# AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3rd Gen Overclocking Deep Dive, feat. ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme



## 1usmus (Feb 7, 2020)

1usmus, creator of the Ryzen Custom Power Plan, describes his experience overclocking AMD's new third-generation HEDT Threadripper platform, and shares a lot of information about cooling, CCX quality, per-CCX overclocking, memory tweaks, VRM options, and BIOS setup tips. Benchmarks are included, too.

*Show full review*


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## cucker tarlson (Feb 7, 2020)

Fantastic read.


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## kapone32 (Feb 7, 2020)

Very interesting read. I actually have a question. I have a 2920X on the way. Will I be able to see an OC and performance gains like the 3960X due to the similarity in the way the CPU is wired?


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## damric (Feb 7, 2020)

The _apparent_ decrease in performance when raising base clock is probably due to the Windows 8/10 RTC (real time clock) which changes when you adjust base clock. It's not a _real decrease _however. Same effect as lowering your base clock in Windows 10 benchmarks to increase your _apparent_ performance.

More info here:






						(UPDATE 03/09) Windows 8 Results (Temporarily) Not Accepted At HWBOT - Benchmark Result Veracity Compromised
					

Read the full article @ HWBOT




					hwbot.org


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## Dixevil (Feb 7, 2020)

great read, thanks


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## techguymaxc (Feb 7, 2020)

I was really looking forward to this processor release.  I am not convinced it is the right fit for my workloads, however.  It seems that most applications don't scale well beyond the 18-32 core HEDT CPUs that were available last year.  Obviously this can change in the future, but I don't buy computational devices for future performance, I buy for what they can bring me today.  Virtualization is also a viable option, though it does add cost due to the need for shared storage to support splitting my workflow over multiple VMs.  

The way I see it there are 2 choices (for me):
1) buy the 3970x and get 99% of the performance of the 3990x in 95% of workloads.
2) wait for 4th generation and the (rumored) AVX performance boosts that it will bring.

It's a tough call, but thanks to AMD's execution of late I am inclined to wait for next gen.


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## phanbuey (Feb 7, 2020)

I love the "the myth that it's hard to overclock is created by morons" line in the conclusion...

And then I read the process of actually having to overclock that thing and decided that I am firmly in the "Moron who think this is a huge pain in the a** to OC" category.

I must now learn to live with my new found limitations - great read & guide.


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## W1zzard (Feb 7, 2020)

phanbuey said:


> and decided that I am firmly in the "Moron who think this is a huge pain in the a** to OC" category.


we've all been there, everyone started from zero, don't worry about it


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## HwGeek (Feb 7, 2020)

There is a mistake in R20 Single core graph- 2990WX listed with 529 pts(typo? 429 pts?).


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## HammerON (Feb 7, 2020)

Excellent write up.  Thank you for taking the time to do this


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## 1usmus (Feb 7, 2020)

kapone32 said:


> Very interesting read. I actually have a question. I have a 2920X on the way. Will I be able to see an OC and performance gains like the 3960X due to the similarity in the way the CPU is wired?



you will get great performance because your processor does not use NUMA


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## gamefoo21 (Feb 7, 2020)

Ok let's start with this Asus marketing image.

First of all the signal from controller to doubler is single, but then it is split by the doubler and sent to each phase.

In the Asus system, the single phase consists of multiple stages, the signal from the controller is split from a single source and fed to each stage in the phase. There is NO balancing beyond the attempts to make each stage naturally balanced, but due to mass assembly and the desire for boards not to be $2000, the stages uses components that are +/- 5-20%.

How doublers work and can balance...

An intelligent controller can balance after dumb doublers. By reading how each phase is handling the load and actually telling the dumb controller to pull or push.

A smartish controller feeds a smart doubler the PWM signal. The smart doubler starts out just feeding both phases the same signal but monitoring both. Phase 1 is running a little harder than Phase 2, so the smart doubler actively shortens the PWM signal to one phase and can leave the other alone of lengthen it. 

The Asus system... Well it's got stages so umm... Can't do that. It's faster because it's just running straight phases, the differences are incredibly small though.

How does load balancing work...

One doublers, you can actually shut down phases if you want.

On stages you are limited to actual phases. So you are often incredibly limited in having any phases powered down because the power specifications will often have minimum phases operating and wake up times.

Asus also tends to use older controllers that they rebadge and use for many years. So this has the advantage of being way cheaper, because you don't need fancy controllers and/or fancy doublers, so the savings can be passed on to someone... LoL

Marketing vs lying...

Asus tries very hard to using marketing spin to say parallel stages = phases. It's a straight up lie.

The truth...

