overclocking today's CPUs, specifically Ryzen

[cmdrdredd]

Is there real overclocking headroom in today's CPUs? I don't see much talk about it in general build threads like in the past. I've not kept up in some time as my current CPU has been plenty since I built it many years ago. I've been toying with the idea of building a new PC again to get the benefits of faster SSD drives and more cores/threads. I notice that the Ryzen CPUs have some utilities provided for overclocking but is there really any room to go here or are you limited by thermals these days? I'm strongly considering Ryzen 7 if I indeed do a new build but I'm wondering if overclocking is something I should plan for in my build as far as the cooler, motherboard etc go.

TLDR: what reasonable expectations can someone have for overclocking a Ryzen 7 1800 CPU? 4Ghz is the stock max turbo, how much further can you push it with say a Corsair H110i cooling system?

 

[hackdrag0n]

If you have a Ryzen chip that will do more than 4ghz on a 24/7 safe voltage you'd be one of the lucky few. Most even fall a little bit short of that. 3.8-3.9 seems to be the norm for most chips although the 1800x is more than likely going to be capable of 4ghz.

Don't bother with a really high end cooler. Even a more budget one will keep things under control. Ryzen runs pretty cool and you'll run into the voltage limitation long before you hit the thermal one.

 

[T1beriu]

Is there real overclocking headroom in today's CPUs?

Yes there is. Specially on the lower clocked, low priced CPUs like the 1700 and 1600.

is there really any room to go here or are you limited by thermals these days?

Ryzen is limited by the fabrication process. The OC temperatures are low compared to the old days.

what reasonable expectations can someone have for overclocking a Ryzen 7 1800 CPU?

Most people reach somewhere around 4GHz for all cores, compared to what comes as stock 4Ghz for just 1-2 cores (3.6-3.7 turbo for all cores). With a decent air cooler you can do 3.9Ghz.

how much further can you push it with say a Corsair H110i cooling system?

If you know what you're doing, have the right gear and a little bit of luck you can reach 4.1-4.15 with Corsair H110i. But water cooling is not the silver bullet of Ryzen overclocking.

You should have a read of the Ryzen OC thread and Tom's Ryzen OC Guide.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Ok, so maybe if I do it I should order the AM4 bracket kit for my current NH-D14 cooler and call it good. It's an older design but if I don't benefit from going to a AIO water system or a newer and more efficient air cooling system then I can save ~$90+ there. If what you say is accurate then there is very little real headroom at safe voltage levels which is what I suspected based on my forum browsing today where I noticed that talk of overclocking was pretty slim.

Anyway I'll have to think about my usage more because for strictly gaming, I fear that 4 cores running at 4.5Ghz will beat out 8 at 3.8Ghz in most titles at 1080p all else being equal. So as far as gaming goes it's kind of a side grade or minor downgrade in the CPU department. All else though, like video encoding will be a definite upgrade but I don't know if I do enough of that. I was cautiously optimistic that I could overclock a bit to eek closer to my 3570k in gaming performance but that's definitely out so I guess it comes down to whether the increased core count and benefits of a new platform outweigh the gaming side of things. I could always go with Intel again but in this price range I'd still be looking at 4 cores.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Don't bother with a really high end cooler. Even a more budget one will keep things under control. Ryzen runs pretty cool and you'll run into the voltage limitation long before you hit the thermal one.

Then again, if you're getting an 1800X, you might want a nice H110i CLC, to keep temps low, to enable "XFR" mode to activate, and give you an extra overclocking boost, if you're running at stock settings. (Not manual "overclock mode", which disables Precision Boost and XFR.)

 

[hackdrag0n]

H110i isn't significantly better than an nh-d15 though.

 

[cmdrdredd]

H110i isn't significantly better than an nh-d15 though.

No but it's much smaller in the motherboard area. The Noctua covers memory slots and makes it hard to work on. Just one minor complaint about it.

Then again, if you're getting an 1800X, you might want a nice H110i CLC, to keep temps low, to enable "XFR" mode to activate, and give you an extra overclocking boost, if you're running at stock settings. (Not manual "overclock mode", which disables Precision Boost and XFR.)

Yeah I saw that manually overclocking turns these off, though if I can get a 1700x to hit 4Ghz maybe it'll be worth it. I have lots to think about. Heck I might benefit more from just getting a 1080 ti and 16GB of memory instead of 8GB and keep this system humming along for another year.

 

[hackdrag0n]

Yeah that's the only reason I'd bother with clc. Other than that I still prefer my nh-d15s as it's objectively more reliable.

 

[Indus]

My ryzen 5 1600 (3.2 base clock) which I got last week can do:

3825 on 1.35v (rock stable)
3900 on 1.42 (stable up to a point)
4000 on 1.45 (boots but has artifacts under aida64.. won't crash tho).

So I'm running it at 3825 since past that its diminishing returns.

