# Need some advice. New to AMD and to undervolting/manual clock in general



## RoyZ (Mar 30, 2020)

Good evening.

I have been reading all I can the past days about this stuff, but I'm still very new to all this, so I thank you in advance for the patience.
Also, forgive my english if I end up making some spell mistakes. It ain't my first language.

After 8 years with my old PC, I decided to finally upgrade. Nothing too fancy, just some more up to date hardware. 
So I ended up building my first AMD PC, as I got a Ryzen R5 3600 CPU, on a MSI B450 Gaming plus ATX motherboard, 16gb RAM at 3000mhz, and a Nvidia RTX 2060 SUPER.

For now, I am using the stock cooler on the CPU, and the temps are worrying me. It can get above 85 C when playing BF5, for example. Seen it reach 89 C on heaviest maps. And that is with my case open, since I have a poor case, with only a couple fans. But still, case open and AC on in my room. This is too hot.
Just to inform, I'm monitoring in game numbers with MSI Afterburner.

So I started reading some stuff about undervolting the CPU to achieve lower temps using the Ryzen Master AMD software. Got a word from some other users on another forum I participate, and they told me it is safe to undervolt, as long as you don't over do it and make your system unstabble. 

First thing, to check how my CPU on stock is behaving in numbers, I downloaded Cinebench R20 and ran it on stock CPU settings. Followed the test observing Ryzen Master for Temps and Clocks, and the clocks of my CPU never went above 3800 Ghz. I have been told it is because my temps rise and the CPU dont run at high clocks cause of that. On BF5, it usually sits on 3900 Ghz.

So I added a profile on Ryzen Master. Put my cores at 4000 Ghz, and voltage at 1.25. These values were advised to me by some user to start testing, and from there trying to lower the voltage to 1.2 or even lower.

So I set this up, and first thing I did was go to the game and see. The highest temp I got on BF5 was 69 C, on the same map I got 85-89 before, on stock.

I got happy about the temps I was getting, but the thing that worries me is that, as I kept reading about this, I saw people talking about degrading the CPU by setting static clock speed on all cores like that. So I wanted to hear from you guys, your take on this matter.

Even if I am locking the cores at a lower clock than the boost clock the CPU can take, can I damage it? (The CPU can go up to 4.2 in boost)

And about the voltage, the threads i was reading mostly said that above 1.3 voltages all the time could do this degrading. If I am able to let it stable at 1.20, should I still be worried? Even if only setting the clocks to 4000 Ghz?

Another thing. Should I try lowering the voltages but letting the cores at auto clock speed? All I tried so far was that profile I mentioned above, and it was only for ONE night. Since I did it using the Ryzen Master, CPU went back to default after I turned the PC off and turned it on again today. So at the moment as I write this post I am at stock mode. I didnt try it anymore because I got scared after reading about CPU degrade. And since I am at stock now, I scared of even playing the game.

And what is worst for my CPU?  Playing the game at 85 C temps and above but on stock CPU settings, or playing the game 68, 69 C, but with all cores set to 4000 manually and voltage at 1.25 (or 1.2), with a Ryzen Master profile?

I did order a new cooler, it will arrive next week. I am low on cash right now so I could only afford a Gammaxx 400. But from what I could read about it, it should get me better temps than this stock cooler I'm using.


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 30, 2020)

I would highly suggest going to this link here for your questions









						Ryzen Owners Zen Garden
					

Once in a blue moon you get a dud psu from a reputable design.  Maybe. The psu was getting to 5 years old, which is not that old. I did have pbo enabled, and my edc limits raised to the motherboards limits and was running boinc 24/7. I started to have issues with it turning off randomly during...




					www.techpowerup.com


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## RoyZ (Mar 30, 2020)

eidairaman1 said:


> I would highly suggest going to this link here for your questions
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ok I'm gonna copy my questions to that thread then. And also gonna read it.


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## Regeneration (Mar 30, 2020)

Ditch the stock cooler and get yourself some proper one. Noctua is my favorite.


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## oobymach (Mar 30, 2020)

4ghz is a good speed for the 3600 with stock cooler. Don't go higher than 1.3v during overclocking. AMD says if you push beyond 1.35v on the 3000 series chips it can cause degradation so 1.2v is fine.


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## Taraquin (Apr 9, 2020)

Shouldn't you be able to lower voltage further? My 3600 runs stable at 1.14V@4GHz.


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## RoyZ (Apr 10, 2020)

Just to update here, I replaced the stock cooler with a gammaxx 400. I'm running now 10 to 15 ºC cooler in my games, so I'm just leaving the processor on default now that I don't need to lower voltage or set the cores to static clock like I tried before cause of the high temperatures.
The cooler temperatures now let the processor on stock keep up higher clocks than before when I'm gaming, so I'm back to default for now.

My Pc is new and I'm still on that worrying honeymoon phase, so I'm just happy that I'm not bothered by the temps anymore. 
I'll probably start messing with ryzen master and try some manual OCs again after this phase expires lol


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