1 phase and 2/3/4/5/or 6 parallel stage

= 1 phase

It's just that one phase is wider and has redundancy built in. Each stage will topple over and should naturally balance as loads increase. Though it does mean bad things can happen if a stage fails, all that load suddenly gets rammed through the other stage and the controller doesn't know. Which is another disadvantage, the controller only sees the phase, so as long as one stage is still functional it'll keep on keeping on.

Comments on the rest...

I really like the article and all of the in-depth information in it is the kind of stuff I love.

Also did EK provide you the half cover stuff about blocks? They did make an infamous TR1 block that was a massive failure because it was just an AM3 cold plate mounted under a TR1 mount...

There are lots of blocks and AIOs that do proper full cover Threadripper plates. That part felt kinda like it was trying to pot shot other sites and to push EK.

Just my opinion. I really enjoyed it overall but I'm sorry but your Asus board has an 8 phase VRM in reality. Please don't drink the Asus Koolaid it's bad for you.


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## cellar door (Feb 7, 2020)

Damm dude... your articles are always soo damm good, thanks for another excellent article!


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## rrrrex (Feb 8, 2020)

Aida64 memory tests are measured in GB/s, not MB.


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## W1zzard (Feb 8, 2020)

rrrrex said:


> Aida64 memory tests are measured in GB/s, not MB.


Fixed


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## 1usmus (Feb 8, 2020)

gamefoo21 said:


> Ok let's start with this Asus marketing image.
> 
> First of all the signal from controller to doubler is single, but then it is split by the doubler and sent to each phase.
> 
> ...



You are a careful user, the advertising picture really does not show one element, namely the TPU, an intermediate element that "doubles" the signal, which then goes to two assemblies at once.
Yes, it cannot be considered a complete 16-phase solution, but it cannot be considered an 8-phase solution. That's why I put the Prime95 test results into the material. The 8-phase solution cannot provide a 55 degree temperature at 270-300A without active cooling or a very massive radiator.


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## ypsylon (Feb 8, 2020)

In summation to this great line about "...the myth that it's hard to overclock is created by morons" . Despite *ninja editing* it shortly afterward it was very much there, but 
I got to commenting on a free day.  

Well on my side only a moron (in this instance person who wrote this line) overclocks a workstation CPU which can't OC past it boost clock anyway. TR3000 can game just fine at stock clock. You have to be clinically insane to consider 300W extra power draw sensible for permanent 4.3 GHz on all cores which you'll do anyway auto-boosting without overclocking... You think that 2-3 seconds in render time in Blender or 5 seconds in compile are worth recommendation at the cost of totally unstable system in the long run? Nobody doing serious job would ever consider that. OC is only for nerds with abstract synthetic benchmarks proving nothing. Out of the 63 graphs, if I calculated right, 25 are irrelevant synthetics. Game tests are complete garbage - show me anyone who owns TR 3960x/3970x or even older TR1xxx/2xxx and play games at 1080p. I know why you did that, not that dumb as author of this text implies, but... _Nobody_ play games on TR @1080p, period. So basically you testing suite in 90% isn't worth squat.

Yes I was there at the beginning of OC, with Celeron 300A. One of the oldest rules in OC, if you can't OC CPU at least 10% then don't waste time. And you can't do that with *any* Ryzen. Auto All-core boost clock is maximum this architecture can do ( 3960x that's 4.3 GHz IIRC) because of high quality binning. Intel yeah kind of makes sense _sometimes_, AMD - don't make me laugh. And all of the results only confirm what I wrote above. 


BTW: serious workstation note. Asus Zenith Extreme 2/Alpha have the worst memory compatibility of all TRX40 model for high density kits 128/256 GB. IMHO AMD should really limit TRX40 platform to 4 physical slots because TR gets really wonky with 8 sticks of RAM.


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## W1zzard (Feb 8, 2020)

ypsylon said:


> ninja editing


When phanbuey first posted, I checked the editing history, "moron" was never part of this article


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## 1usmus (Feb 8, 2020)

ypsylon said:


> In summation to this great line about "...the myth that it's hard to overclock is created by morons" . Despite *ninja editing* it shortly afterward it was very much there, but
> I got to commenting on a free day.
> 
> Well on my side only a moron (in this instance person who wrote this line) overclocks a workstation CPU which can't OC past it boost clock anyway. TR3000 can game just fine at stock clock. You have to be clinically insane to consider 300W extra power draw sensible for permanent 4.3 GHz on all cores which you'll do anyway auto-boosting without overclocking... You think that 2-3 seconds in render time in Blender or 5 seconds in compile are worth recommendation at the cost of totally unstable system in the long run? Nobody doing serious job would ever consider that. OC is only for nerds with abstract synthetic benchmarks proving nothing. Out of the 63 graphs, if I calculated right, 25 are irrelevant synthetics. Game tests are complete garbage - show me anyone who owns TR 3960x/3970x or even older TR1xxx/2xxx and play games at 1080p. I know why you did that, not that dumb as author of this text implies, but... _Nobody_ play games on TR @1080p, period. So basically you testing suite in 90% isn't worth squat.
> ...