My cooler is a deepcool gammaxx 400 which keeps it at 30C idle and 58C under full stress loads.

A 19% overclock is reasonable so I'm satisfied. Wish it was more but doesn't everyone?

 

[IEC]

My Ryzen 1700 has a base clock of 3.00GHz and an all-core turbo (with XFR) of 3.15GHz, as tested with a 100% BOINC 16-thread load.

It overclocks to 4GHz which is a gain of 33% over the base clock and 27% over the all-core turbo + XFR. (It can actually get 4075MHz, but that requires over 1.4V).

It's a safe bet you can get 3.7GHz-3.8GHz on reasonable voltages (e.g. my 1800X can do 3.8GHz @ 1.25V, most should be able to do that around 1.3V or better)

 

[Rifter]

while not super happy with my measly ~25% overclock on my 1700 at least it got me to 1800 speeds for less money.

 

[Indus]

It's a safe bet you can get 3.7GHz-3.8GHz on reasonable voltages (e.g. my 1800X can do 3.8GHz @ 1.25V, most should be able to do that around 1.3V or better)

Tried that. Maybe mine's good but not that good. I put in 1.3V and the system hanged. I put in 1.3V with a +060 milivolt offset and it runs just fine.

And then it needs massive voltage upgrades.

I really have a feeling it will do 4.0 stable since it boots up at 4.0 under 1.4 but aida 64 crashes. So maybe its one of those 80th percentile where it'll do 4.0 but needs a lot more voltage than the others.

 

[Valantar]

measly ~25% overclock

Good luck getting that on a 7700K... Or anything newer than a 2600K, really. 25% OC is not bad at all. While the "hard" OC limit of Ryzen is slightly disappointing, 25% is not bad at all on any chip/arch. I'd say kudos to AMD for daring to release a low-clocked unlocked chip that isn't binned specifically to be sh*t at overclocking.

Ryzen is limited by the fabrication process.

Do we know for sure that it's process related and not architecture? I suppose we'll see when Zen 2 or whatever is on 7nm gets here.

OP: keep your CPU cooler. It's more than good enough. Heck, I'd call it excellent.

 

[JimmiG]

Most people reach somewhere around 4GHz for all cores, compared to what comes as stock 4Ghz for just 1-2 cores (3.6-3.7 turbo for all cores). With a decent air cooler you can do 3.9Ghz.

http://www.ocdrift.com/amd-ryzen-binned-processors-by-silicon-lottery/

Ryzen 7 1700
93% reach 3.8 GHz @ 1.376V
70% reach 3.9 GHz @ 1.408V
23% reach 4.0 GHz @ 1.440V

Ryzen 7 1700X
100% reach 3.8 GHz @ 1.360V
77% reach 3.9 GHz @ 1.392V
33% reach 4.0 GHz @ 1.424V

Ryzen 7 1800X
97% reach 3.9 GHz @ 1.376V
67% reach 4.0 GHz @ 1.408V
20% reach 4.1 GHz @ 1.440V

 

[Ratman6161]

Just some personal observations based on my experience so far with my R5 1600. 3.8Ghz is the best I can get, but that's fine with me. I've seen many places reporting that AMD says the maximum safe voltage for "long term" over clocks is 1.35 so I decided up front that I wasn't going to go higher than that. Most of the places on line where I'm seeing people overclock higher they are using 1.4V and up.

So those willing to up the voltage more than I do may have a different perspective on cooling. But what I've found is that temperatures are not the barrier to going faster than my current 3.8. My cpu runs cool as in very cool. Even when stress testing it doesn't get a lot over 50c. I have my fans set to start ramping up at 60C and when I first started testing, I couldnt believe that I wasn't hearing a lot more noise...until I realized I was never hitting the 60c point so the fans would never speed up.

At the modest level of voltage I'm running, the stock cooler that came with my R5 1600 would have been plenty good enough, and I ran it with that for a few days until the bracket for my Corsair H55 AIO came in. With the stock cooler I made the decision to stick to completely stock voltage and even at stock voltage 3.7 was no problem (would not do 3.8 at stock voltage). Anyway, If I didn't already have the Corsair AIO, I could have stuck with the stock cooler and still hit the 3.8 I'm at now.

So then, once I had the bracket, I installed the H55, upped the voltage to 1.35 and have been stable at 3.8 ever since. Its interesting to note that this is the same cooler I was running on my old i7 2600K. The 2600K was also modestly overclocked at 4.2 Ghz. The R5 actually runs significantly cooler than the 2600K using the same cooler. The 2600K would hit around 65c during testing and the system would be noticably louder as the fans ramped up at 60c. The R5 1600 tops out around the low to mid 50's and the fans stay at minimum speed.

So the point of all this is that it doesn't appear that any kind of fancy cooling is needed to get the modest sort of over clock I was shooting for.

