# Is it worth upgrading a 3950X to 5950X for orchestral work?



## Dunshield (Jun 17, 2021)

I've been away from the PC building game for a while.

Title said it all: *is it worth upgrading a 3950X to the 5950X* ?

Specifically asking for orchestral work, with quite some samples loaded, VSTi's + plugins running .. the usual.

Rest of my system:
- G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200 RAM, 32GBx4 = 128 GB, CL 16-18-18-38
- Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master mobo

Just wondering if the upgrade will make a noticeable difference.
Also in terms of heat, power use etc.

* On a side note, I noticed that my 3950X constantly ramps down in temperature, from say 71°C to 64°C, than jumps back up to 71°C and the cycle starts again. This is happening constantly, each cycle taking a few seconds. Am monitioring this with Core Temp)

If anyone has any experience with this swap/upgrade from 3950X to 5950X, I would love to hear from you.

Cheers


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## Wedge (Jun 17, 2021)

I'm starting to feel like it's Windows day. 

According to benchmarks, the 5950x is about 16% - 21% faster. So it would definately help but not be jaw dropping. The powerdraw should be the same.

If your fans are winding up and down the first thing to try is to turn off Turbo Boost. It's meant for short bursts and gets hot pretty quick. What your using your machine for isn't for short bursts. In the Bios (usually F2 or DEL at boot, I think for Gigbyte it's DEL, just keep tapping it until your system beeps.) Change the CPU multiplier from auto to the speed of your CPU - so your multiplier would be 35 because your base clock is 3.5. More than likely that will take care of the fans winding and your heat issue.

If that doesn't work I would recommend cleaning all fans and vents, including cpu fan and heatsink. - --- - Warning - - Never use compressed air outside if you live in a humid climate, you will ice things up and break them. In the desert it's great, no clean up.

You might want to increase the fans or upgrade the case fans and CPU fan if the temps still aren't great. And re thermal paste the CPU to the heatsink, clean off the old with rubbing alcohol.

If the temps are good but it's still too loud, replace the fans as above or buy a quiet case. Your machine will run a little warmer but from my experience it's totally worth it.

I would try that stuff above before upgrading, unless I just felt like I wanted to upgrade. In which case, enjoy your 5950x it should be an easy upgrade that just fits in your current motherboard. I would pick a up a thirdparty heatsink/cpu fan as well as third party thermal paste- something like artic silver. If you do this don't forget to change the CPU multiplier in BIOS back to auto or to the base clock of the 5950x.

have an awesome evening dude.


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## Dunshield (Jun 18, 2021)

Judd said:


> I'm starting to feel like it's Windows day.
> 
> According to benchmarks, the 5950x is about 16% - 21% faster. So it would definately help but not be jaw dropping. The powerdraw should be the same.
> 
> ...


Hi Judd, thanks for your reply! I tried the Bios tweaks that you suggested, sadly none have made an impact. I am running five 120 mm Noctua case fans, and a NHD15S Noctua CPU cooler. I used Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut paste. I'm not really worried about the temp cycles tbh, its been there since the beginning and I figured it was an AMD architecture thing. Maybe this is different with the newer 5950X.


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## stixman (Jun 18, 2021)

Pictus may know


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## easyrider (Jun 18, 2021)

I think if you can sell the 3950x and get a 5950x its worth it….Might as well max out AM4 socket while you can.

The upgrade is worth it if you can recoup some cost from selling the 3950x


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## Wedge (Jun 18, 2021)

Dunshield said:


> Hi Judd, thanks for your reply! I tried the Bios tweaks that you suggested, sadly none have made an impact. I am running five 120 mm Noctua case fans, and a NHD15S Noctua CPU cooler. I used Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut paste. I'm not really worried about the temp cycles tbh, its been there since the beginning and I figured it was an AMD architecture thing. Maybe this is different with the newer 5950X.


Yeah, sounds like you should be fine temp wise.

I was just looking through my system and I saw something I forgot... I had a similar problem when I first built this machine and I solved it by going to Control Panel > Power Options > Next to "AMD Ryzen Balanced" (which is the selected plan on my machine) click 'Change plan settings' > Change advanced power settings > Processor power management > Maximum processor state > set to 99%. I totally forgot about that. Hopefully that will work, fingers crossed.

You might want to look at the fan curve in the BIOS as well. It should have different speed options as well as a custom that you can choose by temp.

As someone else posted if you can sell the 3950x to help fund the upgrade, it's probably worth it.


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## Pictus (Jun 18, 2021)

That is the way they work, no problem, the temperature is good.
Make sure to install the latest BIOS(pay attention to the motherboard revision) and chipset driver.
For AMD 3000, change the Power Plan to "*AMD Ryzen Balanced*" or the
hotter "AMD Ryzen High Performance" profile.
(Ryzen 5000 uses the same plan as Intel, not the special made for Ryzen 3000)






In the BIOS, set "Temperature Interval" to 5 for the fans.





You may try to use some negative vcore offset.








