AMD’s making overclocking fun again with Zen 5 and Ryzen 9000
AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series has a tonne of interesting options for overclockers
AMD has been working hard to give their new Ryzen 9000 series CPUs a great overclocking experience. We have more thermal headroom with much of their new Zen 5 lineup, as AMD’s new thermal lid design has boosted heat-transfer efficiency. Beyond that, AMD has lowered the TDP of much of their lineup, adding more thermal headroom into the mix as well.
Further adding to Zen 5’s overclocking mix is a selection of new overclocking features. Faster memory is supported with Ryzen 9000 thanks to AGESA changes. Beyond that, AMD’s overclocking tools are more powerful than ever thanks to AMD’s “Curve Shaper” tech.
One-Click overclocking delivers worthwhile gains with Ryzen 9000
While we love tinkering with our CPUs, we know that not everyone has the time and energy for such in-depth overclocking. The good news with Ryzen 9000 is that Precision Boost Overdrive is hear to give users a one-clock overclocking boost. Just enable Precision Boost Overdrive and you can make use of Ryzen 9000’s extended thermal and power headroom to achieve significant performance gains.
For their Ryzen 7 9700X, AMD has showcased a 15% performance boost in multi-threaded workloads. Lesser gains are seen with their Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 5 9600X. Even so, Precision Boost Overdrive basically gives Ryzen 9000 users a free performance boost if they have strong cooling and are willing to increase their CPU’s power draw.
New options for overclockers to explore
One change that AMD has made with recent AGESA updates is the addition of higher-speed memory support for AM5 processors. With Ryzen 9000, AMD are supporting up to DDR5-8000 memory speeds through overclocking. There is also a new “memory overclocking on-the-fly” feature. This can use optimised memory profiles to deliver optimal memory performance at specific times. For example, higher clock speeds can be used when they are most effective. Lower latency settings can also be used when they are of more benefit.
AMD has also revealed a new “Curve Shaper” feature for overclockers. This expands upon AMD’s existing Curve Optimiser feature with more tweakable options that can enable further CPU performance boosts. Curve Shaper allows AMD to reshape their CPU’s voltage curve, enabling improved undervolting support.
Effectively, AMD users can use this feature to lower the voltage of stable bands and raise the voltages of unstable bands. This can free up more power headroom when voltage can be lowered, and deliver stability in previously unstable areas of the voltage curve. If you are willing to test and tinker, this feature can be used to great effect.
Read more about AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series and AMD’s Zen 5 CPU architecture in our Deep Dive here.
You can join the discussion on Ryzen 9000’s overclocking potential on the OC3D Forums.
