Ryzen 3rd Gen CPU Voltage/Frequency/Power - Still a thing

[c00lkatz]

So I've noticed with the latest iCUE and RAM f/w updates, the CPU usage in Task Manager has been greatly reduced, and iCUE no longer shows a high power usage.

 

However, when iCUE is open, monitoring with Ryzen Master, my CPU core frequencies stay higher, the cores never sleep, the CPU/SOC power stays higher, as a result the CPU temps stay about 5-7C higher, the PPT/TDC/EDC current stays higher, and my average core voltage doesn't go below 1.40V. Also, in Task Manager, CPU frequency never goes below 4.00GHz, staying mostly in the 4.2GHz range. This is all with iCUE open but minimized, no other applications running other than Ryzen Master and Task Manager.

 

When I close iCUE, no other changes, my CPU frequencies stay much lower, the cores actually start to sleep, the CPU/SOC Power and PPT/TDC/EDC Current all get cut by more than half, my CPU idles 35-40C vs 40-43C, and my average core voltage dips to well below 1.00V (typically 0.6-0.8V). In Task Manager, my CPU frequency starts to dip well below 4.0GHz.

 

Is this REALLY still a thing with Corsair iCUE? CPU usage for iCUE and the Corsair service now report low in Task Manager, but it's still keeping Ryzen CPUs awake and consuming excessive power and generating excessive heat. This is getting ridiculous...

[c-attack]

Well, people (apparently) like to see maximum performance from their CPU and Intel/AMD continue to refine behavior to be more responsive and do tasks quicker. The last several generations from both designers have become more reactive to any type of action, including low level lying background programs. The days of Sandy Bridge chips sitting flat like a pancake at idle are long gone. The counterbalance to that is is power management on the CPU hardware level that we cannot see with standard software monitoring, but the end result is just because the core frequency is elevated, does not mean it is necessarily consuming power.

 

The behavior you are describing is what happens when you close any program that was in focus. If you took some some low level game and shrunk the window to 800x600, would you expect it use zero CPU/GPU resources? Of course not. iCUE is a graphic overlay with a high object count and little graphs to render. That requires some level of hardware resources. If you want to lessen that, you wind up with an all text display, something like HWiNFO. Would you rather iCUE looked like that? Regardless, you can minimize hardware usage by keeping in the tray. If you do keep it up, recognize some pages use more resources than others. The KB display is going to be the worst with 100+ objects rendered for color and movement in real time. The fan lighting page could also be a larger hit depending on how many and what type of fans you have. 10 QL is 350 LEDs to display. Depending on what you do with your dashboard, that one could be a use a bit as well. When I do keep it up, I prefer my Commander Pro temp and fan page. It is a minimal amount of resources and equivalent to what AIDA would use without iCUE running.

 

I am not sure how you would resolve this situation. Chip makers are not going to change their behavior and will do whatever they want. Is it reasonable to tell all software programmers they must now use 90s era text only displays? Really it's going to be on all of us to adjust. The suggestions above can help take levels to lowest possible levels. As for the "excessive heat" created by moving your idle temperature up +3-5C, you know that has absolutely no impact on longevity or immediate hardware health. Good thing. It would be rather hard to criticize that and then turn around and do something monstrously cruel like a CPU render or play games that raise the CPU temp by 20-40C. There also is the option not to run iCUE at all. Most devices are now hardware profile capable and are operational without the software. It might not be as much fun, but then -3C at idle isn't really that much fun either.

[donalgodon]

So I've noticed with the latest iCUE and RAM f/w updates, the CPU usage in Task Manager has been greatly reduced, and iCUE no longer shows a high power usage.

 

However, when iCUE is open, monitoring with Ryzen Master, my CPU core frequencies stay higher, the cores never sleep, the CPU/SOC power stays higher, as a result the CPU temps stay about 5-7C higher, the PPT/TDC/EDC current stays higher, and my average core voltage doesn't go below 1.40V. Also, in Task Manager, CPU frequency never goes below 4.00GHz, staying mostly in the 4.2GHz range. This is all with iCUE open but minimized, no other applications running other than Ryzen Master and Task Manager.

