Some users reported serious problems with the new AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors, which led to destroyed CPUs and mainboards. For such a new product this could be a huge issue. Thanks to the Powenetics v2, I have data and some interesting findings to show you!
I have already reviewed most of the newest AMD CPUs:
As it seems, I was lucky not to have any problems with burnt processors and/or mainboards because of excess power consumption. This is not the case with some users on Reddit, especially Speedrookie, who killed its mobo and CPU. This particular user states that he didn’t overclock his 7800X3D CPU but only used EXPO 1 profile for the RAM. He didn’t notice any temperature or performance issues, and his system was running 24/7 (AKA constantly). The primary use seems to be gaming, according to his description. He left the system idle, and once he tried to use it again, he noticed that the system could not post and got a QCode of 00. The AIO cooling he used was hot, too hot, as he described, showing that it took enormous stress from the CPU, which is weird given that the system was left idle. His system’s specs are shown here. His mention that he left the system idle for quite a while, only to find his processor burnt, led me to investigate the idle log data I got from powenetics.
The fun part here is that ASUS, the maker of the mainboard he used, mentioned that the CPU does not have a warranty from AMD because an EXPO memory profile was used! If this stands, indeed, it is crazy! I should also mention that the user had rolled back to a previous mainboard BIOS because his memory wasn’t stable with the EXPO profile on the newer BIOS. Still, in any case, this doesn’t justify a burnt processor!
So I will show you the data from my Powenetics system, which is the only tool that accurately measures the power consumption of the CPU (and not only) with speeds of more than 1000 readings per sec. This whole story made me look back at all my data, which I will show you. In all cases, I have also enabled the EXPO RAM profile in all of my tests.
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
| State | Power Consumption |
| Idle Peak | 53.189W |
| Idle AVG | 29.364W |
| Blender Peak | 99.782W |
| Prime95 (small FFTs) Peak | 98.021W |
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
| State | Power Consumption |
| Idle Peak (PBO/CO-15) | 130.04W (124.73W) |
| Idle AVG (PBO/CO-15) | 50.531W (45.952W) |
| Blender Peak | 189.586W |
| Prime95 (small FFTs) Peak | 170.352W |
AMD Ryzen 5 7600x
| State | Power Consumption |
| Idle Peak | 62.817W |
| Idle AVG | 37.324W |
| Blender Peak | 127.878W |
| Prime95 (small FFTs) Peak | 118.394W |
AMD Ryzen 9 7900x
| State | Power Consumption |
| Idle Peak | 109.005W |
| Idle AVG | 63.798W |
| Blender Peak | 254.577W |
| Prime95 (small FFTs) Peak | 227.34W |
AMD Ryzen 9 7900
| State | Power Consumption |
| Idle Peak | 94.354W |
| Idle AVG | 48.636W |
| Blender Peak | 137.948W |
| Prime95 (small FFTs) Peak | 128.404W |
There are some interesting facts here, which I didn’t pay much attention to during the reviews because I only look at the average values and not the peak ones in idle. In the 7950X3D, there is a high spike during idle at 130W, which is unjustified because the peak CPU load is only 3.53%. Even with the Curve Optimized enabled and a -15 setting, the idle power spike is close to 125W, so something is happening there. On the 7800X3D, the spike during idle stays low, but this is not the case for the 7900X, which has an idle power spike at 109W, while the peak CPU load at idle was at 5.12%, so these 109W are not justified, either.
I tested the CPUs above in three mainboards from Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte. You will find more details on the test systems in the corresponding reviews, and so far, I didn’t pay great attention to the IDLE readings because I didn’t encounter any issues. But as it seems, some power spikes occurred, and thanks to the Powenetics system, which I have connected 24/7 on my test systems and the logs I keep, I found them now that this problem came to the surface. I didn’t face any burnt components, though, as the users on Reddit and YT reported, but during the short time, 15-20 minutes, that I measure power consumption in idle, these spikes occur in the 7950X3D processor; there might be even higher spikes during prolonged idle periods. From the moment the mainboard manufacturers started releasing BIOS to cope with this issue, it won’t be anything important if you ask me. I’ve already talked to some of my industry contacts, who told me that the RMA rates of the 7000 series are lower than those of the 5000 series, so don’t let these stories prevent you from getting a new AMD CPU.
Old bios equals no 7000X3D support, but 7000 and 7000X3D is nearly the same, so it still posts with 7000 series specs. Motherboard man. have been known to bump idle voltage for single core max clocks to get better reviews. AMD locked out overclocking X3D but motherboard man. bypassed this for sales. On top of that you have AM5 systems running faulty PCIM RAM. Enabling EXPO reads the faulty PCIM and you get faulty results on power management. Your welcome. 😛
I went immediately with the update, updated the BIOS without a CPU on my mainboards.