Increase the highest operating temperature for the AMD Ryzen 5000 (5950X).
Increase the highest operating temperature for the AMD Ryzen 5000 (5950X).
Only -5 appears at the top two spots. If these were the most powerful cores, you might have aimed for -22 or lower. Top overclockers are usually the ones needing the least voltage to reach a certain frequency, giving them more power to hit higher speeds. Also, the specified temperature limit (Tjmax) is a strict requirement—don’t push beyond it. Those numbers aren’t the main bottleneck; the real issue is nearer to 125°C, which is the stable silicon limit. The probe can’t be placed on that hotspot because there’s logic handling it, and by the time it’s read, heat has already dissipated.
I initially had the same question when I started exploring Curve Optimizer. However, as I delved deeper into the algorithm, it explained that the top-performing cores are already stable and thus gain more from higher clock speeds via PBO. Lowering their voltages seems to hurt their performance too, which matched my observations after several tests—though not dramatically. This makes sense from a PBO standpoint. Still, your observation about sensor placement is valid; talking to a hardware designer friend confirmed the silicon can endure extreme heat, around 200°C locally, with only about 85°C being a practical limit. I’d appreciate discussing this further to avoid micro-throttling under heavy CPU use.