 

[Rifter]

Good luck getting that on a 7700K... Or anything newer than a 2600K, really. 25% OC is not bad at all. While the "hard" OC limit of Ryzen is slightly disappointing, 25% is not bad at all on any chip/arch. I'd say kudos to AMD for daring to release a low-clocked unlocked chip that isn't binned specifically to be sh*t at overclocking.

Very true, but not nearly as high as the ~50% OC i was running on my i7 930 previously. I guess OC'ing is going the way of the dodo.

 

[T1beriu]

I guess OC'ing is going the way of the dodo.

Sure it does. OC scene is massive these days and the way it's going it's getting bigger each year, getting more and more mainstream.

 

[Valantar]

Very true, but not nearly as high as the ~50% OC i was running on my i7 930 previously. I guess OC'ing is going the way of the dodo.

Nah. Manufacturers have simply learned how to bin, and how to balance power draw, performance and architectural traits so that they more or less even out. Nehalem was a weird architecture in terms of balance, especially seeing how Sandy Bridge tweaked the pipeline just a little and saw huge efficiency gains while possible clocks went through the roof.

 

[coffeemonster]

Sure it does. OC scene is massive these days and the way it's going it's getting bigger each year, getting more and more mainstream.

yeah. I see clueless threads on r/Amd almost everyday asking how to overclock because everyone told them not to get X models, save $ and overclock. But they want people to just tell them what numbers to plug into BIOS. Stress testing is just, "my game didn't crash after a few hours, I'm stable enough"

You talk about proper stress testing and the reality of data corruption and other unseen errors or instabilities and just get down voted. Makes me think of an Ian Malcolm quote

 

[Rifter]

yeah. I see clueless threads on r/Amd almost everyday asking how to overclock because everyone told them not to get X models, save $ and overclock. But they want people to just tell them what numbers to plug into BIOS. Stress testing is just, "my game didn't crash after a few hours, I'm stable enough"

You talk about proper stress testing and the reality of data corruption and other unseen errors or instabilities and just get down voted. Makes me think of an Ian Malcolm quote

Ive noticed this as well, the newbies have no idea what real overclocking is or how to stress test. Been tempted to post but as you say no point they will just downvote you and dont want to hear about the reality of data corruption and a fully stable system.

I only consider my system stable if it will run prime and furmark for 24-48 hours

 

[cmdrdredd]

Yeah I know fully well how to overclock and find just the sweet spot for the voltage and clock speed and test for stability etc. I just wasn't sure how far these could be pushed as I didn't notice too many threads related to overclocking them. Now I suppose I see why, people just aren't getting huge clock speed increases out of them and it's not like with some cpus in the past that you were guaranteed to get a certain speed even with the worst chips and better ones got more. It's much more about luck it seems. Anyhow I'm just lurking and keeping an eye on the info you all have provided. I appreciate it. Not sure what I'm gonna do but I hear Intel's new cpus should be out around august...so I'll probably wait and compare more then before I decide.

 

[VirtualLarry]

My Ryzen 1700 has a base clock of 3.00GHz and an all-core turbo (with XFR) of 3.15GHz, as tested with a 100% BOINC 16-thread load.

You know, that's kind of interesting, that your all-core turbo is only 3.15Ghz with a 1700. Two more cores, but slower all-core turbo.

My Ryzen 5 1600, seems to have an all-core turbo of 3.4Ghz, running a 12-thread (well, now 10-thread) BOINC load, running WCG.

 

[IEC]

You know, that's kind of interesting, that your all-core turbo is only 3.15Ghz with a 1700. Two more cores, but slower all-core turbo.

My Ryzen 5 1600, seems to have an all-core turbo of 3.4Ghz, running a 12-thread (well, now 10-thread) BOINC load, running WCG.

Provided you have good cooling, the XFR will boost your 1600 up to 3.40GHz (100MHz ACT + 100MHz XFR).That's the clockspeed my 1600 boosts at under stock settings for BOINC.

The 1700 was run at stock settings on stock cooler to see if it could handle BOINC at default settings. It did fine and stayed at 3.15GHz for the duration. It's the better option for power-efficient crunching.

Edit: Corrected #s on 1600.

 

[Valantar]

I have no idea what BOINC is, but for reference, my 1600X seems to flatten out at 3.7GHz all-core turbo during OCCT. Or 3.693GHz to be exact, but who's counting?

 

[cmdrdredd]

I have no idea what BOINC is, but for reference, my 1600X seems to flatten out at 3.7GHz all-core turbo during OCCT. Or 3.693GHz to be exact, but who's counting?

BOINC is a distributed computing client. You can use it to crunch numbers on your pc for various causes and science projects. Seti@home is one such project which uses your computer to check the signals from the SETI radio array and forwards the results to the SETI team. There are many projects that use the BOINC client and lots of people like using secondary PCs or running the project in the background. They use quite a bit of power and many will fully load every core and thread you have available.