How to Overclock Your AMD Ryzen CPU

There was a time when AMD wasn’t as good as Intel in most builds, except for the cheapest ones. That changed with Ryzen, which gave us a great all-around CPU with a lot of CPU cores and good performance. You can even Overclock Your AMD Ryzen CPU.

These days, boosting is pretty simple, but there is a small risk involved. You could shorten the life of your CPU or damage it forever if you aren’t careful. Most of the time, this won’t happen because your computer will shut down immediately, but it’s still best to be safe and move slowly. Also, just in case you were asking, this will void your warranty.

How to Overclock Your AMD Ryzen CPU

Precision Boost Overdrive 2

Setting up Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) is one of the fastest and easiest ways to get your Ryzen CPU to run at higher sustained speeds than it does by default. And that’s PBO2, which is a new and better version of the red team’s auto-boost tool right now. For the record, PBO2 is an official tool. Even though AMD still warns users not to use it, it is one of the safer ways to boost your CPU’s speed.

What does PBO2 mean? It’s a one-click tool that automatically and adapts to improve speed. Precision Boost 2 is AMD’s boost algorithm that makes sure your CPU can reach its full speed while it’s running. This is basically an update of that algorithm. No matter what you pick, once PBO2 is turned on, your system should set three settings above the defaults:

1. PPT – Total Power to Socket
2. TDC means “Sustained Current Limit.”
3. EDC stands for “peak current limit.”

Automatic overclocking

There are a few easy ways to set your BIOS or AMD’s Ryzen Master Utility software to automatically boost your chip. You can get this software for free from the AMD website. It has everything you need to keep an eye on and change how your CPU works. AMD’s automatic overclocking builds on the PBO2 boost we talked about earlier and tries to combine PBO2 with an offset that is set by hand to the processor’s highest boost clock.

1. Boost Override CPU – the megahertz value which you aim to increase your CPU’s maximum boost clock
2. PPT – Total Socket Power
3. TDC – Sustained Current Limit
4. EDC – Peak Current Limit

Manual overclocking

Overclocking is ‘old school’ but can maximise processor performance if done correctly. Manual overclocking should be slow to avoid overvoltage and find your CPU’s sweet spot. We propose the two ways above before manually changing. It’s riskier and requires some sacrifice, but AMD Ryzen CPUs are precisely tuned, so adaptive algorithms get more out of them than a constant all-core overclock.

• CPU clock, motherboard, RAM, and PCIe bus operation depend on BCLK. Most clocks multiply BCLK to calculate system clock speed. To simplify, your BCLK will likely be set to 100MHz, and we’ll conduct some simple calculations today. Changes to this number for small clock speed changes would effect other components’ clock speeds, so we’ll leave it as is.

• CPU clock speed is BCLK multiplied by CPU Core Ratio. It may be set to auto by default, giving this ratio to other algorithms, but we want a fixed figure for our overclock. A 40-Core Ratio CPU would run at 4,000MHz (40 x 100MHz).

Undervolting

You can set PBO2 to undervolt your CPU through the BIOS. This lets you run your CPU at lower voltages while keeping the same speed or even making it better with automatic overclocking. All of these things save power, reduce noise, and make less waste heat. In your BIOS boosting settings, you can get rid of the overvoltage on your chip by going to Curve Optimiser. I had to set PBO2 to “Advanced” and then go into the menu from there to find it.

Testing your overclock

You can choose either HWMonitor or HWInfo. I really get these two mixed up a lot because they look so much alike. In the extended drop-down view of MSI’s Afterburner, you can see CPU tracking graphs that can be very helpful for seeing how your CPU speeds up and slows down over time.

You’ll mostly want a quick and dirty test that will put a good amount of stress on your CPU to make sure it won’t blow up. If a short run shows right away that your overclock isn’t stable, there’s no need to go through the long testing process every time. You can use Cinebench R23 for that, and if you go to the settings and select “Advanced,” you can run both multi-core and single-core tests. You can see not only if your CPU is stable, but also what clock speeds it can hit when it’s busy.

Benefits of Overclocking Your AMD Ryzen CPU

• This is the key draw: better performance. If you speed up your CPU faster than its stock speed, you can get better results in games, video editing, and 3D modelling, among other things. How much better it is depends on the task and the type of CPU being used.
• Better experience: Faster clock speeds can make frame rates smoother in games and response times faster in demanding apps. This can make the user experience a lot better, especially for people who care a lot about speed.
• Longer life: If you boost your CPU within safe limits and keep it cool, you might get a few more years of use out of it before it needs to be replaced. This isn’t a given, though, and working too hard can shorten its life.
• Getting a stable overclock and pushing the limits of your gear can be a rewarding experience and a source of pride for hardware enthusiasts.

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