Did you read the material? 
You can get more productivity from the processor if you apply the right settings. Especially for you, I have described the intelligent overclocking of the processor. 

In 1080p no one plays? There should be no video card tests in the material that concerns the processor performance.
I do not have three 2080ti to demonstrate the full potential of this processor in 4k resolution (I do not know what you dream).


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## xkm1948 (Feb 8, 2020)

Very cool. Would this overclocking (CCX or iOC) work in linux too? Most of us who get this for academia usage only use linux. Would be sweet if we can actually squeeze additional perf in linux as well


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## phanbuey (Feb 8, 2020)

ypsylon said:


> In summation to this great line about "...the myth that it's hard to overclock is created by morons" . Despite *ninja editing* it shortly afterward it was very much there, but
> I got to commenting on a free day.
> 
> Well on my side only a moron (in this instance person who wrote this line) overclocks a workstation CPU which can't OC past it boost clock anyway. TR3000 can game just fine at stock clock. You have to be clinically insane to consider 300W extra power draw sensible for permanent 4.3 GHz on all cores which you'll do anyway auto-boosting without overclocking... You think that 2-3 seconds in render time in Blender or 5 seconds in compile are worth recommendation at the cost of totally unstable system in the long run? Nobody doing serious job would ever consider that. OC is only for nerds with abstract synthetic benchmarks proving nothing. Out of the 63 graphs, if I calculated right, 25 are irrelevant synthetics. Game tests are complete garbage - show me anyone who owns TR 3960x/3970x or even older TR1xxx/2xxx and play games at 1080p. I know why you did that, not that dumb as author of this text implies, but... _Nobody_ play games on TR @1080p, period. So basically you testing suite in 90% isn't worth squat.
> ...






W1zzard said:


> When phanbuey first posted, I checked the editing history, "moron" was never part of this article



No that was me trying to be funny - I was paraphrasing.  This is a really well written article -- one of those where it's worth reading through it more than once.


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## Jism (Feb 8, 2020)

From 140FPS to 172FPS is defenitly worth it investigating in memory overclocking in any ryzen setup. +1 for this article.


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## voltage (Feb 9, 2020)

come on Intel, get on with it and bring Tiger Lake already. I cant hold my breath much longer.


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## TheGuruStud (Feb 9, 2020)

voltage said:


> come on Intel, get on with it and bring Tiger Lake already. I cant hold my breath much longer.



I'll get you and your whole family a burial plot.


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## Berfs1 (Feb 9, 2020)

First of all, thank you very much for taking the time to dig deep into this. I wanted to say, Zen's safe voltage is 1.375V, Zen+ 1.35V, and Zen2 1.325V. You can go higher but you will face rapid degradation after those values without proper cooling. Also, considering it is ~20C to lose 100 MHz, I wouldn't consider 5 MHz/C a big difference. In most scenarios, the deltas will be 5-10C within coolers and ambients, so you will likely be looking at a variance of ~50 MHz.



ypsylon said:


> In summation to this great line about "...the myth that it's hard to overclock is created by morons" . Despite *ninja editing* it shortly afterward it was very much there, but
> I got to commenting on a free day.
> 
> Well on my side only a moron (in this instance person who wrote this line) overclocks a workstation CPU which can't OC past it boost clock anyway. TR3000 can game just fine at stock clock. You have to be clinically insane to consider 300W extra power draw sensible for permanent 4.3 GHz on all cores which you'll do anyway auto-boosting without overclocking... You think that 2-3 seconds in render time in Blender or 5 seconds in compile are worth recommendation at the cost of totally unstable system in the long run? Nobody doing serious job would ever consider that. OC is only for nerds with abstract synthetic benchmarks proving nothing. Out of the 63 graphs, if I calculated right, 25 are irrelevant synthetics. Game tests are complete garbage - show me anyone who owns TR 3960x/3970x or even older TR1xxx/2xxx and play games at 1080p. I know why you did that, not that dumb as author of this text implies, but... _Nobody_ play games on TR @1080p, period. So basically you testing suite in 90% isn't worth squat.
> ...


