A little Saturday morning overclocking

[sck451]

I've had my PC for a better part of a year now and I've always been a little confused by why the CPU didn't quite behave as marketed: it was stuck pretty constantly at 4.2GHz, without ever boosting up or idling down. Everyone talks about how AMD processors do all these exciting things, and mine just... didn't. Even changing from the stock cooler to the NH-D15S didn't seem to actually change performance.

So I have just spent an hour or two in the BIOS and have finally got things behaving as they should. I think what I have done is to remove an overclock. It seemed that it was set to an automatic core clock multiplier of 42. When I set this to "Auto" instead, suddenly I was boosting up to 4.9GHz and idling down to 3.2GHz. Much more reasonable. Is it normal for a PCS computer to come with this automatic (and seemingly very conservative...) overclock? Is there any other explanation?

By now I'd got the bug and decided that my boring 3200MHz memory could do with some overclocking as well. So I have had a play and got it to 3400MHz, CL16-18-18-36.

I did try setting it to 3600MHz, but that didn't work and I ended up in safe mode in the BIOS (a slightly scary moment).

Now, I was stupid enough not to try a benchmark beforehand, and I can't say I've seen actual functional differences in performance, but it's nice to think I'm actually getting the full performance I'm meant to have now.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I've had my PC for a better part of a year now and I've always been a little confused by why the CPU didn't quite behave as marketed: it was stuck pretty constantly at 4.2GHz, without ever boosting up or idling down. Everyone talks about how AMD processors do all these exciting things, and mine just... didn't. Even changing from the stock cooler to the NH-D15S didn't seem to actually change performance.

So I have just spent an hour or two in the BIOS and have finally got things behaving as they should. I think what I have done is to remove an overclock. It seemed that it was set to an automatic core clock multiplier of 42. When I set this to "Auto" instead, suddenly I was boosting up to 4.9GHz and idling down to 3.2GHz. Much more reasonable. Is it normal for a PCS computer to come with this automatic (and seemingly very conservative...) overclock? Is there any other explanation?

By now I'd got the bug and decided that my boring 3200MHz memory could do with some overclocking as well. So I have had a play and got it to 3400MHz, CL16-18-18-36.

View attachment 29437

I did try setting it to 3600MHz, but that didn't work and I ended up in safe mode in the BIOS (a slightly scary moment).

Now, I was stupid enough not to try a benchmark beforehand, and I can't say I've seen actual functional differences in performance, but it's nice to think I'm actually getting the full performance I'm meant to have now.

Apparently some Asus boards came with factory overclock set at the factory.

 

[TonyCarter]

Mu X570 was the same - stuck at about 4.2GHz until I reset the BIOS to default...of course also had to set the RAM profile again...now it uses less power and slows down to its base speed and only boosts when it's needed.

 

[SpyderTracks]

You should find temps are a lot better now as a result also.

 

[sck451]

That makes sense.

Well, it makes sense for why my system was behaving like that. It doesn't make sense as to why they set it up that way with that default behaviour!

 

[DarTon]

I've got my 5900X on default. Works great and I don'ts see much to gain from tinkering. AMD seem to have tinkered for us.

I've got 32 (2x16GB) of Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz. I ran it initially at 3600Mhz with CL18-22-22-42 timings; the same timings Corsair have on their 3600MHz memory. Obviously this works given it's the same primary latency and Corsair's 3200 and 3600 memory are exactly the same down bin. They just put a different sticker on the box and sell the 3600 for £15 more!

I found I couldn't get it down to 3600Mhz CL16-18-18-36 either. It would work, however, at 3600Mhz CL16-20-20-38, successfully running memtest. These days Corsair is mid-low range RAM bins so I didn't expect too much. I just don't really see the value in paying up another £75+ to worship at the alter of Samsung b-die. 32GB of Corsair LPX is now just £125. Feels great value.