The Ryzen Cometh

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

It is my dearest hope that the next time I see this CPU uncovered again is when I am upgrading her for a better model


Too many things happening with the kids tonight. I may not get to the first POST until late tonight or sometime tomorrow afternoon. Either way wish me luck.

I see AMD still uses those ZIF sockets. When I dismantled my AMD FX computers, I found that both the water cooling blocks had fused to the CPU and pulled the CPU right out of that socket when I took them off. That was a nasty situation, all those tiny golden pins exposed on a dangling cooling block ....
I got the CPU's off eventually, using yard of dental floss and liberal drops of rubbing alcohol. Normally, you can soak the CPU, but not with a water cooler attached.

At least on Ryzen the coolers are now screwed to the motherboard. No more plastic nooks that can break off.

[PapaXpress]

Oh the nooks were there by default. But. They were kind enough to let me unbolt them and reuse the back plate.

I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by this whole upgrade. I was done in about an hour of work. I even started overclocking and so far I have a stable 3.8, but I am fairly certain I can get it to 4.0 without spiking the voltage.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Oh the nooks were there by default. But. They were kind enough to let me unbolt them and reuse the back plate.

I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by this whole upgrade. I was done in about an hour of work. I even started overclocking and so far I have a stable 3.8, but I am fairly certain I can get it to 4.0 without spiking the voltage.

So those stand off's and thumbscrews visible came with your water cooler, and are not part of a standard Raizen motherboard? It still uses some plastic fitting with those nooks you hook a CPU cooler onto? I thought AMD should have come with a more substantial cooler mounting solution by now. But that would require a complete redesign of the CPU package as perhaps the current Intel socketing technique is heavily patented.

I still have a third computer to convert and an balancing between another I5 and a Raizen, so any useful hands on information is most welcome.

[PapaXpress]

So my reasoning was thus: To make this box last for at least 10 years...

For the MB I wanted that external BLCK. For me, that meant that I could add better memory or peripherals which may not exist yet and need the OC just to happen. This meant an X370, but not all of them have it. Read the fine print if you want one. For example, the Gigabyte Gaming 5 does not have one, but the Gaming 5K and 7K does. But the 5 and the 7K are closer alike than the 5K to the 7K. I have no idea what they were thinking.

For the CPU I went with the 1600X as oppose to the 1700 or 1600 vanilla. I know I am going to upgrade the CPU sometime down the line (2600X?), but I wanted to have a slight edge now. What caught me was that the 1600X has the same guts as the 1800X, just two fewer cores.

Memory... ugh! I had to find something that was SS and Dual Channel, and with the darn Samsung B-Die. I am hedging a bet that my 3600 will be supported sometime down the road, perhaps as early has next month when AMD releases a new patch. For now, I am happy that I can hit 3200 out of the box because that is the highest you can go with the XMP and not fiddle with the timings and voltage (messy when dealing with RAM). I found it at a great price because no one was looking for 3600s (yet). They are all grabbing 3000 and 3200.

I made sure that my Win 10 was associated with my account. This disconnects me from the hardware checks. If you didn't already know Win 10 can be transferred as-is if you have the pro version. This is hands down the best thing they have ever done to the OS. I didn't have to sys-prep, or uninstall anything... just pull the drive from one machine and boot it up on the other. It found everything it needed in less than five minutes.

By the way, I am stable at 3.9 with 1.375v 63.5c with Prime95 torturing it. I even loaded up City Skylines with Prime doing its thing and while the temps went up to @65c It was rock solid.

I will try for 4.0 tomorrow. It may not be worth it. I like the temps and voltage where they are at right now. Very much in the safe zone, very happy.

[g_nash]

By the way, I am stable at 3.9 with 1.375v 63.5c with Prime95 torturing it.

Sweet.

What do you think of the Audio on the board ? I interested in your impression of the headphone amp in particular.

[PapaXpress]

I am excited about the headphone amp. This is the first time I will not be running with a discreet sound card. The reviews for this chip have been very good.

Now to the crux of the matter. On Thursday Sarai, my three year old daughter found it in her best interest to yank the cord out of my headphones. I am now in the the market for a new pair. I know we spoke about all this before a few years back but what are some good options these days?

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

I am excited about the headphone amp. This is the first time I will not be running with a discreet sound card. The reviews for this chip have been very good.

Now to the crux of the matter. On Thursday Sarai, my three year old daughter found it in her best interest to yank the cord out of my headphones. I am now in the the market for a new pair. I know we spoke about all this before a few years back but what are some good options these days?

Acoustic stereo headphones of HiFi quality? Hard to find nowadays (overhere at least, HiFi is all but dead) Sennheiser used to be a good brand, but almost all consumer electronics comes from Chine these days, so who knows?