 

When I close iCUE, no other changes, my CPU frequencies stay much lower, the cores actually start to sleep, the CPU/SOC Power and PPT/TDC/EDC Current all get cut by more than half, my CPU idles 35-40C vs 40-43C, and my average core voltage dips to well below 1.00V (typically 0.6-0.8V). In Task Manager, my CPU frequency starts to dip well below 4.0GHz.

 

Is this REALLY still a thing with Corsair iCUE? CPU usage for iCUE and the Corsair service now report low in Task Manager, but it's still keeping Ryzen CPUs awake and consuming excessive power and generating excessive heat. This is getting ridiculous...

 

It is. I sadly went a different direction and removed all my Corsair products because of it and went with Logitech peripherals. Their software doesn't peg voltage, increase temps, etc.

[CanuckBrian]

It is. I sadly went a different direction and removed all my Corsair products because of it and went with Logitech peripherals. Their software doesn't peg voltage, increase temps, etc.

 

I'm researching this now. I'm in the same boat. Unfortunately I drank a lot of the Corsair RGB kool-aid and now I'm in for an expensive swap-out.

 

- K70 Rapidfire Keyboard

- Dark Core RGB Mouse

- Corsair RAM

- Corsair LL fans and controller including argb adapter to control case RGB strips

 

I have some old ThermalTake Riing Plus fans, but they don't offer the same capabilities as the Corsair products do.

 

I absolutely love the quality of the hardware from Corsair. The keyboard and mouse are fantastic. Even the capabilities of the software I like. I just can't take that the software puts unnecessary load on my CPU causing more power consumption and heat at idle. It's truly too bad that their software has this side effect in it and they refuse to acknowledge it or resolve it. They're losing a customer in me, and obviously others.

[LeDoyen]

I went the same route and finished removing today the last of corsair gear i had.

 

I just removed the Commander Pro to go back to motherboard fan control with Asus AI suite.

Same result, same fan curves controlled by GPU temp.. plugged the coolant temperature sensor to the motherboard in case i want to use it.

 

Removed all LED strips, i have standard RGB ones coming in the mail on monday with more than twice the number of LEDs for the same length = less visual hotspots

 

Removed all the HD120 fans, replaced by EK Vardar X3M. At the same speed i gained roughly 2°C in coolant temperature, just because they are made to work with rads and have better static pressure.. And they are as loud at 1600 rpm as the HD120 are at 1200..

 

Sold my K70 to a friend today, and got a Logitech G815. It doesnt suffer from the same bugs Corsair keyboards have which is.. i can now type my bitlocker password.. and it doesn't change lenguage whenever it feels like it. Ditched the Nightsword mouse for a G502 i already had. Same experience as donalgodon : G Hub has zero CPU load.. Only the spectrum visualizer does put a bit of load for obvious reasons, but i don't use it.. and no need to buy a logitech headset to enable lighting keyboard leds.

 

All i have left is the Vengeance RGB ram, which is turned off.

Now i can monitor the HX1200i on HWinfo which is a big bonus.

 

My CPU idles at 1% load instead of 5 - 6% when iCUE was installed. and my games run perfectly.

 

I was satisfied with the Corsair hardware. The fans were not performers but i knew it, and the PC was far from overheating so it was OK.. but dodgy firmwares and iCUE completely ruined the whole system.

It's a great program, the RGB options are awesome and plentiful, the CoPro possibilities, the Asus plugin.. everything was great except that stupid CPU load that killed gaming experience.

I wish Corsair hired qualified developpers instead of putting out light towers and RGB headset stands.

[BahamutxD]

I went the same route and finished removing today the last of corsair gear i had.

 

I just removed the Commander Pro to go back to motherboard fan control with Asus AI suite.

Same result, same fan curves controlled by GPU temp.. plugged the coolant temperature sensor to the motherboard in case i want to use it.