Well, workstation processors love higher frequencies when all cores are loaded. Since Zen2 does NOT have peak turbo for all core turbos, and manual overclock yields better results for all core, then it makes all the sense to do it. Also, if gaming is your focus, why the hell are you spending 1400$+ on a CPU for gaming? Don't even say "I want to use it for both WS and gaming", you can get a 3950X for that. And it isn't going to be 2-3 seconds or 5 seconds. Those fine tuned overclocks can help reduce on a several hour render even a few minutes. That is a few minutes less that they have to worry about. For big producers, time is money, and literally every minute counts. If I am not mistaken, if you use the boosting algorithm to match a manual all core overclock, you will actually be running a higher voltage which in turn means much higher power consumption. And that rule about 10% is bullshit. You can get MUCH BETTER power consumption when you tune your processor, regardless of if you go up or down in clocks. THAT is why we overclockers tune computers, because it makes the components more efficient and/or more performance efficiency (yes I said what I meant to say, that isn't a typo). And you are somewhat wrong about what the auto all core boost does. Where the boost of a 3900X would do ~4125 MHz with some offsets, I could take that same chip and do 4.3 GHz with manual tuning. Also, in regards to the memory compatibility, there is something really cool called QVLs. I wish people would read them for once before complaining "I CAN't DO 3200 MHZ IM GOING tO KiLL SOMEOnE".


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## Arcdar (Feb 10, 2020)

Thanks @1usmus for your amazing work. 

I've been reading this page for a very very Long time but never really and (finally?) decided to Register just to thank you for your amazing and detailed work. I loved your last few articles (and especially your hard work and also very in-Depth Analysis of AMD+RAM article -- which is 2nd only to this one)  because you've outdone yourself again - which is not an easy feat.

I wish I had the possiblities you have but in Absence of this I applaude you for pushing the Silicon (and yourself) further and further ((the possibilites are given to a lot of People, but most shy away from the time commitement it takes to truly live up to what they could acchieve or do with the Silicon in their Hands -- it's not "sexy", doesn't leave a lot of time for other Hobbies or gaming and thus most have a  "done enough for this" menthality which is sad but makes you stand out even more  ))




Thanks again for a very interesting read on my commute to work and some great Pictures (also not a given for every article, as it's "trivial" technically but still takes time and commitement to not just use pre-given Pictures or "snapshots while I'm at it" but use a neutral Background and highlight one piece at a time etc etc). Keep up the great work!


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## 1usmus (Feb 10, 2020)

Arcdar said:


> Thanks @1usmus for your amazing work.
> 
> I've been reading this page for a very very Long time but never really and (finally?) decided to Register just to thank you for your amazing and detailed work. I loved your last few articles (and especially your hard work and also very in-Depth Analysis of AMD+RAM article -- which is 2nd only to this one)  because you've outdone yourself again - which is not an easy feat.
> 
> ...



Thank you very much for the comment   
I will try to make it a rule to publish more often, at least once a month or two.


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## phill (Feb 10, 2020)

Thank you for an excellent read  

I do wonder if the CPU blocks for TR aren't quite big enough and judging by the pictures they could make them a little bigger to cover the CPUs better.. ?  I'm definitely no expert but I do wonder if it will help


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## 1usmus (Feb 10, 2020)

phill said:


> Thank you for an excellent read
> 
> I do wonder if the CPU blocks for TR aren't quite big enough and judging by the pictures they could make them a little bigger to cover the CPUs better.. ?  I'm definitely no expert but I do wonder if it will help




You are absolutely right, soon the water blocks will be updated, as these water blocks are not perfect. This also applies to the camera area and depth of the micro-channels.
It may also be necessary to increase water resistance inside the unit for better turbulence.


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## phill (Feb 10, 2020)

1usmus said:


> You are absolutely right, soon the water blocks will be updated, as these water blocks are not perfect. This also applies to the camera area and depth of the micro-channels.
> It may also be necessary to increase water resistance inside the unit for better turbulence.


Wow, didn't think I would be right   But....

I was wondering this as I have a few air coolers I bought to test and the plate that sits on top of the IHS was barely covering the CPU at all.   The cooler was a Arctic Freezer 34 Duo, granted it was only a budget cooler but I thought it would have been made bigger for better contact, it would have been an even better cooler in my eyes.

That said, it was working brilliantly well with my 1700X and 2700, my 3900X not so much as temps were hitting 85C after a short CB R15 run (it definitely was short as 24 threads of Ryzen making it finish within 10 seconds of me clicking the button!!  Bit different to my E-350 CPU but I digress....)  
With all that said, even with a Noctua 14D cooler on it, the temps only dropped 5C under load but even then I still thought it was a little too high for running WCG which I plan to do, but that's another story 

For this reason I did feel that I would prefer to have a Threadripper system over the 3950X CPU simply due to the temps side of things, plus with those extra cores and such, it would definitely be an even better system.  Granted it's a very big price jump but...  If you're running things 100% or close too a lot of it's life, I'd have thought that lower temps etc, would have only been a bonus for the hardware to last longer..  

