Clock Frequencies

The following chart shows how well the processor sustains its clock frequency and which boost clock speeds are achieved at various thread counts. This test uses a custom-coded application that mimics real-life performance—it is not a stress test like Prime95. Modern processors change their clocking behavior depending on the type of load, which is why we provide three plots with classic floating point math, SSE SIMD code, and modern AVX vector instructions. Each of the three test runs calculates the same result using the same algorithm, just with a different CPU instruction set.



Not sure why there's a drop with SSE instructions specifically, could be some sort of bug.

I also tested the second CCD only, which houses the high-frequency cores without cache:

Overclocking

While overclocking the Ryzen 5800X3D wasn't possible, the new 7000 Series X3D CPUs can be overclocked through Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) and Curve Optimizer (CO). Multiplier-based overclocking is still not available.

First of all, enable PBO and switch to the "manual" mode, which gives you most control. Set the various power limits to something like 200, you can raise them later if you max out one of them. Now the most important part, you must enable Curve Optimizer or you will not see any meaningful gains. Start with a value of -15 on all cores, boot into Windows, and use Ryzen Master to check that everything is setup correctly.

Now run stability tests and games to see if your system is stable. Your temperatures will also be higher, because the CPU will boost higher for longer. With my Noctua NH-U14S I've hit the 89°C thermal limit very quickly, which is basically the end of the OC journey, you can only try lowering the CO values even further. Since the 3DV-Cache die is more sensitive to thermals, AMD has decided to lower the temperature limit from 95°C (non 3DV Zen 4 CPUs) to 89°C (3DV Zen 4 CPUs). Together with the thick heatspreader, it is very difficult to keep the CPU temperature down, even though your heatsink itself is barely warm.

I managed to shave around 1°C off the temperature, by lowering the SOC voltage setting, which saves roughly 10 W heat output from the SOC (memory controller etc). These 10 W get consumed by the CPU cores automatically, the processor will boost a little bit higher, until it reaches the temperature limit, you get a bit of extra performance.

Using our Arctic Liquid Freezer II AIO made no significant difference in temperatures, not even in the Ryzen Offset mounting configuration. The problem is not getting rid of the heat at the bottom of the heatsink, but getting the heat from the tiny surface area compute dies to move through the IHS.