 

Removed all LED strips, i have standard RGB ones coming in the mail on monday with more than twice the number of LEDs for the same length = less visual hotspots

 

Removed all the HD120 fans, replaced by EK Vardar X3M. At the same speed i gained roughly 2°C in coolant temperature, just because they are made to work with rads and have better static pressure.. And they are as loud at 1600 rpm as the HD120 are at 1200..

 

Sold my K70 to a friend today, and got a Logitech G815. It doesnt suffer from the same bugs Corsair keyboards have which is.. i can now type my bitlocker password.. and it doesn't change lenguage whenever it feels like it. Ditched the Nightsword mouse for a G502 i already had. Same experience as donalgodon : G Hub has zero CPU load.. Only the spectrum visualizer does put a bit of load for obvious reasons, but i don't use it.. and no need to buy a logitech headset to enable lighting keyboard leds.

 

All i have left is the Vengeance RGB ram, which is turned off.

Now i can monitor the HX1200i on HWinfo which is a big bonus.

 

My CPU idles at 1% load instead of 5 - 6% when iCUE was installed. and my games run perfectly.

 

I was satisfied with the Corsair hardware. The fans were not performers but i knew it, and the PC was far from overheating so it was OK.. but dodgy firmwares and iCUE completely ruined the whole system.

It's a great program, the RGB options are awesome and plentiful, the CoPro possibilities, the Asus plugin.. everything was great except that stupid CPU load that killed gaming experience.

I wish Corsair hired qualified developpers instead of putting out light towers and RGB headset stands.

 

Thanks for the input. Fear there's a bunch willing to do just that seeing how Corsair just doesn't care.

[LeDoyen]

i'm lucky i can afford to do that, but for those who worked hard to put money aside, spend their hard earned money on gear they believe to be first class, and end up with a bugged, half a**ed piece of junk of a software to control it all.. leaves a sour taste.

I've been using icue for 2 years, and none of the complaints from users has ever been taken into account to solve bugs.

Each update was like russian roulette.. is it going to launch? what will i lose this time..

 

NZXT received a lot of flak for the old version of CAM. Apparently users are liking the new revamped version.

EK Connect is a ridiculously simplistic control software.. users complained, they stopped updating it and are currently redoing it from the ground up, for a release later this year. We'll see how this one turns out, but the point is, they listened to feedback.

 

now iCUE came out first in Gamers Nexus benchmark of the worst bloatware when it comes to performance degradation, there's regular complaints on the forum about how it taxes Ryzen CPUS and raises idle temps, how it pegs Intels at max clock because of the CPU load.. yet, Corsair behaves as if everything was fine and dandy.

 

Customer satisfaction should not be gauged by how many % your EBITDA raised this quarter but by talking to said customers. I feel the Corsair employees that come here to help people kind of have their hands tied because they can't take such a big decision,to rework such an important app. It has to come from higher up. As long as the company will be deaf to recurrent complaints, customers will keep abandonning ship (oops, a lil pun, doesn't hurt :p)

 

I'll keep using iCue on my work laptop for my keyboard, so i'll keep an eye on it but at this stage i doubt there's any will to make it better. after all, each update is just adding support for the newest RGB cup holder.. Maybe that's why release notes are not published anymore.. is there any bug resolution? Who knows..

[c00lkatz]

Yup, next build I will abandon ship myself. Will switch back to Logitech peripherals and G.Skill RAM, which has always treated me right over the years, move back to motherboard fan control, switch out to standard RGB strips, probably get a Noctua cooler rather than an AIO, fans that are actually quiet, etc.

 

Can't believe they're not even posting patch notes anymore, no way to know what's new or fixed. Added the Auto Audio Repositioning feature - what does it do? Who knows? I just updated to the latest iCUE to see if the CPU issue had been fixed. Nope, still pegging everything. It loads my CPU up so high, no cores will boost past 4.25GHz. As soon as I close iCUE, cores start ramping up to 4.3-4.4 GHz when needed, as they should. When idle, iCUE closed, CPU power drops, cores start sleeping, voltage dips below 1V, etc. I have other apps open in the background, game launchers, MSI Afterburner, etc. NONE of them cause these issues. Open up iCUE, and bam, everything goes to ****. Close it, other apps still open, no other changes, and my CPU starts acting like it should.

