I see a lot of Ryzen overclocks with the B550… Anybody have first hand experience?
I’m getting the impression (as there’s some conflict/contradictions) that cooling is more important with these top-tier chips; they will essentially ‘overclock’ themselves, adjusting the clock upwards based on load - if they don’t have any hiccups due to heat. FWIW. It’s like people are setting settings but the chip has the final say. I dunno, just what I’ve been digging up.
1 Like
I’ve just read this entire thread. Now I can’t seem to find my soul. We are heading towards an inflection point. I see a near future where people learn to fly in real airplanes and continue to fly them regularly because they were priced out of their real passion: flight sims.
9 Likes
Of what use was that soul anyway?
Sell it and buy a 3090. I did…
1 Like
B550 overclocks just as well as X570 and even B450 (but fewer of those boards got updated BIOS for the Ryzen 5000 and they do not support PCI-E 4.0 at all, so no recommendation)
But with AMD, overclocking is NOT a premium feature and very accessible.
What is more important is to get a high-end motherboard that has good VRMs and cooling. My Aorus Pro B550 does it very well, but with your budget I would recommend going to the top tier Aorus Elite or similar from other manufacturers. The VRMs and cooling on B550 top tier boards is identical to that on X570 top tier boards, the B550 boards are just a lot cheaper because of fewer PCI-E 4.0 lanes on the chipset, as I explained.
4 Likes
As has been said though, overclocking works differently,. The card adjusts clocks dynamically, and does it very well. This means that your single-core boost clock can be much higher than the all core load boost. And it also saves on energy usage when there is no load on any or most cores. This may sound similar to Intel energy-saving and boost clock features, but it is much much more pronounced because these features were not added later but are an integral part of the full chip design.
So: do not set a fixed voltage and clock speed for all cores. You’re better off keeping it stock then.
What should you do?
Raise power limits to the levels your quality motherboard is capable of. This is just “flicking a switch” in the BIOS screen: “set PBO Limits to Motherboard” or similar.
That likely gets you 95% of the way to your optimal chip performance, at 1% of the time investment. If you do want to continue, you can Google “PBO overclocking” and “curve optimizer”.
What those mean conceptually, is this:
The automatic algorithm for determining clock speed (and voltage) based on load follows a curve: it moves up the curve when load for a core is increased, increasing clock speed, and also adjusting voltage as dictated by the curve.
The 2 things you can change here, are:
- You can increase the maximum allowed clock speed (PBO boost clock). This will make clock speed increase, until the power/temperature limits are reached again, and then the CPU won’t boost higher, no matter how high you set this limit. It simply won’t reach it.
- Then, you can “Shift the curve”, to make the CPU require less voltage at a given clock speed. Effectively undervolting, this reduces the power usage at each clock speed, and allows your cores to reach higher clocks (if the limit allows it) before the power limits are reached.
However, nr.2 here should be done per core, and is very hard to stability test. Not recommended unless you really like overclocking. Also, look up some guides on reddit on stability testing and consider using this tool and the reddit post mentioned in the readme.
Again, only if you like overclocking. Otherwise, just set PBO limits to motherboard and call it a day.
7 Likes
Ok, I need to digest all that.
First I need to find a mobo and RAM.
How important is CL? Should I go for the lowest? CL16?
I want 64Gb RAM. Should I buy a set of 4x16Gb or can I get two sets of 2x16Gb? Are they matched, in any way?
And what about compatibility?
The RAM I found is G.Skill part no. F4-3600C16Q-64GTZN.
Checking the compatibility list for the mobo I find F4-3600C16Q-64GTZ and F4-3600C16Q-64GTZRC… Close enough?
This one?
Go for the fastest timings you can get (CL16 for DDR4-3600 is very good, faster timings like CL15 or CL14 can get pretty expensive and are harder to come by).
Two 32GB kits of the same type should be fine but if you can get a 64GB kit then I would rather take that.
The part number you listed looks compatible. I wouldn’t expect any problems there
3 Likes
Actually, the first board I bought was broken and Gigabyte’s software (for stuff like RGB etc) sucks.
The nice thing about the board I have is the quality of parts but that is about it.
Motherboard recommendations are hard to make as there are soo many features you may or may not want. For example, the Aorus boards do not have internal USB-C, which is very annoying if you have a cass that has a front USB-C port. Otherwise, you wouldn’t even notice.
Have a look at this tier list instead. Mind you, the tier itself has been decided largely based on price, so if prices in your area are different, the tier may be not representative. I find the description field in that spreadsheet very useful for narrowing down a selection.
When you do buy a motherboard, ask your retailer to flash the BIOS to Ryzen 5000 compatible for you. Most offer this service for free, and it saves you some effort and tension
2 Likes
Ok… Order sent.
- AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
- G.Skill TridentZ Neo DDR4-3600 C16 QC - 64GB
- ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PRO (WI-FI)
- be quiet! Dark Rock PRO 4 CPU cooler.
I went with a heatpipe air cooler for the CPU, this time around. I will use the liquid system for just the GPU, this time.
5 Likes
I’m sure you’re right!
But mark my words… Once the parts arrive, we’re going to get the best summer ever, up here! I won’t be able to build the PC until fall…! 
1 Like
You mean, like, with sunshine?
Good parts! Add a capable NVMe drive and the speed will be nuts.
1 Like
I know I sound desperate, but yes…
I have two in my current PC, that I will transfer over.
Was there a particular reason you went Asus over Gigabite MB?
Availability, mainly.
And I have good experiences from using Asus. Going from Intel to AMD is a big leap out of my comfort zone… I felt I should keep one foot in my old camp.
5 Likes
I think I resemble that remark 
1 Like
Nice, thank you for sharing that. My memory is 64GB of G.Skill 3200 but should be fine for now. Got a good price on it months ago.
Still researching cases.
2 Likes
I’m looking for that ram also.
Some one not long ago suggested a Corsair 750D (air flow).
Which store do you frequent (Canada) @jross.
I don’t recall the where I got the memory sticks from but I think it was a link from Amazon to a 3rd party. But generally, so far, Newegg, Amazon. I’m far from a complete package yet though. I’ve been holding off on the major parts til the GPU craziness subsides. It may be a long summer, fall, and winter.
From what I can dig up (taken many, many hours) the above parts + a 3080Ti or 3090 will double my performance, which is what I want (DCS VR primarily). Just have to decide which body part I like the least so I can sell it to pay for the GPU 
2 Likes