AMD 7950X overclock help

[Vger70]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/MZz7tn Doing my first overclock of my AMD 7950X build linked
but I’m having issues getting above 36000 on Cinebench. I’m doing just an EXPOI profile base enabled PBO over clock with all setting AUTO except manual setting the AIO score to 180. Since a 10 min Cinebench run doesn’t see my water temp rising above 32c and it had it at 152.

It’s stable at a score of 36700 on EXPOII but when I attempt to set my cpu-multiplier anything other than auto even 50 GHz or use the curve to under volt all cors even -5 it is unstable.
I’m very new to overclocking.
here is the HwiNFO for my latest Cinebench run on EXPOI If you need info I’m not showing to troubleshoot just let me know. Thanks

 

[Woomack]

As I remember, +200MHz max PBO limit, -30 curve and it should work. If it doesn't then +150MHz. On the other hand, these CPUs are not overclocking well and the performance gain isn't really visible in daily usage.
You can start from -20, -30 or -40 curve. Then you will see if it boosts higher and if temps are holding the boost clock. I see 95°C+ on the screenshot, so core clocks are for sure lower than max under full load.
The alternative way which suggests settings is Ryzen Master and auto OC. Then it will pass tests at all cores and you will see min/max for voltages and ratios. It also helps to set all cores manually and save time (like each core separately as you have the list of min/max values).

At default without limits you should see something around 5.7GHz max boost on CCD0, and 100-150MHz on cores from CCD1. After OC it will show about 5.9GHz on 2-4 better cores, and 100-200MHz less on weaker cores.

I wasn't overclocking my 7950X for long months, so what's above is what I remember. The CPU runs at stock for comparison tests only, and I overclock RAM. I guess other users can share some more tips about overclocking.

 

[Zerileous]

It looks like "normal" scores for this chip are 38-39k and tech spot as able to get there with a 360mm AIO. That said, it is a lot for an AIO to contend with. Being off by 1-2k is not abnormal and can come down to a lot of things. In fact it commonly varies by 1k between runs, so if you haven't tried multiple runs yet I should suggest doing so.

Have you installed all of the motherboard and chipset drivers and ensured there are no background program running while you are testing? You could also experiment with the power plan, I'm not sure if your system will have a "Ryzen Balanced" power plan but most people have best results either using that or high performance. CAM can be a resource hog as well, so make sure that and other monitoring utilities are closed during the run (I know this kind of leads to flying blind, but if you want to see the true max score you should to run like this, then you can run with monitors to see what's happening and where you might be able to improve). At least fully close CAM.

Looking at your HWiNFO64 panes, you're definitely thermally limited in your current configuration. This is normal and expected, but performance may be lower than expected, so I would look here first. What is your water temp and does increasing/maxing pump speed help? Have you verified an even mount with good thermal paste spread?

The other approach to high temps would be to undervolt. I am a little confused because you mention using the curve to undervolt but I'm thinking you might be mixing up two different settings. Like anything, you have to try different settings. You can try a negative voltage offset on the whole CPU.

When people talk about +200Mhz, they are referring to AutoOC, not changing the actual core multiplier. Trying an all core OC is a different beast entirely. But there should be an auto OC setting and all it does is allow PBO to boost past the stock clock speeds by 200Mhz.

I'm still a few generations so I'm not sure if this is how it is normally reported, but I noticed your uclk is at 1500 where I would expect to see 3000. Maybe someone more experienced on AM5/DDR5 can chime and and comment if this is normal for DDR5 6000.

 

[Vger70]

It looks like "normal" scores for this chip are 38-39k and tech spot as able to get there with a 360mm AIO. That said, it is a lot for an AIO to contend with. Being off by 1-2k is not abnormal and can come down to a lot of things. In fact it commonly varies by 1k between runs, so if you haven't tried multiple runs yet I should suggest doing so.

