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I am giving up on Intel and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D

michael.stapelberg.ch

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Re: I am giving up on Intel and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D

#221

Post by shrubble »

bob1029 wrote: post #101
microtonal wrote: post #2

I feel like both Intel and AMD are not doing great in the desktop CPU stability department. I made a machine with a Ryzen 9900X a while back and it had the issue that it would freeze when idling. A few years before I had a 5950X that would regularly crash under load (luckily it was a prebuilt, so it was ultimately fixed). When you do not have a bunch of components ready to swap out it is also really hard to debug the…

I've got a 5950x that I can reliably crater with a very specific .NET 8 console app when it would otherwise be stable 24/7/365, even under some pretty crazy workloads like Unity. I think a lot of it boils down to load profile and power delivery. My 2500VA double conversion UPS seems to have difficulty keeping up with the volatility in load when running that console app. I can tell because its fans ramp up and my ligh…

If you have a double conversion UPS that is complaining about less than 100W deviation, I would recommend you check the UPS for a component that is out of spec or on the way to failure.

Re: I am giving up on Intel and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D

#222

Post by oneshtein »

sunshowers wrote: post #201
dijit wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only a minority of them enables ECC support in their firmware, so always check for that before buying! This is the annoying part. That AMD permits ECC is a truly fantastic situation, but if it's supported by the motherboard is often unlikely and worse: it's not advertised even when it's available. I have an ASUS PRIME TRX40 PRO and the tech specs say that it can run ECC and non-ECC but not if ECC will be available…

If you're on Linux, dmesg containing EDAC MC0: Giving out device to module amd64_edac is a pretty reliable indication that ECC is working. See my blog post about it (it was top of HN): https://sunshowers.io/posts/am5-ryzen-7000-ecc-ram/

My `dmesg` tells:

    EDAC MC0: Giving out device to module igen6_edac controller Intel_client_SoC MC#0: DEV 0000:00:00.0 (INTERRUPT)
    EDAC MC1: Giving out device to module igen6_edac controller Intel_client_SoC MC#1: DEV 0000:00:00.0 (INTERRUPT)
but `dmidecode --type 16` says:

    Error Correction Type: None
    Error Information Handle: Not Provided

Re: I am giving up on Intel and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D

#223

Post by sunshowers »

oneshtein wrote: post #222
sunshowers wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're on Linux, dmesg containing EDAC MC0: Giving out device to module amd64_edac is a pretty reliable indication that ECC is working. See my blog post about it (it was top of HN): https://sunshowers.io/posts/am5-ryzen-7000-ecc-ram/

My `dmesg` tells: EDAC MC0: Giving out device to module igen6_edac controller Intel_client_SoC MC#0: DEV 0000:00:00.0 (INTERRUPT) EDAC MC1: Giving out device to module igen6_edac controller Intel_client_SoC MC#1: DEV 0000:00:00.0 (INTERRUPT) but `dmidecode --type 16` says: Error Correction Type: None Error Information Handle: Not Provided

To be honest I don't know how Intel works, my post is limited to AMD.

Re: I am giving up on Intel and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D

#224

Post by magicalhippo »

enronmusk wrote: post #119

If OP's CPU cooler (Noctua NH-D15 G2) wasn't able to cool down his CPU below 100C, he must have been (intentionally or unintentionally with Asus multi core enhancement) overclocked his CPU. Or he didn't apply thermal paste properly or didn't remove the cooler plastic sticker? I have followed his blog for years and hold him in high respect so I am surprised he has done that and expected stability at 100C regardless of…

He did have the Fractal Define 7 Compact case, and the pictures[1] only show a single 140mm case fan. From personal experience the Fractal Define cases are great at sound reduction due to the thermal padding, but those pads also insulates well.

Given the motherboard and RAM will also generate quite some heat, if the case fan profile was conservative (he does mention he likes low noise), could be the insides got quite toasty.

Back when I got my 2080 Ti, I had this issue when gaming. The internal temps would get so hot due to the blanket effect of the padding I couldn't touch the components after a gaming session. Had to significantly tweak my fan profiles. His CPU at peak would generate about the same amount of heat as my 2080 Ti + CPU I had then, and I had the non-Compact case with two case fans.

[1]: https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2025-05-15-my-2025-high-...

