So some background, I used to be super active here. Before I transitioned, I ran a small tech channel called Big Head tech. I’ve built 568 PC’s from 2011 until now, but 98% of those were through 2020. So I’ve seen it all except this.
My old system had these specs
AMD Ryzen 9 5900x
2x16GB DDR4 3600MHz
1x512GB NVME SSD + 2TB SATA SSD
EVGA 850W 80+ Gold PSU
ASRock B550 Extreme
ASRock RX 6800 XT Taichi
In Dorn I got 35-50 FPS and in raid I got 25-40 FPS
Well, I went into a who slew if issues recently, after a power surge and a lightning strike a year ago i was getting freezes and reboots today. So I bit the bullet, grabbed a 7800x 3D, 32GB DDR5 6000MHz memory, a new board and cooler. My old CPU peaked at 90*C. Suddenly I am 150-200 FPS in dorn and 125-150+ in raid. I turned the graphics up from 5>8 and now I am sitting around 100-125 everywhere.
No shot the 7800x 3D is 400-500% better, I am sure my CPU/Board was slowly dying?
At 90°c your old CPU would have been throttling to stop itself burning up. A 100% increase wouldn’t have been unreasonable between those setups (I saw an 80%+ boost going from a 3900X to a 5800X3D, everything else identical) but more than that tells me you weren’t getting everything you could have out of your old setup.
I went from a 5900X to a 5800X3D (before my current 9800X3D). Even without the generational uplift it was still a huge upgrade. WoW really loves that 3D cache.
That does sound a bit off. When lightning kills stuff, it usually does so pretty quickly.
I agree with the previous poster in that it sounds like your old CPU was throttling. There was probably an issue with your cooler. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why you were having “freezes and reboots” also.
100%
For some context about what the last 2 posters said Im on a 9950x3D. So we know its a hot chip. I range from 55-59c playing wow with a total max Temp of 63c. This is after playing for about an hour. That means the hottest it got was 63c and that was probably just a random spike for a second. 90c is WAY too hot for just playing wow.
Heck I dont even hit 90c Underload in a Cinebench run. That should give you some context for how bad 90c is
lots of questions here; was the power spike due to the lighting strike? it’s also unusual to see freezes and reboots a year later from it. Regardless may want to look into a quality surge protector or UPS with proper AVR (even better) if that’s an occurrence that happens to you.
like swifty stated, you were hitting the max operating temp so the CPU would throttle in performance to keep temps from increasing further
I’ve had a few mobo’s go on me so it does happen but they usually don’t “slowly die”. Also lighting strikes that do damaged to hardware usually take it out immediately. You are lucky it didn’t take out other components.
The only thing that was certain was the CPU was to hot. Not sure what cooler you uses but it could have been poorly seated and/or stopped working properly. The excessive heat could have damaged the VRM which would lead to voltage fluctuation and re-boots.
The PSU could have damaged and that could lead to voltage fluctuation.
Without testing each component separately it’s hard to say any hardware was not working properly.
if it was my PC under those conditions, that would be the very first place I would look at. Is the heatsink properly seated, are fans working to spec, if liquid cooled is the pump working properly, is the BIOS fan curve set correctly.
So the freezing and reboots were happening on the desktop with the CPU at idle around 30*C. I couldn’t even load up a game. There was a lightning strike outside my house that hit the isp line frying several network interfaces across my house. As for surge protection, my PC is behind 4 surge protectors funny enough. Not intentional but it happened that way.
takes the CPU over heating out of the problem for freezing & reboots but it could be the PSU, SSD, and RAM or a combo.
some surge protectors are nothing more than glorified extension cords (even the expensive ones) and over time will become less effective. Just something to think about if lighting is a common problem with transmission lines in your area.
100%
Im temporarily on a 2700 Joules Surge Protector myself. Stats like Lilybugg said mean more than price. With that said if you have a lot of issues with power in your area Id look at a quality UPS over a Surge Protector
I will be switching back to a UPS again soon also. Which is more recommended for Gaming rigs in an area with frequent power outages. My situation is Temporary
If a lightning strike hit the ISP line, then it’s possible that excess voltage entered your PC through Ethernet if you are on an Ethernet connection (via the Modem/Routers). There’s a reason why many surge protectors meant for PCs have ethernet protection on them.
Also, I’d pay close attention to the performance of your Modem/Router too, if voltage went through the ISP lines then that could have done some damage to those too.
If you were on wireless then your PC would obviously be protected against that.
EDIT: For people who don’t believe that an ethernet cable could carry that much voltage, I have personally heard of a story of someone that was on a telephone (same kind of cable, only its 4 lines instead of 8 lines inside the cable) during a storm and luckily they had moved the receiver away from their head (this was back when you had a banana-shaped receiver that you’d press against your ear and talk into the other end for you younger folk) and lightning hit a phone line and visible electricity arced out of the receiver and across the room.
Concur with everyone here. The x3d chips are a big jump but not as drastic as you’re experiencing.
If the lightning damaged other equipment, wouldn’t doubt it damaged your pc in someway. Unless you sit there and probe everything we won’ truly know the what.