Have you installed all of the motherboard and chipset drivers and ensured there are no background program running while you are testing? You could also experiment with the power plan, I'm not sure if your system will have a "Ryzen Balanced" power plan but most people have best results either using that or high performance. CAM can be a resource hog as well, so make sure that and other monitoring utilities are closed during the run (I know this kind of leads to flying blind, but if you want to see the true max score you should to run like this, then you can run with monitors to see what's happening and where you might be able to improve). At least fully close CAM.

Looking at your HWiNFO64 panes, you're definitely thermally limited in your current configuration. This is normal and expected, but performance may be lower than expected, so I would look here first. What is your water temp and does increasing/maxing pump speed help? Have you verified an even mount with good thermal paste spread?

The other approach to high temps would be to undervolt. I am a little confused because you mention using the curve to undervolt but I'm thinking you might be mixing up two different settings. Like anything, you have to try different settings. You can try a negative voltage offset on the whole CPU.

When people talk about +200Mhz, they are referring to AutoOC, not changing the actual core multiplier. Trying an all core OC is a different beast entirely. But there should be an auto OC setting and all it does is allow PBO to boost past the stock clock speeds by 200Mhz.

I'm still a few generations so I'm not sure if this is how it is normally reported, but I noticed your uclk is at 1500 where I would expect to see 3000. Maybe someone more experienced on AM5/DDR5 can chime and and comment if this is normal for DDR5 6000.

Thanks for all the replies. I have downloaded all drivers through Armory Crate but haven’t gone to the Asus site to download chipset drivers. I used Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Extreme and covered the whole lid of the cpu with a thin layer and the pump seems seated well I have the AIO pump set at full speed. Do the temps look too high? I never saw throttling in HwiNFO during the Cinebench test. I used the curve optimizer to do an all cor -30 -20 -10 under volt but in each instance it was unstabl. I’m going through a Ryzen Master Single Cor optimization right now I‘ll give you the results when done

 

[Zerileous]

No it's not a matter of too high. In a simple sense, the boost algorithm is constrained by 3 parameters: temperature, current and clock. This old-ish article still does a good job of explaining the basic functions. https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3491-explaining-precision-boost-overdrive-benchmarks-auto-oc

Based on your HWiNFO64 logs, you're performance is currently constrained by temperature, of those three parameters. This is not the same as throttling, as one of the three will always be constraining performance. The chip is designed to go as fast as possible at the thermal limits specified, within specified current limits and within specified clock limitations. So thermally limited is actually a good thing, it means you're getting the most out of the system. But if performance is not what we expect or want, we need to look at decreasing temperature. One way to do this is undervolting. In the BIOS you can use a core voltage offset, but you'll need to look through your specific settings to see. Start with the smallest amount possible and make incremental changes. You can also check if you mounted the CPU cooler with even pressure or just try re-mounting. All of the screws should be incrementally tightened a little bit at a time in a cross pattern if 4 are used or back and forth pattern if 2 are used. You can remove the cooler to check if it looks even.

However I think more likely your small discrepancy is based in software. Are you running CAM, ryzen master and HWiNFO64 together? Any other background programs. I would suggest disabling ALL of the background programs and processes you can and try it again, to see if that impacts your score. You never want to run multiple monitoring softwares together, so of the three pick one to run during the benchmark and close the rest.

I don't have any direct experience with curve optimizer so I don't think I can help with that part.

 

[Vger70]

No it's not a matter of too high. In a simple sense, the boost algorithm is constrained by 3 parameters: temperature, current and clock. This old-ish article still does a good job of explaining the basic functions. https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3491-explaining-precision-boost-overdrive-benchmarks-auto-oc

Based on your HWiNFO64 logs, you're performance is currently constrained by temperature, of those three parameters. This is not the same as throttling, as one of the three will always be constraining performance. The chip is designed to go as fast as possible at the thermal limits specified, within specified current limits and within specified clock limitations. So thermally limited is actually a good thing, it means you're getting the most out of the system. But if performance is not what we expect or want, we need to look at decreasing temperature. One way to do this is undervolting. In the BIOS you can use a core voltage offset, but you'll need to look through your specific settings to see. Start with the smallest amount possible and make incremental changes. You can also check if you mounted the CPU cooler with even pressure or just try re-mounting. All of the screws should be incrementally tightened a little bit at a time in a cross pattern if 4 are used or back and forth pattern if 2 are used. You can remove the cooler to check if it looks even.

