1 exhaust fan + 1 intake fan (if that's even what you mean) is woefully inadequate.
When the CPU gets too hot, it slows down to try to prevent damage.
You spent money on compatible RAM only to install it incorrectly on purpose. I don't even know what to say to this.

Can you back this up with sources? My own PC* proves you wrong.

*Fractal Design Define R5 with standard 2x 12 cm case fans, i7-6700+CM Hyper212EVO/970GTX/4xHDD/1xM2/1xSATA SSD/Creative Z/32GB DDR4-3000. Everything's running nice and cool.

Agree it won't help with GPU temperature, but equally, capping to 30fps with that rig isn't a viable long-term solution.

On the temps, without having had an ATi/AMD card, it's hard for me to comment; I was a bit cynical on the claim, hence putting the safely in quotation marks - should probably have made that clearer.

I think my RTX 2070s tops out around 72 degrees, but I'm not running a reference card and I've got a well ventilated case.

OK. Put the chips in the correct slots. That will at least allow us to determine if there's a problem with the board.

I'm still a bit worried about the "full system crash". Can you check "Reliability Monitor" - assuming you're using Windows - to see if you get any notifications on the crash? May not be helpful, but I'd like to see if the OS is telling anything useful.

That's how I interpreted your post. To be clear, I wasn't criticizing you. I meant official boasts should either be dismissed or at least taken with a grain of salt. That one Reddit user's experience is what I'd expect, and it tracks with OP's situation.

i do not have a case fan in the front. i don't know if i can add one. my case is a thermaltake versa n21 black edition. it has a top that you can take off for leds or more venting, i guess.

I haven't been paying attention to the CPU part on the overlay, all my focus was on the GPU temperature. this is my first computer I've built. yes, more research for next time.
so teceem has noted. I also mentioned the kind of case I have.

I moved the RAM to the correct spots just a bit ago. both task manager and AMD software reported 16gb. so yay. perhaps one of the previous memory sticks was dead.

i looked up what you said and i opened the reliablilty monitor. yesterday reports that there were 3 informational events all related to windows updates (all successful)

there are two critical events. one says AMD use experience program master stopped working. the other says windows was not properly shut down. i open "view tech details" and it just says previous system shutdown was unexpected.

then earlier today when i was playing GSS (I recognize the time it says) it reports windows was not properly shut down.
tech details reports the same, "previous system shutdown was unexpected"

This picture:
https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-w5wdgizolr/images/stencil/1280x1280/products/11538/7890/CA-1D9M6WN__73841.1548968665.JPG
I see 2 fans (the led outline) in the front...

https://www.search-manual.com/thermaltake-versa-n21-mid-tower-case-164369-manual
Fan Mounting (Front) 2 x 120 mm

110C? A new "bread toaster" function can finally be achieved! :-p Literally...

You have slots for an additional 2 × 120mm (12cm) fans in the front, and another 2 up top.
https://www.thermaltake.com/versa-n21.html

Your motherboard has 3 × 4-pin system fan connectors.
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/X299M-A-PRO/Specification

Thanks - although sadly not that helpful as it's just saying "it crashed".

I think two things to test now are probably temps (both CPU and GPU) and also whether the crashes still happen with correctly seated RAM. I'm trying to think of the best software to log temps as you're playing (when I had an overheating CPU, I used the AMD Overdrive software, but that's not likely to help in your case)

AMD graphics drivers.
By default, Ctrl+Shift+L toggles logging; key settings are under Cog wheel - Hotkeys.
Logging settings are under Performance - Metrics.
Logging location is under Cog wheel - Performance.

Does it do CPU as well? Would be interesting to see whether that is maxing out too.

Yes.

I just tried a brief session of this performance logging, the AMD overlay said the fans never came on. I shut the game down when it hit 75C. I don't know how to open the log for the performance logging. all i see is GSS.exe and nothing inside it.

There's no executable in the default logging folder. If you set the game's installation folder as the logging location, you shouldn't have.

1. Select a custom logging location as indicated in the previous post. Choose your desktop, or another easily accessible and empty folder.
2. Make sure that you actually started and stopped logging. There should be popup notifications to that effect in the top right corner. For whatever reason, the right Ctrl and right Shift don't trigger the default keyboard shortcut, so be sure to either use Left Ctrl + Left Shift + L or set up a custom shortcut as indicated previously.
3. Once logging is finished, you'll have a file with a name in the format YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.CSV. If you don't have a spreadsheet editor to import it, you can use Online CSV Viewer to make it readable.
4. If you want to share the raw file publicly, there are a whole bunch of sites that let you do that, like Pastebin.