock 4 pro $86.00
Total : $1125
Needless to say all the other components are from the old computer. I went with an air tower cooler because I like quiet. And my case is an Antec full tower designed for quiet operation.

The teardown and build went incredibly smooth. It booted up and went into windows the first time. And yes I did it myself.

Set to stock Stockfish 10 all 32 threads ~ 3900kn/sec
Setting the memory speed from 2100 to 3600 and the infinity fabric to 1800 - 4050kn/sec
Manual OC (after many tries) first 8 cores at 4.4 GHz second 8 cores at 4.2 GHz and a vcore at 1.2875V
Searched to 40 ply opening position 12:48:35 at 46,069kn/sec

PBO would only go to 4.2 GHz on all cores with a vcore of 1.54V and would only run at 43,139kn/sec. The speed was fine but the temperatures were not. It ran 98c. The manual OC not only got 3,000kn/sec more it runs cooler, 88c which is very acceptable. On a good 360 rad it would do a little better but I am very happy with the absolutely quiet operation. Another note is that it has only been two days and I saw several videos that claim that thermal paste takes 3 or 4 days to set and after that one can expect 2 or 3c better tempetures.

that is awesome - congrats and enjoy!

[Michael Sherwin]

I finally got tired of my i7-3930k 6 core 12 thread from 2013. So I purchased the:
3950x $747.00 (just before the price drop)
b450 Tomahawk Max $114.00
G.Skill 3600 Neo 32 mb 18cl $179.00(did not know to buy 16cl)
BeQuiet Dark Rock 4 pro $86.00
Total : $1125
Needless to say all the other components are from the old computer. I went with an air tower cooler because I like quiet. And my case is an Antec full tower designed for quiet operation.

The teardown and build went incredibly smooth. It booted up and went into windows the first time. And yes I did it myself.

Set to stock Stockfish 10 all 32 threads ~ 3900kn/sec
Setting the memory speed from 2100 to 3600 and the infinity fabric to 1800 - 4050kn/sec
Manual OC (after many tries) first 8 cores at 4.4 GHz second 8 cores at 4.2 GHz and a vcore at 1.2875V
Searched to 40 ply opening position 12:48:35 at 46,069kn/sec

PBO would only go to 4.2 GHz on all cores with a vcore of 1.54V and would only run at 43,139kn/sec. The speed was fine but the temperatures were not. It ran 98c. The manual OC not only got 3,000kn/sec more it runs cooler, 88c which is very acceptable. On a good 360 rad it would do a little better but I am very happy with the absolutely quiet operation. Another note is that it has only been two days and I saw several videos that claim that thermal paste takes 3 or 4 days to set and after that one can expect 2 or 3c better tempetures.

that is awesome - congrats and enjoy!

Thanks!

[Zenmastur]

I finally got tired of my i7-3930k 6 core 12 thread from 2013. So I purchased the:
3950x $747.00 (just before the price drop)
b450 Tomahawk Max $114.00
G.Skill 3600 Neo 32 mb 18cl $179.00(did not know to buy 16cl)
BeQuiet Dark Rock 4 pro $86.00
Total : $1125
Needless to say all the other components are from the old computer. I went with an air tower cooler because I like quiet. And my case is an Antec full tower designed for quiet operation.

The teardown and build went incredibly smooth. It booted up and went into windows the first time. And yes I did it myself.

Set to stock Stockfish 10 all 32 threads ~ 3900kn/sec
Setting the memory speed from 2100 to 3600 and the infinity fabric to 1800 - 4050kn/sec
Manual OC (after many tries) first 8 cores at 4.4 GHz second 8 cores at 4.2 GHz and a vcore at 1.2875V
Searched to 40 ply opening position 12:48:35 at 46,069kn/sec

PBO would only go to 4.2 GHz on all cores with a vcore of 1.54V and would only run at 43,139kn/sec. The speed was fine but the temperatures were not. It ran 98c. The manual OC not only got 3,000kn/sec more it runs cooler, 88c which is very acceptable. On a good 360 rad it would do a little better but I am very happy with the absolutely quiet operation. Another note is that it has only been two days and I saw several videos that claim that thermal paste takes 3 or 4 days to set and after that one can expect 2 or 3c better tempetures.

Not a fan of the Dark Rock cooler but it's not terrible.

I would try OCing the memory BEFORE I would do anything to the CPU. If your CPU will run infinity fabric at 1833, 1866, or even better at 1900 then you can OC the memory (even if you have to raise some of the timmings a little) you will likely get lower latency and better over all performance for chess engines. I would also see if you can UNDER volt the CPU. Some of them are good enough that you actually get better overclocking performance by dropping the VCORE or giving it a small negative offset. This allows it to run MUCH cooler and still reach reasonably high speeds.