For gaming at length while the kids are asleep, choose an open-air type, or one with replaceable ear cushions (make sure to order a couple of pairs with the headphone). Because closed headphones tend to make your ears go hot and damp.

I suppose you don't want to listen to classical music using your computer?

[PapaXpress]

There are times I do listen to Classical. Then Trance. The Big Band. I am a bit all over the place.

I prefer closed over open, but for the noise leaking, not for the heat. Should I break the bank and get SteelSeries Siberia 800 Wireless Gaming Headset?
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01 ... PDKIKX0DER

The advantage here is that I can plug it into the sound port and not have USB sound, however, do I lose any advantage this new headphone amp would offer by going wireless?

Say:
Sennheiser GSP 300
https://smile.amazon.com/Sennheiser-GSP ... er+GSP+300


Meh.... after a ton of reviews I jumped for the Sennheiser GSP 300. I will need to hide them every time I shut down so Sarai doesn't vandalize them.

[Ericmopar]

Nice shiny new parts.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

There are times I do listen to Classical. Then Trance. The Big Band. I am a bit all over the place.

I prefer closed over open, but for the noise leaking, not for the heat. Should I break the bank and get SteelSeries Siberia 800 Wireless Gaming Headset?
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01 ... PDKIKX0DER

The advantage here is that I can plug it into the sound port and not have USB sound, however, do I lose any advantage this new headphone amp would offer by going wireless?

Say:
Sennheiser GSP 300
https://smile.amazon.com/Sennheiser-GSP ... er+GSP+300


Meh.... after a ton of reviews I jumped for the Sennheiser GSP 300. I will need to hide them every time I shut down so Sarai doesn't vandalize them.

Many choices for sure. Cats and little kids vandalise everything that has a cord ....

Wireless headphones use some kind of transmission protocol. If the protocol is lossless, you won't loose any sound quality (on paper at least).

[PapaXpress]

Surprisingly none of the cats I have had over the years have molested my computer. The rest of the house seemed to be fair game.

Back to the computer. I need to wait for the next BIOS Rec. I can't get past 3.90 with OCCP. The fine controls over the voltage are not there yet. For their other boards they are. It's not surprising since the K5 was just released were as Gigabytes other X370 boards have had over a month to work up.

[Ericmopar]

I've never had a cat wreck equipment of any kind. Furniture yes.
Parrots... That's a different story. Birds chew on everything. I know about birds from experience.

I've definitely seen the results of friends dogs...

[PapaXpress]

OK, so my first impression of the Sennheiser GSP 300

The sound is 'smooth'

Not sure how that adjective works in this sense but it's the first word that came to mind. Yes, I LIKE them. It was a WOW moment. I haven't even needed to go looking for an equalizer.

They are comfy. Light. They don't squeeze my head and they are not inching over my head when I look over my shoulder.

They make my ears sweat a bit... but I knew that would likely happen when going into this endeavor.

Back to the computer.

I think the headphone amp is only on the back panel I am still digging for info but in the Realtek app it clearly has a setting for the back panel ports. The funny thing is that I am listening to my favorites right now and I couldn't be bothered to plug them in the back to find out.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

OK, so my first impression of the Sennheiser GSP 300

The sound is 'smooth'

Not sure how that adjective works in this sense but it's the first word that came to mind. Yes, I LIKE them. It was a WOW moment. I haven't even needed to go looking for an equalizer.

They are comfy. Light. They don't squeeze my head and they are not inching over my head when I look over my shoulder.

They make my ears sweat a bit... but I knew that would likely happen when going into this endeavor.

Back to the computer.

I think the headphone amp is only on the back panel I am still digging for info but in the Realtek app it clearly has a setting for the back panel ports. The funny thing is that I am listening to my favorites right now and I couldn't be bothered to plug them in the back to find out.

Judging sound quality is very subjective. I don't think you can actually 'hear' the difference between the front and rear (HiFi) outputs. You'll have to rely on the honesty of the manufacturers and their measurements.

How is the water cooling going? Did you also get the sensor connecting kit and desktop app from Corsair? I suppose there is no real need since your set has a double height radiator and the cooling circuit has a great thermal buffer capacity by design. No risk of a boil off.

[PapaXpress]

It is subjective, but if I said it sounds tinny or like a headache you would steal clear

The water-cooler is working nicely. I have both fans mounted and it's very quiet. I don't think I have seen the CPU go past the high 60's when overclocking to 4.0. Last night I got to 3.925 stable with default voltage 3.75. With what I have been reading some people are undervolting and hitting 4.0. Again I need access to those controls to try this.