AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Boosts to 5.85 GHz Only if You Can Keep it Under 50°C

[RobA]

I've had good success with my custom vapor chiller (Silent Chiller) I created ... 5.925Ghz on 7 cores and 5.5 - 5.9Ghz on 9 cores SMT On. Still more tuning that needs to be done as I've currently gone done one path for OC strategy.

Pretty sure I can get to 6Ghz without a problem and good thermals.

Waiting on my EK full front/rear coverage water block for my 4090 to arrive so I can start in on GPU OC.

BIOS settings as I continue to experiment:

Rob

 

[mikkiwildcat]

I have a 7950x with 5 radiators, 280mm 45mm thick, 2 x 280mm 30mm thick, 360mm 30mm thick and external 560 45mm thick and still sits at 40 degrees doing nothing, at PBO I get max 5.6ghz with 60 to 70 degrees, all core 5.1ghz at 85 degrees, I can overclock to 5.4 and 5.3 ghz and hit 95 degrees and topped cinebench water cooling with 39516, I will never be able to get 5.7ghz and above

 

[Jism]

I am sure there can be things tweaked in the proces, as i challenged myself to keep my 2700x at all times below 60 degree mark to hit the constant 4.25Ghz all core or 4.4 single thread.

1: good mounting pressure. A washer really helps. But i'm not sure about long term effects for motherboard or socket.
2: good thermal paste. There's really good ones out there, my choice was MX-5
3: push pull fan configuration on a 360mm rad with fairly aggressive fan-speed
4: negative voltage offset; basicly voltage tuning. The less you need the less heat.

I'm sure you can do even more, such as lapping or even IHS removal but those obviously jack your warranty.

 

[AusWolf]

I have a 7950x with 5 radiators, 280mm 45mm thick, 2 x 280mm 30mm thick, 360mm 30mm thick and external 560 45mm thick and still sits at 40 degrees doing nothing, at PBO I get max 5.6ghz with 60 to 70 degrees, all core 5.1ghz at 85 degrees, I can overclock to 5.4 and 5.3 ghz and hit 95 degrees and topped cinebench water cooling with 39516, I will never be able to get 5.7ghz and above

Forget about overclocking such a modern CPU. You have the best cooling that you possibly can (unless it has some contact issues), so just set PBO to auto, and enjoy.

Don't worry about idle temps, either. These CPU cores have an incredibly small surface area, which means they cannot transfer the minimal heat that they make at idle to the IHS and your cooler effectively. 40 °C idle with any kind of cooling is normal.

Oh, and welcome to TPU!

I am sure there can be things tweaked in the proces, as i challenged myself to keep my 2700x at all times below 60 degree mark to hit the constant 4.25Ghz all core or 4.4 single thread.

1: good mounting pressure. A washer really helps. But i'm not sure about long term effects for motherboard or socket.
2: good thermal paste. There's really good ones out there, my choice was MX-5
3: push pull fan configuration on a 360mm rad with fairly aggressive fan-speed
4: negative voltage offset; basicly voltage tuning. The less you need the less heat.

I'm sure you can do even more, such as lapping or even IHS removal but those obviously jack your warranty.

1: Unnecessary. Coolers and coldplates are designed with the optimal mounting pressure in mind.
2: MX-5 is a hit-and-miss. Some batches have terrible separation issues. Not recommended. MX-4 is much better and more reliable. If you have money to spend, TG Kryonaut is even better.
3: Push-pull isn't necessary. A good fan curve does the job, although even that only saves you a couple of degrees max.
4: Agreed, though one really needs to know what they're doing. I think, cooling your CPU with 5 radiators is overkill enough not to warrant any need for voltage tuning.

 

[Jism]

So yeah why is the washer mod for GPU's then so effective? The same applies for CPU's. You want to have maximum (contact) pressure.

MX5 is tricky, because you need to seperate the "oil stuff" from the real paste. The oil is just in there to keep it wet.

Push pull does work; on avg 1 to 3 degree. For something like PBO 1 to 3 degree adds up.

 

[AusWolf]

So yeah why is the washer mod for GPU's then so effective? The same applies for CPU's. You want to have maximum (contact) pressure.

It helped certain Radeon RX 5700 XT models because some manufacturers F-ed it up badly. It doesn't mean that it helps everything. You want the recommended (not maximum) contact pressure.

MX5 is tricky, because you need to seperate the "oil stuff" from the real paste. The oil is just in there to keep it wet.

The one tube I had was separated into a watery and a semi-solid phase right from the start. It was completely unusable, I binned it straight away. Like I said, MX-4 if you want reliable quality.

Push pull does work; on avg 1 to 3 degree. For something like PBO 1 to 3 degree adds up.

Um... sure. If you want to spend money on extra fans to gain a couple percent in Cinebench, go ahead. I wouldn't.

 

[Jism]

I'm not cinebenching lol. It was just a experiment. figured out that keeping the 2700x below 60 degrees was the absolute sweet spot. It would clinge to 4.2Ghz all core on for example, a linpack test.

As of the MX5 - really it's the oil and you want the paste to spread in a equal matter onto the IHS. Once ive done it right the temperatures where amazing for it's product.

 

[AusWolf]

I'm not cinebenching lol. It was just a experiment. figured out that keeping the 2700x below 60 degrees was the absolute sweet spot. It would clinge to 4.2Ghz all core on for example, a linpack test.

As of the MX5 - really it's the oil and you want the paste to spread in a equal matter onto the IHS. Once ive done it right the temperatures where amazing for it's product.

Whatever floats your boat, I guess. As for me, I'm pretty convinced that a thermal paste should be just that: a paste. Not an oil and solid mixture.