However I think more likely your small discrepancy is based in software. Are you running CAM, ryzen master and HWiNFO64 together? Any other background programs. I would suggest disabling ALL of the background programs and processes you can and try it again, to see if that impacts your score. You never want to run multiple monitoring softwares together, so of the three pick one to run during the benchmark and close the rest.

I don't have any direct experience with curve optimizer so I don't think I can help with that part.

Thanks that makes it clearer. I’ll run a test with all background monitoring software disabled.

Unfortunately my fans are SWAFAN EX’S which run off controller software so can‘t be seen by the system without the software running. It also may be causing problems with Ai overclocking software as the mb fans and case fans are non-existent as far as the Ai is concerned. Although the cooling is being perform. I would not by them in the future for this reason.

 

[Vger70]

Well I got it to use curve optimizer to undervolt all cores negative 4 and 3 but with no appreciable improvement. -5 and above all failed.

Selecting EXPOII overclock profile and all other settings auto except CPU Cor Ratio which is instead switched to Ai optimized and Curve Optimized set to Auto produced the same Benchmark Scores 36500 with in a few point.

I tried running the RYZEN MASTER per Cor optimization but my computer crashed almost every Cor and only got to about 16% before crashing and loosing progress in the optimization. I tried once more and only got to 2% before I lost progress again. So something is not acting right. I’m handicapped so checking the seating of my AIO seating is hard and at best my performance would only increase by 4000 points so I think I’m good at this time Or until I can get my bro to help.
Thanks for all the help

 

[Zerileous]

I'm wondering if something is going on with EXPO stability. If you want to keep experimenting (or start experiencing random shutdowns) you might try going default without expo and seeing if it is more stable.

 

[Vger70]

I’ll try that

 

[Vger70]

https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/comments/103glvs

Ok I am following the overclocking guide at Reddit above as Zerileous above suggested I’ve set to default mode in Ryzen Master I have not loaded a EXPO Profile
then In advanced mode selected curve optimizer, precision boost overdrive, per core.
applied the settings. Which sets PPT 1000/ TDC 1000/ EDC 1000 and hit Start optimizing.
it got to about 12% then when I started RM it said prior profile unstable it will be removed. And when I reset all setting and hit start optimizing it had no saved values.…..
?

 

[Zerileous]

Yeah I would stop trying to do the automatic thing. Also I believe the guide you're following is for 5000 series. There is a lot in common but it is a new platform and socket so some things might not be applicable. I believe the guide he doesn't change anything before running the optimizer.

I would suggest just trying just the curve optimizer to start, PBO will help if you hit power delivery limitations but that's not what you're experiencing now. I'm curious if curve optimizer still causes instability without EXPO enabled.

This is really going down the rabbit hole, so if you're happy enough at any time you can just let it ride. But if you enjoy tweaking this stuff and want to really figure it out, we're here for you.

 

[Vger70]

I’ll give it a try. So the two previous times I’ve ran the Curve Optimizer with PBO eventually my motherboard would stick and not reboot even after turning off the power supply and restarting. Requiring a C-MOS reset to get into the OS again. Should I be worried this could cause damage?

 

[Zerileous]

I wouldn't worry much about it, your board was literally made for that. But changing one thing at a time, testing, and making small incremental changes will minimize the hassle of your bios getting stuck on unbootable settings.

