Overclocking

Overclocking the Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX is limited by heat output. With our 240 mm AIO watercooling, the highest voltage we could set was around 1.35 V. Beyond that, with all cores loaded, temperatures were too high, causing the CPU to throttle.

That's why we set 1.35 V as the maximum voltage for this test, and we managed to run the CPU at all 24 cores stable with 3.975 GHz. 4.0 GHz was just a hair unstable, and we couldn't increase the voltage any further without risking throttling in some benchmarks.

Our boost analysis page shows that even when left at stock settings, Precision Boost 2.0 will boost low-threaded workloads well above those clocks, so with manual overclocking, low-threaded apps end up with a performance disadvantage. It's best to use Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) to have the best of both worlds: higher single-core performance and maximum use of available cooling capacity.

Precision Boost Overdrive - The Newer and Saner Way to Tweak a Threadripper

Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) is a new method of overclocking Threadripper. Each Threadripper CPU has a set of rules that govern how high the boost algorithm will clock the processor. These rules not only take into account number of cores loaded, but also current temperature of the processor, power and current delivery capability of the motherboard, and the temperature of the VRMs on the board. The idea here is that rather than arbitrarily setting a higher-than-nominal clock speed and forcing the processor to tick at that clock speed all the time, you instead increase these platform limits so that the processor can boost higher for longer. This ensures that your effective OC headroom is higher because you won't need all the cores to run at overclocked speeds all the time, and for low-threaded workloads, the cores will boost to their maximum, which would otherwise be unstable with a manual overclock because in that scenario, all cores would be running those high clocks.


What's more, PBO cuts through a lot of settings by respecting the voltage/frequency curve, so you don't end up with an unstable combination of the two. PBO lets those with air-cooling or AIO liquid cooling make the most of their cooling setups since you'll probably need DIY liquid cooling or extreme cooling to get the best results from manual overclocking. The Ryzen Master software, which comes with a new Threadripper-friendly user interface, lets you toggle PBO and play with its limits.

Ryzen Master Software

Ryzen Master is a comprehensive software suite by AMD that gives you an overview of the current operating state of your processor, and lets you tweak it. You control CPU per-core clock speeds, voltages, per-channel memory clocks/voltages, and other important power domains of your machine. You also get to control fan speeds, and RGB lighting on certain Wraith cooler models. With the latest version of Ryzen Master, AMD is introducing a revamped user interface optimized for Threadripper, with a larger workspace to tweak each of the up to 32 cores.