You picked a very good and inexpensive motherboard which is 90% of the battle. I doubt you could get better performance for the money you spent. GOOD JOB!

[Michael Sherwin]

I finally got tired of my i7-3930k 6 core 12 thread from 2013. So I purchased the:
3950x $747.00 (just before the price drop)
b450 Tomahawk Max $114.00
G.Skill 3600 Neo 32 mb 18cl $179.00(did not know to buy 16cl)
BeQuiet Dark Rock 4 pro $86.00
Total : $1125
Needless to say all the other components are from the old computer. I went with an air tower cooler because I like quiet. And my case is an Antec full tower designed for quiet operation.

The teardown and build went incredibly smooth. It booted up and went into windows the first time. And yes I did it myself.

Set to stock Stockfish 10 all 32 threads ~ 3900kn/sec
Setting the memory speed from 2100 to 3600 and the infinity fabric to 1800 - 4050kn/sec
Manual OC (after many tries) first 8 cores at 4.4 GHz second 8 cores at 4.2 GHz and a vcore at 1.2875V
Searched to 40 ply opening position 12:48:35 at 46,069kn/sec

PBO would only go to 4.2 GHz on all cores with a vcore of 1.54V and would only run at 43,139kn/sec. The speed was fine but the temperatures were not. It ran 98c. The manual OC not only got 3,000kn/sec more it runs cooler, 88c which is very acceptable. On a good 360 rad it would do a little better but I am very happy with the absolutely quiet operation. Another note is that it has only been two days and I saw several videos that claim that thermal paste takes 3 or 4 days to set and after that one can expect 2 or 3c better tempetures.

Not a fan of the Dark Rock cooler but it's not terrible.

I would try OCing the memory BEFORE I would do anything to the CPU. If your CPU will run infinity fabric at 1833, 1866, or even better at 1900 then you can OC the memory (even if you have to raise some of the timmings a little) you will likely get lower latency and better over all performance for chess engines. I would also see if you can UNDER volt the CPU. Some of them are good enough that you actually get better overclocking performance by dropping the VCORE or giving it a small negative offset. This allows it to run MUCH cooler and still reach reasonably high speeds.

You picked a very good and inexpensive motherboard which is 90% of the battle. I doubt you could get better performance for the money you spent. GOOD JOB!

Thanks, there are a few more strategies for overclocking to explore! It takes time and I'm just starting on my third day.

[Modern Times]

Thanks, there are a few more strategies for overclocking to explore! It takes time and I'm just starting on my third day.

You could just enjoy it for a month at stock before tinkering, and you may then find you don't need to or want to.

[Michael Sherwin]

Now that I have worked with the 3950x for a few days I understand the cpu much better. On my i7-3930k all there was to worry about was cpu temperature and cpu voltage to get a stable OC frequency. Or at least that is the way it appeared. On the 3950x there are 3 other limiting factors, PPT (socket power), TDC (sustained(able) current limit) and EDC (peak current limit). When precision boost overdrive is set to auto these three are at maximum (100%) or very close when using all 32 cores. However, that means that the OC frequency is limited (on my cpu) to 3935 MHz. Although it still gets 93.5% the performance of the best manual overclock that was achievable. And it runs very cool even on my Dark Rock 4 pro air cooler, 68c. The problem with the manual overclocking is that it exceeds the above mentioned power levels by quite a bit. I saw levels of 148%. Even though it was stable for a 40 ply search using all 32 threads it would eventually turn off the extra threads and SF would stop analyzing. SF would then have to be unloaded and loaded again before it will work. At this point I'm not 100% sure if this is a SF problem using 32 threads which eventually breaks SF. I doubt it because I think people would be posting about it and I don't see that. So I'm just leaving PBO on auto. PBO also has an enabled option. When enabled it allows tolerances to be exceeded "for a time". Maybe with a very good 360 rad this can be done. On my air cooler the temps go right up to 109c and the voltage they pump through is an enormous 1.54 volts. This kind of extreme overclocking may be good for games because they do not use many threads and therefore they can sustain higher cpu frequencies for longer periods of time. It just seems not possible for a chess engine using all available threads.

If I discover anything else useful I'll make another post.

