Oh darn... I was feeling pretty good about my Gigabyte X370 Gaming 5 for $138 until I read this thread. I'm glad I found it before I build my new Ryzen rig though so I can go straight to Ket's superior firmware. Ket, you are my hero. Thank you so much!

Anyway, I wanted to chime in about my experience with weak VRM's. Thoughtful fan placement helps a lot here. I've got a old overclocked AMD FX 8120 paired with a MSI 970A-G43. I learned a lot about VRM's with that damn MSI board. No heatsinks, CPU Throttling routinely with renders... Anyway, the game changer here is having at least one good case fan blowing right on the VRMs/VRM Heatsink. I installed a DIY heatsink as well, but the fan makes most of the difference.

On youtube Actually Hardcore Overclocking talks about using a fan on the VRMs for the Gigabyte X370 K5 motherboard while overclocking.
https://youtu.be/ZB7NG1PkGEQ?t=1m29s


The first thing I'll do when my CPU shows up next week is remove that stupid AORIS plastic shield to get more air on the VRMs... that and a pile of fans.

Zitat von CRCinAU im Beitrag #180

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So regarding the Opcache Control.... It has 3 options... Enabled, Disabled, or Auto.

My question is, which of these options forces opcache to stay on, and which one forces it off?

As you probably know, the linux bug with opcache is somewhat annoying and can cause the compiler to crash - although since trying to replicate the crashes now I got my butt into gear to contact AMD for an RMA, I can't get the CPU to cause a segfault.

Previously, it used to segfault gcc in under 10 minutes.... Now its been running for 34 minutes with no issues....

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Zitat von CarryTrainer.Editor im Beitrag #181

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Oh darn... I was feeling pretty good about my Gigabyte X370 Gaming 5 for $138 until I read this thread. I'm glad I found it before I build my new Ryzen rig though so I can go straight to Ket's superior firmware. Ket, you are my hero. Thank you so much!

Anyway, I wanted to chime in about my experience with weak VRM's. Thoughtful fan placement helps a lot here. I've got a old overclocked AMD FX 8120 paired with a MSI 970A-G43. I learned a lot about VRM's with that damn MSI board. No heatsinks, CPU Throttling routinely with renders... Anyway, the game changer here is having at least one good case fan blowing right on the VRMs/VRM Heatsink. I installed a DIY heatsink as well, but the fan makes most of the difference.

On youtube Actually Hardcore Overclocking talks about using a fan on the VRMs for the Gigabyte X370 K5 motherboard while overclocking.
https://youtu.be/ZB7NG1PkGEQ?t=1m29s


The first thing I'll do when my CPU shows up next week is remove that stupid AORIS plastic shield to get more air on the VRMs... that and a pile of fans.

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I came across a motherboard review from Hardware Canucks where they claim they were able to stabilize the cpu using the Extreme Load-line Calibration (LLC) setting.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/har...-review-17.html

Essentially they were trying to stay as close to 1.35 as possible, so they used LLC cranked up to Extreme and reduced the voltage to 1.325V to compensate. With these settings in a AIDA64 stability test, "The Vcore overwhelmingly stayed at 1.344V with the occasional spike up to 1.356V." From what I've read about LLC online, I'm skeptical about these results. I would expect wild voltage spikes much great than plus or minus 0.02V. Is this bogus?

I'll likely test this when my cpu arrives later this week, Extreme LLC at low voltages of course...

Zitat von CarryTrainer.Editor im Beitrag #184

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I came across a motherboard review from Hardware Canucks where they claim they were able to stabilize the cpu using the Extreme Load-line Calibration (LLC) setting.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/har...-review-17.html

Essentially they were trying to stay as close to 1.35 as possible, so they used LLC cranked up to Extreme and reduced the voltage to 1.325V to compensate. With these settings in a AIDA64 stability test, "The Vcore overwhelmingly stayed at 1.344V with the occasional spike up to 1.356V." From what I've read about LLC online, I'm skeptical about these results. I would expect wild voltage spikes much great than plus or minus 0.02V. Is this bogus?

I'll likely test this when my cpu arrives later this week, Extreme LLC at low voltages of course...

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Zitat von ket im Beitrag #183

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1. Replace the plastic standoffs on the heatsinks with rubber ones. This will allow the heatsinks to be tightened down more improving thermal transfer to the heatsinks
2. Replace the stock thermal pads with some Laird 6W/m-k pads.
3. If the situation allows turn any rear exhaust fans into intake fans.

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FYI - My motherboard is staying pretty cool.

First, I followed KET's advice on the motherboard heatsinks: 1) Replaced the thermal pad on the chipset heatsink with cpu thermal paste and screwed it back on and 2) removed the plastic standoffs on the two VRM heatsinks... I didn't have any rubber standoffs, so I replaced the standoffs with small squares of electrical tape(made a tiny hole for the screw to go through). Then I tightened down the VRM heatsink screws as much as I could... at first the motherboard was bending, so loosened until it a little till it was straight again. Also, I was lazy and re-used the Gigabyte thermal tape...

Next, I added a stacked pair of 120mm fans blowing straight down on the VRMs. I'm using a old liquid cooler. If your using a good air cooler blowing air around, this might not be necessary.

Anyway, with this setup and my 1700X the chipset and VRM MOS temps are staying cool between 30-45 C.

Still figuring out the limits, but I'm getting 4Ghz no problem here...

