Overclocking

To analyze overclocking potential of the Ryzen 7 1800X, we set fixed operating frequencies between 3.5 GHz and 4.2 GHz and tested what voltage is required to achieve stable operation (tested using Prime95). This approach sheds light on both the processor's overclocking and underclocking potential. We also measured wall-socket power draw of the whole system, which is displayed in the bar graphs below the curve chart. The temperatures plotted are without the 20°C temperature offset that Ryzen 7 reports. So 70°C displayed in Ryzen Master is 50°C actual temperature, as confirmed by AMD. Our chart will use 50°C in that case. We've set our aircooler to run at 100% fan speed throughout OC testing.

As you can see, it's relatively easy to get to 3.8/3.9 GHz, up from a base clock of 3.6 GHz on the 1800X. Once you go for 4 GHz and above, the cooling requirements quickly increase and lots of voltage is required to achieve stability. Due to the increased voltage, power draw shoots up, too. If you look at the 4.1 GHz and 4.2 GHz power-usage numbers, you can see a drop, which suggests that the CPU throttles internally, which will lead to some loss in performance.

Considering that AMD XFR boosts the CPU up to 4.1 GHz out of the box without any configuration needed when two or fewer cores are active (up to 4 threads), I'm not sure if manual overclocking on the 1800X is worth it. If you look at the 4 GHz OC results in the performance section, you'll notice many cases where overclocked performance is lower than out-of-the-box performance. This is due to XFR boosting the CPU clock up to 4.1 GHz dynamically, while our overclocked configuration always sits at 4 GHz.

AMD Ryzen Master Software

With Ryzen, AMD is launching a new software utility that makes overclocking the processor and memory as well as monitoring temperatures and testing a machine's stability a breeze. The new Ryzen Master software can be freely downloaded from AMD's website and presents nearly every performance-tuning option you'd otherwise use the motherboard's UEFI setup program for.



To begin with, AMD Ryzen Master provides fine-grained CPU overclocking through base-clock and multiplier adjustments. You also get to tweak the CPU core and three other key voltage domains - VDDIO, VTT, and VDDCR_SoC. You can set multipliers for each individual core and can disable cores. Most CPU clock and voltage settings are on-the-fly, requiring no reboots. Memory tweaking options, however, need reboots to take effect.



Memory tweaking options are pretty robust, including DRAM clock, DRAM voltage, and key memory timings. Lastly, you get extensive temperature, clock-speed, and frequency monitoring tools.