For a long time, AMD played second fiddle with Intel in all but budget builds. Ryzen tweaked this to give you plenty of solid performance processor cores for a great all-round processor, and with a little overclocking, you can get this processor slightly above its base speed.
Overclocking is pretty easy these days, but it comes with some risks. If you’re not careful, it can shorten the life of your processor or permanently damage it. In most cases, the computer will shut down automatically to prevent this from happening, but it is best to proceed with caution and slowly. (Oh, if you’re wondering, the warranty will be void).
Want extra performance on the latest AMD desktops? Here’s how to confidently overclock your AMD Ryzen processor:
All AMD Ryzen processors are shut down at the factory, so you can tweak the performance to your liking. AMD offers the AMD Ryzen Master utility to access this powerful benefit.1,2 As AMD Ryzen Master evolves to support an increasingly diverse set of CPU products and features, the user interface also becomes more complex.
We have developed a useful “Basic View” that provides access to the most important functions and telemetry. You can switch between the new “Basic View” and “Advanced View” to see which overclocking feature is right for you.
Many of AMD’s newest chips, such as the Ryzen 5 3600X and Ryzen 7 3700X, are great processors, but they don’t have a lot of overclocking headroom, so there’s little value in going further.
AMD Precision Boost technology keeps performance out of the box. Non-X chips like the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 are slightly larger, but still offer less bang for your buck compared to some older Ryzen chips like the 1000 and 2000 series. However, if you want to know how far you can push the processor , you only need to tweak your computer’s BIOS a little. Here’s how:
Hardware Conditions
Unlike Intel, which only allows you to overclock certain chips, all AMD Ryzen processors, like most motherboards, are overclocked, making it easier to buy hardware. You only need two hardware to overclock the chip.
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- Motherboards overclocking: AMD B350, X370, B450, X470, B550 and X570 chipsets support overclocking. In principle, this is obvious if your motherboard does not have an “A” series chipset. This tutorial uses the MSI X470 Gaming Pro Carbon, but most of the settings we’ll discuss here can also be used on other boards.
- Good CPU cooler: The Wraith Spire cooler that comes with AMD can overclock a little, but it heats up pretty quickly. We recommend that you maximize your CPU performance by purchasing a larger heatsink or liquid cooling circuit such as the Cryorig R1 Ultimate CR-R1A.
Testing and Monitoring
When it’s time to speed up the processor, you’ll need a software tool to track your progress and something to log your results.
OCCT: Ask 5 overclockers what tools they use and you will get 5 different answers. I prefer OCCT. This is because OCCT not only includes multiple stress tests in one program, but it also includes multiple monitoring features that help keep track of your CPU temperature.
AMD’s own Ryzen Master and HWiNFO are better at tracking temperature readings and have a lot of other useful stats, but OCCT will be good enough if you’re just starting out and don’t push your CPU to the absolute limit.
Digital or real noted: This is a trial and error process, so it’s a good idea to take note of the settings you tried and whether they were successful. Trust me. The process will be much easier.
Ryzen Overclock
There are no guarantees against overclocking. You are out of range for the chip and each chip is different. The fact that someone on the Internet has achieved a certain overclocking does not mean that it will happen. Even with the same processor model, all motherboards have slightly different overclocking options.
The latest Ryzen CPUs are generally very good at boosting performance, so overclocking may or may not have much of an impact on your performance. You will see most of the benefits of overclocking in multithreaded tasks like editing or video rendering, and your experience can change after that. Overclocking my Ryzen 5 2600 cut the typical 2.5 hour 4K Blu-ray conversion time on Handbrake by about 20 minutes, which means I don’t have to sneeze.
Once you’ve made your overclocking decision, it’s a good idea to look at what results your motherboard, processor, and other devices are getting. This does not guarantee the same results, but you can get a general idea of what makes sense. This guide covers the basic steps, but there is always a way to go a little further if you learn more about the advanced features of your motherboard.
Auto-Overclock
The auto overclocking (or auto overclocking) feature found on most motherboards has become interesting lately, but is generally not recommended. For example, AMD Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) does not increase its clock speed any more than it says on the box. However, you can increase the clock speed to the advertised speed in situations where the CPU cannot reach that speed more often, for longer periods of time, or otherwise.
This is not really overclocking, but it is not considered “in stock” and therefore is not covered by the warranty. It is designed to be used with the motherboard’s auto overclocking feature, but if you manually overclock it by following the instructions below, PBO will be disabled and you can turn it off. I prefer the proven confidence of manual overclocking, so I’ll stick with this guide.
Basic View
The new default view provides automatic CPU overclocking, manual overclocking control, and critical system parameters such as CPU temperature, speed, and voltage.
Personalized Performance
AMD Ryzen Master Advanced View offers up to four profiles that allow you to save custom configurations for both Ryzen™ processors, integrated Radeon™ graphics, and DDR4 memory. You can tune the performance parameters for the active core, the frequency of the integrated graphics, and adjust the memory timing. You can optimize overall performance or tweak the settings of your favorite apps.
Integrated Graphics Overclock
AMD Ryzen ™ Integrated GPUs with Radeon GPUs can also be overclocked to improve gaming performance while overclocking cores and memory. Tune the performance of your favorite games and save your profile so you can easily return to optimized settings.
Monitoring System
Accurate hardware health updates are important, which is why AMD Ryzen Master covered both real-time monitoring and histograms of clock frequency and temperature per core, including average and peak readings.
AUTHOR BIO
On my daily job, I am a software engineer, programmer & computer technician. My passion is assembling PC hardware, studying Operating System and all things related to computers technology. I also love to make short films for YouTube as a producer. More at about me…
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