But it's just my thoughts and opinions, so what the heck do I know


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## Breit (Feb 10, 2020)

Thanks for this excellent writeup.

One question though: Why is the overclocked setting (iOC in your case) slower than the stock setting in R20 Single? Especially why is stock + 3733-CL16 slower that stock + 3733-CL18?







Shouldn't it be the other way around?

I get that cheap overclocking with fixed multipliers contradict single-core boost on stock settings, but I guess that is not the explanation with your iOC settings as those should get higher scores across all workloads?!


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## Berfs1 (Feb 10, 2020)

Breit said:


> Thanks for this excellent writeup.
> 
> One question though: Why is the overclocked setting (iOC in your case) slower than the stock setting in R20 Single? Especially why is stock + 3733-CL16 slower that stock + 3733-CL18?
> 
> ...


When you manually overclock Zen2, as in, you put a fixed multiplier, the boosting mechanism is essentially disabled. The way boosting works for Ryzen (also applies to Intel but we will stick to Ryzen) is, when there is light loads or few threads loaded, the processor operates at a higher frequency with higher voltage, but the temps are no issue since it is usually sub 25% load when loading 1 or 2 threads. Therefore, the processor is actually stable under light loads for slightly higher frequencies. You can run offsets for voltages to allow for slightly higher headroom for boosting, but when you manually apply a fixed multiplier, then that is the maximum the processor will run at, and it must be stable for when ALL CORES/THREADS are loaded, not just a few. That is most likely why the overclocked results are lower than stock. Not to mention, Ryzen actually is extremely intelligent with the way they handle boosting, as it basically finds the most optimal frequency for normal users, however when running max load, it would be nice to also have it run at the best voltage/frequency (which is usually around 1.325V max and a variable frequency dependent on the silicon quality).

Hold up a minute, why is the 2990WX higher than the 3960X..?


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## gamefoo21 (Feb 10, 2020)

1usmus said:


> You are a careful user, the advertising picture really does not show one element, namely the TPU, an intermediate element that "doubles" the signal, which then goes to two assemblies at once.
> Yes, it cannot be considered a complete 16-phase solution, but it cannot be considered an 8-phase solution. That's why I put the Prime95 test results into the material. The 8-phase solution cannot provide a 55 degree temperature at 270-300A without active cooling or a very massive radiator.



A driver that boosts and outputs the same signal can't be called a doubler or balancer. It's an amplifier and even that simple action will delay the response slightly.

I was actually thinking about what it should be called to be honest but marketing friendly .

8 phases with doubled stages.
16 power stages running in an 8 phase configuration.

Asus VRM temp sensors are notoriously inaccurate from what I can find. They all seem to report 20-30'C low. 

Honestly you are right an 8 phase single stage setup will run warmer than an 8x2 because of component surface area. It also makes the VRM twice as large so much easier to cool. There natural balancing at play so one stage isn't doing all of the work but it's not 50/50, the more stages the muddier things get.

If we look at current mobos in similar pricing ranges. IIRC...

X570 Prime by Asus, 3 actual phases running 12 stages for the CPU VRM.

X570 Aorus Gaming by Gigabyte, 6 actual phases into 12 phases running 12 stages, with the use of doublers. The doublers are intelligent and do active balancing between their connected phases.

X570 Aorus Pro by Gigabyte, 6 actual phases into 12 phases running 12 stages, using doublers. The doublers are dumb and the controller itself can control the balancing of the phases.

X570 Aorus Master 12 actual phases running 12 stages.

Guess which runs cooler on VRM testing? According to Hardware Unboxed, the Gigabytes. Even the Asus Hero gets smacked by the Aorus Master.


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## Breit (Feb 11, 2020)

Berfs1 said:


> When you manually overclock Zen2, as in, you put a fixed multiplier, the boosting mechanism is essentially disabled. The way boosting works for Ryzen (also applies to Intel but we will stick to Ryzen) is, when there is light loads or few threads loaded, the processor operates at a higher frequency with higher voltage, but the temps are no issue since it is usually sub 25% load when loading 1 or 2 threads. Therefore, the processor is actually stable under light loads for slightly higher frequencies. You can run offsets for voltages to allow for slightly higher headroom for boosting, but when you manually apply a fixed multiplier, then that is the maximum the processor will run at, and it must be stable for when ALL CORES/THREADS are loaded, not just a few. That is most likely why the overclocked results are lower than stock. Not to mention, Ryzen actually is extremely intelligent with the way they handle boosting, as it basically finds the most optimal frequency for normal users, however when running max load, it would be nice to also have it run at the best voltage/frequency (which is usually around 1.325V max and a variable frequency dependent on the silicon quality).
> 
> Hold up a minute, why is the 2990WX higher than the 3960X..?