 

[Jism]

As i said the oil is in there to prevent it from hardening up, or being stored for too long. You need to seperate the oil from the paste, and paste the IHS up to a good solid (thin) layer, followed with good contact pressure. Then it works better then MX4.

 

[AusWolf]

As i said the oil is in there to prevent it from hardening up, or being stored for too long. You need to seperate the oil from the paste, and paste the IHS up to a good solid (thin) layer, followed with good contact pressure. Then it works better then MX4.

I think that's BS because the rest of the "paste" came out of the tube completely dry on day one, but whatever. You're entitled to your opinion.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

I think that's BS because the rest of the "paste" came out of the tube completely dry on day one, but whatever. You're entitled to your opinion.

This has been discussed elsewhere - I doubt your tube looked anything like his. His probably separated a little oil out, where yours was junk from day one. Some people haven't had any separation at all.

 

[Jism]

If your paste is coming out dry, start mixing it up with a bit of oil so you get that solid paste again.

They do that because of prolonged storage. So yeah.

 

[AusWolf]

If your paste is coming out dry, start mixing it up with a bit of oil so you get that solid paste again.

They do that because of prolonged storage. So yeah.

Prolonged storage... on a paste that's trash from day one. Sure. I'm definitely not gonna do, or recommend doing home-made improvement tricks on a few $ thermal paste, especially when there are lots of other, more reliable pastes out there for the same price that work perfectly and can be applied much more easily (like the aforementioned MX-4), but like I said, whatever floats your boat.

This has been discussed elsewhere - I doubt your tube looked anything like his. His probably separated a little oil out, where yours was junk from day one. Some people haven't had any separation at all.

Exactly. Some have experienced a little separation. Some have experienced none. Others, a lot (like myself). That's why I don't recommend the MX-5: its quality is inconsistent.

After checking for local prices, I see that the MX-5 has been discontinued in favour of the MX-6. I wonder why.

Anyway... enough about thermal pastes.

 

[RobA]

I use a custom built vapor chiller that I run in my closet and is super quiet, no problems at all keeping the CPU below 50C … I can boost to 5.95 GHz and still be at 43C peak. I do use Liquid Metal on the CPU and copper block.

 

[Mussels]

So yeah why is the washer mod for GPU's then so effective? The same applies for CPU's. You want to have maximum (contact) pressure.

MX5 is tricky, because you need to seperate the "oil stuff" from the real paste. The oil is just in there to keep it wet.

Push pull does work; on avg 1 to 3 degree. For something like PBO 1 to 3 degree adds up.

It only helped because the coolers had bad contact, no more and no less.

 

[mikkiwildcat]

I have just had my ryzen 7950x hit 5.8ghz but only one core while gaming under pro, usual I get 5.7 to 5.75ghz and I was shocked but like I said having 5 radiators in my system to do this and dual d5 pump is extensive and not your everyday Joe blogs build. I would stick to maybe 7900x or 7900x3d so u can jump between gaming and production and only have like 3 good radiators like 45mm think

There's the proof

 

[AusWolf]

I have just had my ryzen 7950x hit 5.8ghz but only one core while gaming under pro, usual I get 5.7 to 5.75ghz and I was shocked but like I said having 5 radiators in my system to do this and dual d5 pump is extensive and not your everyday Joe blogs build. I would stick to maybe 7900x or 7900x3d so u can jump between gaming and production and only have like 3 good radiators like 45mm think

Having fewer cores (with the same TDP) is actually worse in terms of heat, because the processor's power is concentrated into a smaller area.

 

[Mussels]

View attachment 283754

HWmonitor is garbage on AMD, it's often extremely inaccurate.
use HWinfo

 

[RobA]

Liquid Metal is far superior to any other paste, easy 7-10C drop just from that alone.

 

[mikkiwildcat]

Can't believe it,my 7950x reached 6.3ghz while gaming on a core at a time. I updated my bios for the new 7950x3d, updated am5 driver, put on m 6th radiator and I got that.
Have no idea how it's on pbo not overclocked

 

[AusWolf]

Can't believe it,my 7950x reached 6.3ghz while gaming on a core at a time. I updated my bios for the new 7950x3d, updated am5 driver, put on m 6th radiator and I got that.
Have no idea how it's on pbo not overclocked

I can't believe it either. My 7700X tops out at 5.55 GHz in short bursts on a single core.

 

[mikkiwildcat]

What cooling do u have, a 360mm radiator ? would be good for 8 cores

 

[AusWolf]

What cooling do u have, a 360mm radiator ? would be good for 8 cores

280 mm AIO, but it's not a temperature-dependent thing, as the CPU rarely ever goes above 60 °C in most games. 5.55 GHz is the factory maximum clock with PBO (5.5 or 5.4 GHz without it, I believe).

 

[mikkiwildcat]

280 mm AIO, but it's not a temperature-dependent thing, as the CPU rarely ever goes above 60 °C in most games. 5.55 GHz is the factory maximum clock with PBO (5.5 or 5.4 GHz without it, I believe).

The 7000 series will only go above 5.6ghz if it is below 50 degrees at the time, maybe try buying faster spinning high pressure fans for ur radiator, may increase ur noise lever by 6db but ur temps should drop by about 10 degrees

 

[AusWolf]

The 7000 series will only go above 5.6ghz if it is below 50 degrees at the time, maybe try buying faster spinning high pressure fans for ur radiator, may increase ur noise lever by 6db but ur temps should drop by about 10 degrees

It's not that. Even at the start of a task, 5.5 GHz is the maximum it runs at for any given time. It never crosses it for even a millisecond.

Besides, even if I could get an extra 100 MHz out of it at the cost of increased noise, I wouldn't. It's not worth it (I hate noise).