UNRESPONSIVE CPU CLOCK SETTINGS IN BIOS - FIX

Earlier today on my Gigabyte X370 Gaming 5 board I noticed the CPU Clock speed was locked or stuck at the default speed. No matter what CPU Ratio or speed I set, it kept booting at the default 1700X 3400 mhz. Changes could be made with the AMD Ryzen Master software in windows, however it would reset back to 3400 mhz after rebooting. This seems to be a common problem with Gigabyte bios... I got it while running the experimental Gaming 5 bios is this thread.

To fix it I repeated some steps from KET's bios flashing process:

1) turned off the power
2) cleared the CMOS (jumper)
3) removed the clock battery
4) hit the power button three times and waited two minutes.
5) put clock batter back, plug in power and start the computer...

After that you can still load your saved bios profiles. If your Gigabyte motherboard is acting funny, I recommend giving this a try.

1700X with Gigabyte Gaming 5 - 4,075 Mhz at 1.375 Volts with Extreme LLC

I'm getting good results with the Extreme LLC setting on the Gaming 5 Motherboard according to my HW Info voltage reading. I don't trust that 100%, but it's the best reading I've got. Between 1.35-1.39 settings, I was seeing about 20 millivolts up and down. Within that test range, my 1700X topped out at 4,075 Mhz. I was seeing a big voltage gap between 4,075 and 4,100 mhz. Anyway, I'm happy with 4,075.

Walking the voltage back down to the minimum for stability, here are my 1700X settings:
4,075 Mhz with a static 1.37500 CPU Voltage and Extreme LLC.

Limited stability testing so far - Little over 5 minutes of Prime95 and plenty of Cinebench tests [Scored 1,793]

The voltage readings at idle in the bios read 1.39-1.40 volts, but read 1.375-1.38 in Windows with CPU-Z and HW Info. Either way that's ok by me. I just want to stay under the 1.425 threshold AMD recommends for not harming your cpu.

Cheers

Zitat von CarryTrainer.Editor im Beitrag #189

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1700X with Gigabyte Gaming 5 - 4,075 Mhz at 1.375 Volts with Extreme LLC

I'm getting good results with the Extreme LLC setting on the Gaming 5 Motherboard according to my HW Info voltage reading. I don't trust that 100%, but it's the best reading I've got. Between 1.35-1.39 settings, I was seeing about 20 millivolts up and down. Within that test range, my 1700X topped out at 4,075 Mhz. I was seeing a big voltage gap between 4,075 and 4,100 mhz. Anyway, I'm happy with 4,075.

Walking the voltage back down to the minimum for stability, here are my 1700X settings:
4,075 Mhz with a static 1.37500 CPU Voltage and Extreme LLC.

Limited stability testing so far - Little over 5 minutes of Prime95 and plenty of Cinebench tests [Scored 1,793]

The voltage readings at idle in the bios read 1.39-1.40 volts, but read 1.375-1.38 in Windows with CPU-Z and HW Info. Either way that's ok by me. I just want to stay under the 1.425 threshold AMD recommends for not harming your cpu.

Cheers

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Zitat von orondf343 im Beitrag #186

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Zitat von ket im Beitrag #183

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1. Replace the plastic standoffs on the heatsinks with rubber ones. This will allow the heatsinks to be tightened down more improving thermal transfer to the heatsinks
2. Replace the stock thermal pads with some Laird 6W/m-k pads.
3. If the situation allows turn any rear exhaust fans into intake fans.

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I'm considering performing some of these mods in the future (but not so soon since I would need to remove my CPU cooler to access the VRMs, my 1700 is EDIT: Being RMAed right now due to segfaults among other thing)
Can you provide a bit more detail on where to get said thermal pads and standoffs? Which thickness or kind of pad is recommended and links to international sellers is all I need.

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Just ran User Benchmark for fun:

UserBenchmarks: Game 78%, Desk 93%, Work 99%
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X - 103%
GPU: AMD R9 390 - 75.3%
SSD: Toshiba HG5d Q Series 256GB - 84.4%
HDD: Toshiba X300 6TB - 90.7%
HDD: Seagate Video SV35.6 Series 2TB - 53.4%
HDD: WD WD1004FBYZ-01YCBB1 1TB - 87.8%
USB: ASMT 2105 1TB - 73.1%
RAM: Crucial BLS16G4D240FSC.16FBR 2x16GB - 95.1%
MBD: Gigabyte GA-AX370-Gaming 5


As you can see using KET's bios I've been able to get the most out of the CPU and ram. Thanks again

Hey thanks for what you are doing,im so disapointed with the gigabyte bios looking on how the others have a lot of options and mine seems like fisherprice bios.

I have the GA-AX370-gaming K3.

No problem guys. If I find time I'll do a quick UB run.

I only registered here to say thank you so much for this bios for my brand new ax370 gaming 5! its opened a whole new world up for overclocking my ryzen7 1700

Could you possibly do another one and change the boot screen to the RYZEN logo?

Although i dont know how to use the P state section, i am aware its needed to sort out the cpu downclocking features, what the hell are gigabyte thinking leaving this essential module out?

thank you.

Paul.

The bios flashed perfectly!

So, How does that p-state thing work then? at the top of the page i can select between 1 and 7 but there are 7 other options below it not working, mine is the gaming 5 board. can the bios boot logo be changed.

i flashed with your gaming 5 to k7 bios revision