Ryzen 7 3700x Overlock stable until PPT pulls more wattage

[bobbysullivann]

First and foremost, I wanna apologize if this has already been covered somewhere and I have just not been able to find it.

I’m ware that overclocking Ryzen 2 has negligible performance gains especially in gaming which is my primary use case. I just like tinkering.

Here’s my parts list…

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Gbmtn7

Ryzen 7 3700x
MSI MPG X570 GAMING PLUS
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 @ 1.45v and 14-14-14-15-28 (DRAM Calculator for Ryzen, FAST Preset)

I was able to boot into Windows and complete a Cinebench R20 run by setting the VCore to 1.375v and the All Core Multiplier to 43.5. Running the CPU/both CCX’s (according to Ryzen Master) @ 4.35 GHz.

I wanted to solidify that this overclock was stable so I ran a blended prime95 test and launched the Heaven benchmark concurrently. It ran solid for a while until my screen abruptly goes black and I reboot. It was odd to me because there was no signs before it went down that it was having issues with stability.

I tried running it again with Ryzen Master and HWMonitor open and realized that the issue appears to be thermals. Despite the fact that I set a PPT limit of 126w, this surges past that number by 8% (108% of 126W) and my CPU package temperature climbs up past 100C and the machine shuts itself off.

Is the cpu introducing more PPT wattage passed my defined limit to continue to maintain the base clock of 4.35GHz I set?

I noticed when I do the same test on stock with PBO auto overclocking, the wattage goes up to the maximum and sets the clocks at 3.9 GHz until a test is passed in prime95 and the wattage goes back down to just over 100 and the clocks climb back up to 4GHz+.

[The_Drugs]

It’s my understanding that with overclocking you can exceed the PPT of stock by some margin. The 3700x has a 65w TDP, with a 88w PPT. 88*1.08=95w, which is the max power the CPU is allowed to supply, iirc. I’d imagine with the issues with PBO on x570/zen2 the system is likely ignoring the 126w limit you set (which would apply for the 105w chips, iirc) and capping you there. I’d be happy to take a deeper look into this later, I just wont have time for a few days. In the meanwhile maybe take a look at some of the overclocking threads general to zen2 and see if anyone else has had anything like this happen, the guys on OCN normally have good info.

Also, if you want to tinker, it may be better to try CCD overclocking. There’s some way that you can OC each individually, for slightly better performance. Truth be told I usually love to tinker with my setup too, but there’s so little benefit with my 3700x i havent even bothered. Sorry for the non answer answer, dm me in a few days if I dont get back on this if you havent figured it out.