Yeah OK, I get that. However, the question was more like if it is possible to retain the individual-core-boosting feature while tweaking multipliers and number of cores to boost simulateously while keeping everything under a certain power and/or temperature limit? These are features you can tweak on Intel platforms which makes it a lot of fun to overclock. On Intel HEDT (FCLGA-2066 or even FCLGA-3647) you can even set a max. multiplier on each individual core (provided your mainboard manufacturer has that feature covered in the BIOS/UEFI of course).
I hoped this may be also available on TRX40. I mean on stock AMD shows that this is possible with their boosting scheme, I guess it isn't too far fetched to expect this to be tweakable, isn't it?


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## Berfs1 (Feb 12, 2020)

Breit said:


> Yeah OK, I get that. However, the question was more like if it is possible to retain the individual-core-boosting feature while tweaking multipliers and number of cores to boost simulateously while keeping everything under a certain power and/or temperature limit? These are features you can tweak on Intel platforms which makes it a lot of fun to overclock. On Intel HEDT (FCLGA-2066 or even FCLGA-3647) you can even set a max. multiplier on each individual core (provided your mainboard manufacturer has that feature covered in the BIOS/UEFI of course).
> I hoped this may be also available on TRX40. I mean on stock AMD shows that this is possible with their boosting scheme, I guess it isn't too far fetched to expect this to be tweakable, isn't it?


In a way yes. If I am not mistaken, there is a maximum boost override with PBO, and you can set that up to 200 MHz. However, I wonder if you could set a base frequency, and a max boost speed... Please forgive me for I personally do not own any Ryzen systems, but I have worked with Ryzen before, and I think the only real thing you could do (with Ryzen) is undervolt the processor, which has been shown to improve both single and multithreaded clocks, which improves those performances. I know what you are asking, and personally I wish Ryzen could implement a manual boost algorithm, similar to Intel's turbo boost ratio algorithm, except w/o the bogus power limits and stuff like that. THAT would be an overclocker's dream. Speaking of this, why can't ThrottleStop work with Ryzen? Is it possible to make a version for Ryzen, specifically for this, so that we could have the single core turbo, and a manual minimum clock speed set by user (for multithreaded workloads)? I have this on my laptop with multiple profiles, which results in exceptional battery life when not plugged in, and killer workstation performance when plugged in.

All in all, the only solution (that I can think of) that can actually increase the clocks on the boosting algorithm is by putting setting core voltage to offset mode and put an offset. Oh also, don't use a Shittabyte motherboard. I know why they have problems with any sort of tuning, it's because their  "genius" engineers thought it was a good idea to provide VRMs that do not support voltage control, that is why voltage is usually funky on Gigabyte boards. If you go Asus or MSI or ASRock, you are bound to have a board that will actually be capable of *changing* the voltage from stock.


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## kapone32 (Feb 12, 2020)

gamefoo21 said:


> A driver that boosts and outputs the same signal can't be called a doubler or balancer. It's an amplifier and even that simple action will delay the response slightly.
> 
> I was actually thinking about what it should be called to be honest but marketing friendly .
> 
> ...



I personally will never buy a GIgabyte board ever again. Asus is not far behind either. As rock are for me the best MBs for Ryzen based systems.


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## Marucins (Feb 12, 2020)

A very nice article. Factfully and quite well written.

Is there a chance for the OC Guide for regular Ryzen 3000? (3900X, 3950X)


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## W1zzard (Feb 12, 2020)

Marucins said:


> Is there a chance for the OC Guide for regular Ryzen 3000? (3900X, 3950X)











						AMD Ryzen Memory Tweaking & Overclocking Guide
					

Memory overclocking has a significant impact on performance of AMD Ryzen-powered machines, but the alleged complexity of memory tweaking on this platform, largely fueled by misinformation and lack of documentation, has kept some enthusiasts away from it. We want to change this.




					www.techpowerup.com


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## gamefoo21 (Feb 12, 2020)

kapone32 said:


> I personally will never buy a GIgabyte board ever again. Asus is not far behind either. As rock are for me the best MBs for Ryzen based systems.