AMD Ryzen 3000 Undervolting Offset vs. Override | Vcore Voltage


We did this stock, set to 1V vcore in BIOS, and then with the best negative vcore offset we could manage, which was usually .05V. We also ran Blender and logged frequency, but the Cinebench numbers are plenty for now. -




www.gamersnexus.net










With the 5000 series we can use the "Curve Optimize" to undervolt the CPU!


*My recommendations:*
- PBO Limits PPT/TDC/EDC = default
- Precision Boost Overdrive Scalar = 1
- Max CPU Boost Clock Override = *0*MHz
- Curve Optimizer = Per Core
- Curve Optimizer Sign = Negative
- Curve Optimizer Magnitude = start with 10
Run the script https://www.overclock.net/threads/c...timizer-settings.1777398/page-4#post-28789931
IF any Core fails, change to 5
The ones that pass, change to 15
Run the script again and repeat the process... Up to 30
Take note of the values you can use for each Core.

I also recommend to enable AVX for the script.
Edit the Local.txt
CpuSupportsAVX=1
Funny, *here *I have the impression that AVX was more sensitive than AVX2. 
Anyway, when you find the right offset for each core, enable the AVX2 to
see if they still can pass the test.
CpuSupportsAVX2=1

When using the "Curve Optimize", best set the "Minimum processor state" to no less than 10%.


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## Buz (Jun 18, 2021)

I haven't done the upgrade but been keeping an eye out. 5950x looks like a good jump but you still pay a bit more than what you're getting. I think if you get a great deal on it and also fetch a good price for the 3950x it's a no-brainer. But those two factors are inversely correlated so that scenario would require some effort/flexibility/timing. And 3950x remains no worse than it was.


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## Dunshield (Jun 18, 2021)

Pictus said:


> That is the way they work, no problem, the temperature is good.
> Make sure to install the latest BIOS(pay attention to the motherboard revision) and chipset driver.
> For AMD 3000, change the Power Plan to "*AMD Ryzen Balanced*" or the
> hotter "AMD Ryzen High Performance" profile.
> ...



Thanks Pictus!

Turns out I never installed those chipset drivers .. glad to have that done now. Lets see how the system behaves the coming days.


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## Dunshield (Jun 18, 2021)

Judd said:


> Yeah, sounds like you should be fine temp wise.
> 
> I was just looking through my system and I saw something I forgot... I had a similar problem when I first built this machine and I solved it by going to Control Panel > Power Options > Next to "AMD Ryzen Balanced" (which is the selected plan on my machine) click 'Change plan settings' > Change advanced power settings > Processor power management > Maximum processor state > set to 99%. I totally forgot about that. Hopefully that will work, fingers crossed.
> 
> ...


Interesting tip Judd! I have applied that 99% adjustment. Will report back.


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## colony nofi (Jun 18, 2021)

Thought it was worth quickly pointing out that for sample based workflows, Zen3 saw significant improvements over zen2 (greater than the ~15-18% generational improvements) when it came to LOW latency operation. So, if you happen to work at 64 or even 128 samples, there is much to gain going to Zen3. 

Indeed, you'll potentially also see <25% benefit for sessions where you might see CPU spikes yet your overall workload of the CPU is well below 70%. This is often something called the core zero problem, and relates to the need for a single core to do a bunch of work in order for real-time audio to work properly. Since Zen3 gained significantly in single core performance, we also saw a significant bump in performance for sample based audio / DAW use. The benchmarks I've seen show anything up to 30% improvement on single core performance. YMMV.


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## Audio Birdi (Jun 19, 2021)

Think I may upgrade from a 3900 non-X to the 3d-stacked version of the 5950x which is apparently coming towards the end of the year, this version further increases performance of the already amazing-gains of the Ryzen 5000 / Zen 3 series.


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## colony nofi (Jun 20, 2021)

Audio Birdi said:


> Think I may upgrade from a 3900 non-X to the 3d-stacked version of the 5950x which is apparently coming towards the end of the year, this version further increases performance of the already amazing-gains of the Ryzen 5000 / Zen 3 series.


Or - if you are going to wait, just wait for zen3 TR...


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## easyrider (Jun 21, 2021)

Audio Birdi said:


> Think I may upgrade from a 3900 non-X to the 3d-stacked version of the 5950x which is apparently coming towards the end of the year, this version further increases performance of the already amazing-gains of the Ryzen 5000 / Zen 3 series.


Waiting to upgrade is futile….when you upgrade DDR5 will be on the horizon….

😂


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## Dunshield (Jun 21, 2021)

A quick update - I can't say I notice a difference with the proper drivers and software bios tweaks on this current 3950X setup. But hey I'm super thankful for the tips; my system will probably behave better under stress now.

As suggested, if I get a good deal on a 5950x and a good price for my current CPU, I'll do the swap. Maybe even wait for the 3D-stacked version update (thx @AudioBirdi for that tip). Will post my findings back here in case that happens.

Yeaahh Zen3 TR for sure is on my radar too! Let's see how things evolve in this space.

Cheers guys


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