Re: I am giving up on Intel and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D

#225

Post by jml7c5 »

c0l0 wrote: post #65

I realize this has not much to do with CPU choice per se, but I'm still gonna leave this recommendation here for people who like to build PCs to get stuff done with :) Since I've been able to afford it and the market has had them available, I've been buying desktop systems with proper ECC support. I've been chasing flimsy but very annoying stability problems (some, of course, due to overclocking during my younger yea…

The big problem with ECC for me is that the sticks are so much more expensive. You'd expect ECC UDIMMs to have a price premium of just over 12.5% (because there are 9 chips instead of 8), but it's usually at least 100%. I don't mind paying reasonable premium for ECC, but paying double is too hard to swallow.

Re: I am giving up on Intel and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D

#226

Post by topspin »

stavros wrote: post #14
whyoh wrote: post #3

It's crazy how unreliable CPUs have become in the last 5 years or so, both AMD and Intel. And it seems they're all running at their limit from the factory, whereas 10-20 years ago they usually had ample headroom for overclocking.

That's good, isn't it? I don't want the factory leaving performance on the table.

I do. I've been buying Intel for the same reason as the author: I build machines that don't have glitches and mysterious failures and driver issues and all the rest of the garbage one sees PC assemblers inflict on themselves. Make conservative choices and leave ample headroom and you get a solid machine with no problems.

I've never overclocked anything and I've never felt I've missed out in any way. I really can't imagine spending even one minute trying to squeeze 5% or whatnot tweaking voltages and dealing with plumbing and roaring fans. I want to use the machine, not hotrod it.

I would rather Intel et al. leave a few percent "on the table" and sell things that work, for years on end without failure and without a lot of care and feeding. Lately it looks like a crapshoot trying to identify components that don't kill themselves.

Re: I am giving up on Intel and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D

#227

Post by stavros »

topspin wrote: post #226
stavros wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's good, isn't it? I don't want the factory leaving performance on the table.

I do. I've been buying Intel for the same reason as the author: I build machines that don't have glitches and mysterious failures and driver issues and all the rest of the garbage one sees PC assemblers inflict on themselves. Make conservative choices and leave ample headroom and you get a solid machine with no problems. I've never overclocked anything and I've never felt I've missed out in any way. I really can't im…

So underclock your CPU.

Re: I am giving up on Intel and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D

#228

Post by topspin »

stavros wrote: post #227
topspin wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. I've been buying Intel for the same reason as the author: I build machines that don't have glitches and mysterious failures and driver issues and all the rest of the garbage one sees PC assemblers inflict on themselves. Make conservative choices and leave ample headroom and you get a solid machine with no problems. I've never overclocked anything and I've never felt I've missed out in any way. I really can't im…

So underclock your CPU.

Because I'm not a CPU engineer, and neither are you. Neither of us can claim anything about fucking around with CPU clocks and voltages or anything else about any of this. If you want to screw around in BIOS settings and learn where all the sharp edges are and spend your time like this, enjoy. I've never done this nonsense and I never will.

Re: I am giving up on Intel and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D

#229

Post by stavros »

topspin wrote: post #228
stavros wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So underclock your CPU.

Because I'm not a CPU engineer, and neither are you. Neither of us can claim anything about fucking around with CPU clocks and voltages or anything else about any of this. If you want to screw around in BIOS settings and learn where all the sharp edges are and spend your time like this, enjoy. I've never done this nonsense and I never will.

I know enough to tweak the "voltage" slider down a few numbers, and that's enough to get more stability. Otherwise, I vote with my wallet, and don't buy CPUs that break, which is why companies don't generally make CPUs that break.

Re: I am giving up on Intel and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D

#230

Post by Jnr »

hedora wrote: post #182
imiric wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the same experience with an 8600G on Linux. Very frequent graphics driver crashes and KDE/Wayland freezes, on old and new kernels alike. I've been submitting error reports for months, and the issues still persist. The RAM passes MemTest, and the system otherwise works fine, but the graphics issues are very annoying. It's not like I'm gaming or doing anything intensive either; it happens during plain desktop…

Check dmesg after the driver crashes and restarts. If the crash is something about a ringbuffer timeout, use dmidecode to see what the ram is actually clocked at. Make sure it matches the min of the actual spec of the ram that you bought and what the CPU can do. I used to get crashes like you are describing on a similar machine. The crashes are in the GPU firmware, making debugging a bit of a crap shoot. If you can r…

Initially I also tried debugging, writing reports, etc. Some 8 years later I have given up and just live with the occasional crashes.
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