This cannot be right... AX370 Gaming K7 with Ryzen 3700X

[LFX64]

You know that common issue so many people are having? Crazy boosting under low-level loads? Well I have that with my new Ryzen 3700X. Temps are okay. Paste application perfect. CPU seating fine. However, even though I have updated the BIOS in succession and perfectly to the instructions of Gigabyte and updated the chipset drivers, this 3700X will simply not stop boosting on measly loads. It's boosting to 4.3GHz on all cores, frequently, some times as much as 4.4GHz and the fan is spinning like crazy (I have a Noctua NH-U12S S3 AM4 with additional fan for push/pull) and this was great for my 95w 1600X.

The boosting is so frequent and done for such small loads that I'm more or less hovering on a constant 1.4v on all cores, even if they're technically not all pegged at that voltage that is what I am averaging. This isn't right yet it's so damn common I see countless threads all over the Internet with the same damn problem.

This isn't normal. I think the only thing I can do now is adjust the offset by a enormous -0.1500v. The problem is the boosting. If it didn't go bananas and boost like crazy 99% of the time, this processor would be ideal. Could this be addressed in future BIOS updates? I'm sick of this. I miss the layout and features of ASUS boards.

[Fred155]

Is the fan noise the issue? - You could probably tune it with Smart Fan in the UEFI, or use a fan control program...

4.4ghz is the max boost for the 3700x, so the 4.3 to 4.4 you're seeing seems within spec.

Setting a negative offset on the vcore will likely lead to clock-stretching, which probably isn't desirable.

I'm guessing you actually want the highest performance the 3700x can give, when you're actually pushing it...
The problem is, there's no way for a typical program to say to the CPU "don't bother boosting, I've only got a little bit of work for you".

If you're in linux, there are different CPU schedulers that are more / less aggressive than the default (and control how quickly the CPU boosts up / down).
If you're in windows, there might be a lot of background tasks / services contributing to the issue.

You could set a lower temperature / PPT / EDC target for the CPU and / or watch the voltage and power draw in Ryzen Master.

Ultimately, isn't this how the platform is designed? Boost whenever there is work to do, and back off when there's no work?

Apologies if I've missed your point... But maybe you could describe what "normal" is that you are seeking?

[LFX64]

Yes part of the issue is fan noise, though it's not excessive as I'm using a Noctua but the real annoyance was the revving up and down of the fans because of the crazy boost. I never had this issue on the Ryzen 1600X. If constant revving up and down of the fans is normal because of Ryzen's crazy boost design, then it's bad design.

The average voltage because of the constant boosting was leaving the chip more or less settling at around 1.4v with it rarely downclocking to .900, which is unacceptable. I've set the offset to -0.1v and I've set a custom fan curve in BIOS. I've not noticed any degradation in performance in games yet. All-core boost seems to be 4.2GHz and I'm happy with that. The offset seems to have tamed the sporadic behaviour somewhat and the custom fan curve has shut up the fan. I set it to peak at max RPM when hitting 75c so desktop operation, even when boosting, has no fan noise. This is tolerable.

[shadowsports]

Was just replying when you posted this...

Greetings,
It might be helpful for us to have your system specs.  The behavior you are describing is likely the result a few things.  Memory, and BIOS.  What BIOS are you running?  For your 3700X, I think I would have stuck with F40.  There is no need for successive updates if your system was/is stable.  Latest is not also best.   

Fred155 has asked the right questions.  What are you unhappy with?  The noise or the performance. I suspect the latter.

***Edit, it sounds like you have made a little progress.

[Fred155]

As long as you're happy.... maybe do a performance test before and after your vcore changes, just to make sure.

"Lowering vcore a lot will initiate “clock stretching,” with the result that monitoring software will report normal/higher clocks while actual performance drops." - https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3494-amd-ryzen-3000-undervolting-offset-override

I personally don't like fan speed changes, so I've locked them at 40% speed until CPU temps hit 80 degrees Celsius, only then is there a fan speed change.
But this type of approach is cooling / setup dependent, and sacrifices a small amount of performance for a perfectly steady background noise.

After all, performance is always a trade-off with noise from the cooling, until you place the machine away from the user (i.e. optical thunderbolt to move the entire case away from the interactive components (display, mouse, keyboard, usb, etc)).

[absic]

Just to throw my thoughts into the mix.

The AX370 Gaming K7 was one of the first motherboards to come out when Ryzen CPU's came along and was basically designed for the Ryzen 1700 processors and up. The Ryzen 3000+ processors are better matched with a 570 motherboard, to make full use of their updated specs.

Yes, the Ryzen 3000+ cpu's will run on these older boards but, there are bound to be glitches and limitations as they can only run within the limits of the Ryzen 1700+ processors that these boards were originally designed for. BIOS updates allow for the new CPU's to run but this is not a perfect solution and is one of the weaknesses of the AMD system with regard to backwards compatibility.