I've had some issues with Gigabyte, but I just used their boards as a comparison. Not nearly the same level of never again with Asus though. LoL

I've had some luck with Asrock overall.

The Asrock X570 TaiChi/Phantom Gaming X/Creation use the same VRM as far as I know as the Aorus Gaming.

I think the important thing is to remember every mobo maker makes bad boards and good boards. Asus is on the down swing and Gigabyte on the up. Personally I think Gigabyte is building the best boards of the high end for the X570/TRX40 currently.


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## Kicksta (Feb 12, 2020)

Excellent article, one of the reasons I consider this site one of the top in its' field.


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## Marucins (Feb 13, 2020)

W1zzard said:


> AMD Ryzen Memory Tweaking & Overclocking Guide
> 
> 
> Memory overclocking has a significant impact on performance of AMD Ryzen-powered machines, but the alleged complexity of memory tweaking on this platform, largely fueled by misinformation and lack of documentation, has kept some enthusiasts away from it. We want to change this.
> ...


There is nothing about OC processor :\

I can OC memory. It's worse with the CPU.


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## Asni (Feb 14, 2020)

Hi @1usmus ,first at all i would like to thank you for your guide.
I read it a couple of time but i have some doubts about two  steps:
- if your OC in CCX based how could you find the voltage required for every single core? 
- given the target, 1.35v 4.4ghz, why did you reduce the clock of some CCX? If i read your core map correctly every single core can do 4.4ghz within the limit. Am i wrong?

Thanks in advance.


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## Deleted member 190774 (Feb 15, 2020)

A great read - and bookmarking this review for a later date when I get my 3960x (or equiv').

It felt as though there were a couple of good, high-level, take aways from this.

1) The 3960x, when 'tuned', can receive a serious bump in gaming performance.
2) It was already competitive, but with a serious bump in gaming performance, it will knock more 9900K(KS) number 1's into second spot (unverified).
3) It will differentiate those that think they are overclockers, and those who really are.

Yes it's expensive for gaming, but there'll be a lot more people that buy one if they think it has the potential to become the new gaming king. After all, these people are 'serious' overclockers - right?


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## Breit (May 6, 2020)

@1usmus: I tried to replicate your results myself with my 3960X (now I have one at last). May I ask what version of Prime95 you were using?
I tried this with the latest v29.8, build 6 and find the "Small FFT" (36K..248K) absolutely horrendously demanding in comparison to "Smallest FFT" (4K..21K) or "Large FFT" (426K..8192K).

For instance with my "intelligentOC" the CPU alone is pulling ~380W in Large FFT, but around 550W with Small FFT. The system is pulling close to 800W at the wall at this point and that is without GPU usage. This difference is surprisingly huge and no matter what other benchmark/stress-test I ran, I can not even come close to what Prime95 in Small FFT mode is pulling. So I wonder if it does make sense to tune the OC for that knowing that I will not reach such levels in any real world application?!

Allthough I have a full custom water cooling with a total of four 480mm 65mm thick radiators in push-pull and an EK monoblock with liquid metal on the CPU, this is simply too much for ambient cooling. The CCDs are reaching 100°C with that while on the less demanding Large FFT they sit in the high-60s.


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## Breit (May 7, 2020)

Asni said:


> Hi @1usmus ,first at all i would like to thank you for your guide.
> I read it a couple of time but i have some doubts about two  steps:
> - if your OC in CCX based how could you find the voltage required for every single core?
> - given the target, 1.35v 4.4ghz, why did you reduce the clock of some CCX? If i read your core map correctly every single core can do 4.4ghz within the limit. Am i wrong?
> ...



This is probably because all-core load is much harder for the CPU. For instance you can get a voltage/frequency setting stable on one core or even on all threads in one CCX, but when you apply that to all threads, it isn't stable anymore. I've found that you have to back the clocks off by about 50-100MHz when testing all-core compared to single-CCX on the same voltage. Further testing all-core produces much more heat and if your cooling solution can't keep up, then you have to back down the voltages and start over.


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## froboy88 (Aug 7, 2020)

@1usmus, Thank you for this detailed write up on the 3960x.  Most, as you said, dismissed overclocking this CPU out of hand and as such, there isn't much info out there about it.  

You mentioned in your post the power draw at your peak OC was 337W. Did you take note of the power draw at lower OC? Say 4-4.2ghz?

I'm trying to plan a custom loop for the 3960x and dual GPU's and am finding it difficult to work out exactly how much load the CPU could have for a more modest OC. You're article cleared up more then any other thing I have read but I still have some questions.

How did the CE420's manage the coolant temp? You show how much them can affect the max OC so I had to assume that they manage to keep the core temp around 50C.

