5950x overclocking expectations

[darket]

Was recently given a 5950x, Msi b550 tomahawk and 32gb 8pack team group dark 3600mhz.
Completely new to Am4 overclocking and was wondering the capabilities of this combo. I have a bunch of spare watercooling parts so it'll be blocked up. Any tips ? Is it even worth the effort these days ?

 

[Adrianr]

Worth the effort? Beyond turning on PBO, probably not. It's been a minute since I fiddled with my 5950x but back when they released it was all about trying apply negative curve offsets and twiddling the PBO limits to get PBO to boost the chip higher. Still good fun though!

 

[jabski]

Best to undervolt than overclock the 5950x. PBO is the way to go rather than an all core oc

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Single core not much to be gained
Basically 5.05ghz to 5.1ghz on mine
Multicore I can easily do 4.5ghz all cores
Probably got another 100--200mhz left
I could push for if really wanted to
So if doing stuff that uses all the cores
That's a decent improvement

 

[jigger]

Depends what you’re doing with the system. As said, in multi threaded workloads the 5950X is a real powerhouse of a chip.

 

[Columbo]

As above undervolting mixed with PBO is the best approach imo.
I've tried several different configs with my 5900x and even with all core overclocking, I saw little to no benefit in overall performance in photoshop / lightroom / cad / navisworks and gaming. I'm sure there was but I don't run benchmarks. FPS is gaming remained largely the same though.

Undervolting with PBO allows my temps to stay at low meaning boost clocks are achieved for longer and more often so thats why I took that approach

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Yeah there's more than one way of doing it
With am4 cpus
Can also play with PPT,EDC and I always forget the third one doh!
I have the added advantage of a bios
That allows switching from multicore oc
To single core on the fly
Can't even remember what ASUS call it
My memory is terrible lately
Would be no point in me running multicore oc
If gaming etc

Of course how good your cooling solution is
Is relevant

 

[darket]

Thanks for all the replies and advice, it's replacing an i7 5960x funnily enough. I'm not expecting anything incredible from it just a bit of fun tweaking. I think I'll go with playing with the PBO and see what happens

 

[ATIorNvidia]

Would just enable PBO and focus on RAM tuning

 

[darket]

Would just enable PBO and focus on RAM tuning

Yeah that's exactly what I'm thinking. I'm hoping this 3600 will be plug and play without any issues

 

[jigger]

Thanks for all the replies and advice, it's replacing an i7 5960x funnily enough. I'm not expecting anything incredible from it just a bit of fun tweaking. I think I'll go with playing with the PBO and see what happens

I think you’ll be very surprised just how much faster the 5950X system is.

 

[reef]

I did this exact upgrade just over two years ago. As others have said, there is little to it. I just enabled PBO and -20 on curve optimiser. This gave the best all-core speed for me - around 4500MHz and stable. Then it was just as case of tweaking the RAM with some good b-die. I managed 3733MHz at 16-15-14-28. I cannot post with a NB frequency of 1900MHz no matter what so this is where I landed.

It was a good speed increase over my i7 5960x at 4500MHz and runs fine on a Noctua DH15 whereas the i7 had to be watercooled.