 

THIS IS A PROBLEM CORSAIR. QUIT ACTING LIKE IT'S NORMAL.

 

I'm washing my hands of this company next chance I get. I can't afford to swap everything out right now, for obvious reasons. Next chance I get, I will. I'm done with it.

[1ronBank]

Same - Corsair has such bad SW it just leaves me dumbfounded how bad they are.

 

Still cannot turn off lighting on a K55 RGB at the lock screen...

 

Also having a AMD 3950x I cannot run ICUE or my temps and volts bounce all over the place. Also one core is always pegged due to polling rate being at sub 3ms... Yet other probing SW has no issues at all at this polling rate.

 

I just hate and regret every purchase...

[Haydn]

I've had the same issues with my 3950x and voltages staying at 1.45V+ with only iCue running. Temperature wasn't a problem but there's no way the cpu should be receiving load voltages when iCue is using maybe 3% of it and that voltage is for all cores.

 

I found that playing around with the PBO settings on my Aorus Master has allowed me to idle at 1.20V even down to 0.950V on some cores all while iCue runs my whole system lighting in the background. I have AMD CBS PBO setting set to auto for both options and in the other PBO options setting I have turned it to manual with a 10x scalar and +200mhz boost.

 

While this 'fixes' the issue of high idle voltage, it limits the max all core boost. Single core boost is still reaching 4.6Ghz to 4.7Ghz. All core when I was idling at high voltage was able to reach and hold 4.2ghz all core boost. With the PBO settings on I can only acheive 4.025Ghz for all cores.

 

Hope this helps until this issue is properly fixed.

[BahamutxD]

At this point I'm curious how new Ryzen CPUs will react to iCUE.

 

The issue MUST be fixed, iCUE is proven to be a resource hog and a lot of users don't really want most of the features that are hogging their CPUs.

 

Corsair been quiet for so long now about the matter it's insulting. What do they need, to be called everywhere and have their reputation exposed? It is not just this issue, it's a way too long list that increases with every new update.

 

From what I read in social media and personal experience, there's a lot of people willing to move away from Corsair for the sole reason of iCUE being this bad.

[rhexis]

just want to agree with everyone here i am still seeing cpu voltage with my ryzen 3900xt at around 1.4 volts with icue running and it never goes below that. when i close icue it will go down to 1.1 to 1.2 volts. its only when i shutdown the corsair service do i see my idle voltage below 1 volt. i have uninstalled icue and wont touch it or purchase any corsair products until this can be fixed. if it cant be fixed corsair needs to just let us know. Edited July 25, 2020 by rhexis

[Kronos35]

I finally registered just to post my agreement. I'm glad to see others are not letting this issue drop.

 

I'm in the same situation and it is incredibly unfortunate that this has not been resolved. No other monitoring apps or software affects the idle voltages, temps, and cpu usage of my 3900x like iCUE does. I fully understand that there is overhead to any piece of software, but that doesn't excuse lack of optimization when clearly other vendors have figured this out.

 

iCUE is the only piece of software that has this kind of impact. As soon as I close it, I see idle cores and sub-1v idle voltages. If iCUE is running, I'll be sitting at 1.43v+ with all 12 cores active at all times.

 

I went all-in for my build last year with a K95, Nightsword RGB, H150i, x6 LL140 fans, Commander Pro, Light Strips, the works. I feel that I have been patient waiting for improvements, but I'm close to the point of others in this thread. All of that hardware is about to get ditched in favor of a less complex, better performing solution from a different vendor. Sure, the fancy lights are great and the hardware seems solid, but it's just not worth dealing with the bloatware that is iCUE.

[vicra84]

With i7 10700k the same problem... icue is the one that generates the problem