Did you do any tests Loading the CPU and GPU? Were the CE420's still enough in that workload?

I'm trying to work out if dual PE360's will be enough for a more modest OC. In your experience what do you think they could handle? With Dual 2080ti's and a work load that hits everything hard like video rendering would more radiator be needed?

Thanks


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## Breit (Aug 7, 2020)

I guess at some point more radiator space is not helping to get the temperature of this CPU low enough.

I have a 3960X and have it overclocked to mostly 4.4 with the exception of 3 CCXes, which I only get stable at 4.325, 4.350 and 4.375 respectively.
I have a custom loop with four thick 480 rads (Aquacomputer AMS) with push-pull fans.

At this point rad space is not the issue, as the heat transfer at the CPU block is simply not good enough to efficiently get the heat away from the CPU and into the water. I'm using liquid metal and an EK block, but still am reaching 85°C core temp using Prime95 while pulling close to 500W CPU alone. Water temp stays below 35°C on the cool side, even with ambient temp around 25°C. So there is a delta of at least 50K on the CPU there.

Maybe that gives you an idea about what to expect on the upper level. At stock this chip pulls about 280W sustained under load, so depending on your overclock you will land somwhere in-between.


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## froboy88 (Aug 7, 2020)

@Breit, Thanks for your input.  I'm surprised, that with that much radiator, your coolant is still 10C over ambient but I guess, in general, radiators can't do much without a delta between ambient. 

Back in the day, I decided my Ivybridge 3770k, because like the threadripper it didn't matter how much cooling you threw at it, temps spiked in the CPU as there was too much heat trapped in the IHS.  Have you seen the video where der8auer delids his 3970x? The chip is so much more then the 3770k I don't think I would try it even if it helped.

Have you monitored temps outside of Prime? While 85C is high given your coolant temp, its not bad for Prime in general, I just wouldn't want to run it 24/7. Do you render or compile with the chip?

If I read @1usmus charts correct, the 3960x will boost to 4.2GHZ, if the chip stays under 50C. Is this an all-core boost clock? Have you let the 3960x run stock? What kind of boost do you see with your setup?

Regarding radiators:  I'm wondering how well 1 or 2 of your 480's would do as I'm interested in running either 2x360 or 1x360 + 1x420.  I'd expect that, in push-pull, they can do over 500w/10C over ambient (correct me if I'm wrong).  Does that mean that with your coolant temp your setup has about 2000W of cooling power?

I'm trying to find the sweet spot for Rads, and it seems like with 2x GPU's and a 3960x the total TDP might be over 1200W (500W+380Wx2).  However, I may take a more optimistic approach, and either use a lower OC or account for few workloads using both CPU and GPU to 100%.  "Optimistic" loop TDP might be 330W x 3 =990W.  This might still leave room for either the GPU, or CPU to not be thermaly constrained, just not both at the same time.  As I said I can't think a non-synthetic I would use that would hit both at 100%  

What are your thoughts on the minimum radiator size for OC that setup? It looks like an EK CE420 and XE360 both Push/pull could pull that off but not sure if that even fits. I'm trying to stick to a Define S2 or Define 7 size case. Another option would be CE420 + PE360 + 140/180 all push.


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## Breit (Aug 8, 2020)

I'd say with 2 rads (preferably 420 or 480) you should be fine, even with 2 GPUs. The CPU and maybe the VRM alone will be fine with only one rad. I also have 2 GPUs which pull ~300W each under load. I only have 4 rads because I mostly wanted a silent PC (idle and light load, it is whisper quiet) and they fited without problem in my case.

On stock my chip boosts to 4500-4550 and VERY occasionally 4600. But sustained non-Prime95 load it stays around 4000 and with prime it drops to 3850-3900.
When I render stuff or encode videos (100% load requires multiple streams to be rendered simultaneously) the CPU stays around 60°C with my overclock, only prime95 is so demanding. I could've overclocked the chip to even 4500 and two CCXs to 4600 if prime95 wouldn't be so hard.


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## Tenchi (Jan 1, 2022)

Happy new year! 

Thank you very much for this arcticle.

So you would suggest a custom loop for my 3970X even if i want to work more or less within the specs?
Don't want to use extreme oc or someting but optimizing the system to get more out of it that sounds nice.

Would be one Nemesis GTR 480 for cpu only enough?

BTW: 
i got a G.Skill 256GB 3600 CL16 Kit working perfect stable but its near impossible to drop the latency below 91ns


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## Caring1 (Jan 1, 2022)

Tenchi said:


> Happy new year!
> 
> Thank you very much for this arcticle.
> 
> ...


Start your own help thread in the appropriate section, not in a review..


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