[Zenmastur]

Now that I have worked with the 3950x for a few days I understand the cpu much better. On my i7-3930k all there was to worry about was cpu temperature and cpu voltage to get a stable OC frequency. Or at least that is the way it appeared. On the 3950x there are 3 other limiting factors, PPT (socket power), TDC (sustained(able) current limit) and EDC (peak current limit). When precision boost overdrive is set to auto these three are at maximum (100%) or very close when using all 32 cores. However, that means that the OC frequency is limited (on my cpu) to 3935 MHz. Although it still gets 93.5% the performance of the best manual overclock that was achievable. And it runs very cool even on my Dark Rock 4 pro air cooler, 68c. The problem with the manual overclocking is that it exceeds the above mentioned power levels by quite a bit. I saw levels of 148%. Even though it was stable for a 40 ply search using all 32 threads it would eventually turn off the extra threads and SF would stop analyzing. SF would then have to be unloaded and loaded again before it will work. At this point I'm not 100% sure if this is a SF problem using 32 threads which eventually breaks SF. I doubt it because I think people would be posting about it and I don't see that. So I'm just leaving PBO on auto. PBO also has an enabled option. When enabled it allows tolerances to be exceeded "for a time". Maybe with a very good 360 rad this can be done. On my air cooler the temps go right up to 109c and the voltage they pump through is an enormous 1.54 volts. This kind of extreme overclocking may be good for games because they do not use many threads and therefore they can sustain higher cpu frequencies for longer periods of time. It just seems not possible for a chess engine using all available threads.

If I discover anything else useful I'll make another post.

Make sure the MB's bios is up to date. The early bios had a bad habit of radically changing the VCORE and Clock speed over very short time intervals to the point that it made the system less stable. The newer bios fix this along with many other early problems.

I don't even bother with overclocking the cores on Ryzen CPUs. I don't even use PBO. The system does a very good job of getting every ounce of performance out of the chip without any core "overclocking". Memory and the infinity fabric is a different story. Many people don't like messing with the memory timings because there are so many of them, it's not always obvious what they do and you can't even see all of them in the BIOS. On Intel platforms memory performance makes almost no difference to overall performance. Not so with Ryzen. You can get a 15% performance boost by OC'ing the memory and Infinity fabric and NEVER touch the core clock speed!

[Michael Sherwin]

Now that I have worked with the 3950x for a few days I understand the cpu much better. On my i7-3930k all there was to worry about was cpu temperature and cpu voltage to get a stable OC frequency. Or at least that is the way it appeared. On the 3950x there are 3 other limiting factors, PPT (socket power), TDC (sustained(able) current limit) and EDC (peak current limit). When precision boost overdrive is set to auto these three are at maximum (100%) or very close when using all 32 cores. However, that means that the OC frequency is limited (on my cpu) to 3935 MHz. Although it still gets 93.5% the performance of the best manual overclock that was achievable. And it runs very cool even on my Dark Rock 4 pro air cooler, 68c. The problem with the manual overclocking is that it exceeds the above mentioned power levels by quite a bit. I saw levels of 148%. Even though it was stable for a 40 ply search using all 32 threads it would eventually turn off the extra threads and SF would stop analyzing. SF would then have to be unloaded and loaded again before it will work. At this point I'm not 100% sure if this is a SF problem using 32 threads which eventually breaks SF. I doubt it because I think people would be posting about it and I don't see that. So I'm just leaving PBO on auto. PBO also has an enabled option. When enabled it allows tolerances to be exceeded "for a time". Maybe with a very good 360 rad this can be done. On my air cooler the temps go right up to 109c and the voltage they pump through is an enormous 1.54 volts. This kind of extreme overclocking may be good for games because they do not use many threads and therefore they can sustain higher cpu frequencies for longer periods of time. It just seems not possible for a chess engine using all available threads.

If I discover anything else useful I'll make another post.

Make sure the MB's bios is up to date. The early bios had a bad habit of radically changing the VCORE and Clock speed over very short time intervals to the point that it made the system less stable. The newer bios fix this along with many other early problems.

I don't even bother with overclocking the cores on Ryzen CPUs. I don't even use PBO. The system does a very good job of getting every ounce of performance out of the chip without any core "overclocking". Memory and the infinity fabric is a different story. Many people don't like messing with the memory timings because there are so many of them, it's not always obvious what they do and you can't even see all of them in the BIOS. On Intel platforms memory performance makes almost no difference to overall performance. Not so with Ryzen. You can get a 15% performance boost by OC'ing the memory and Infinity fabric and NEVER touch the core clock speed!

I just checked. My MB shipped with the latest bios, which is dated 11,11,2019.

[jstanback]

For my Ryzen 3950x, in the BIOS I set Vcore=1.20 and Multiplier to 40 and don't enable PBO. This gives an all-core frequency of 4.0 Ghz and when running Wasp with 32 threads the total CPU package power is about 132 watts. With the Noctua UH-12S
air cooler the cpu temp stays under 70C. I really like the 3950x.

John