For extra insurance, you could set up a flash drive with the latest BIOS ahead of time. Your board supports BIOS flash back, so a properly configured usb drive can be inserted and the BIOS can be flashed/recovered with the push of a button. I don't have personal experience with this feature, so you would need to follow the manufacturer guidelines and all. But in the very unlikely event that something happened where you couldn't clear the settings, you would have a little insurance / peace of mind.

 

[Vger70]

I have one already. I had to flash the motherboard before my memory would work. So I’m familiar with the process. Thanks I didn’t realize that it could be used to recover bios control as well as updating bios.

 

[Zerileous]

I only meant in the (extraordinarily unlikely) event that the bios was corrupted. I would stick to the normal process of clearing the CMOS for any issues booting after a changing settings.

 

[Vger70]

I only meant in the (extraordinarily unlikely) event that the bios was corrupted. I would stick to the normal process of clearing the CMOS for any issues booting after a changing settings.

I got it use c-mos to recover if un-bootable but if that doesn’t work and the bios is corrupt then there is a way to restore the bios

i have a question on not using PBO during optimization. I was under the impression that PBO was the process by which the chips were undervolted while optimizing the speed chips could run. what does the process do without it. Max out the speed the chips will run at stock voltages?

 

[Zerileous]

Please refer to the article linked in post 5. The three parameters of PBO are power limits, which individually can constrain clock speed. The other constraints on clock speed are the predetermined boost clock and temperature. Here is another guide you can refer to https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/how-to-overclock-a-cpu#section-how-to-overclock-an-amd-cpu

You control temperature by using a better cooler or decreasing voltage, some boards might also allow you to adjust the throttle temp. You can set an overall offset or use the scalar (more popular). I guess the scalar could be considered "part of" PBO, but here you're decreasing power and temperature.

You control clock speed by adjusting AutoOC, bumping that limit up by 200Mhz

You control power limits by adjusting PBO and the scalar

In a conventional overclock, you, the user would follow an incremental process: set a clock speed (CPU multiplier), and then apply enough voltage to make the system stable. You would incrementally do this until you either reached a voltage limit that you believe (or the manufacturer provided) will have a low chance of degrading the silicon before it's expected life, or you can't keep the system cool enough to go higher.

These CPUs are doing that automatically, in real time, and adjusting every millisecond. By undervolting (either using a vcore offset or curve optimizer) you are effectively tricking the algorithm into giving less voltage for a given clock. The risk is instability and the reward is less temperature (since the current limits effectively don't factor once PBO is enabled).

In other words, setting PBO, maxing the power limits, etc won't help if you're already riding the thermal limitation. Scalar can get things really hot really fast, but does have the potential for better performance as well.

Most people/guides are suggesting to basically do all of these things at once, which is working well for most people, but your system is crashing when you do this so we want to figure out why and customize the settings so your system will be stable.

Also everything above is disregarding the more important aspect of memory overclocking (EXPO). If you do nothing else, you want to enable that, or find a stable memory overclock. Disabling EXPO and trying the curve is a troubleshooting step to determine if your CPU just needs that voltage or if there is something else causing the instability when you tried to set the curve optimizer before. If it turns out or seems to be caused by EXPO, the next step would be to manually find a stable memory overclock, and then go back to working the CPU.

 

[Vger70]

Thanks for the guides and the explanation

 

[Vger70]

Ok I set it to default oc/ per core , no PBO in Ryzen Master. It crashed a few times on the first and second core but then a few crashes all the way to 99% but on the final Cor crashed two or three times and when I booted up the on the second or thrird time got the unstable profile and all my progress was erased.

 

[mtdewcowboy]

Ok I set it to default oc/ per core , no PBO in Ryzen Master. It crashed a few times on the first and second core but then a few crashes all the way to 99% but on the final Cor crashed two or three times and when I booted up the on the second or thrird time got the unstable profile and all my progress was erased.View attachment 362493View attachment 362494

I wouldn't do it through Ryzen Master, it gives way too high offsets in curve optimizer. Best to setup in Bios, -30 is pretty well max for all core, -20 is most likely.