Yes, a CPU with a low core voltage can cause it to slow down when you ask for more power or temperature.
Yes, a CPU with a low core voltage can cause it to slow down when you ask for more power or temperature.
I looked into overclocking and now I'm asking a question: does an overclock actually lower the clock speed and undervolt while you aren't using it at all? Or is this only active when gaming or doing heavy work? I have an R5 3600 and Tomahawk Max, so I am planning to do some overclocking. Thanks!
OC on a Ryzen is kind of a wild dance move. The CPU will boost its speed based on the voltage, temperature, and how much electricity it uses right now. So if you lower all three things at once, you might actually get faster speeds, up to a certain limit. But finding that perfect balance is key; just raising or lowering any one of them can kill the boost instead of making it stronger. PBO does this balancing for you automatically, which is way easier than figuring it out on your own. Current levels are actually the biggest and most confusing part for everyone right now. Many people still think you need to raise speeds while fixing voltages and checking temps. That's not true anymore for Ryzen chips like these because they can handle up to 1.5v at idle or when using very little electricity, 1.325v for normal loads, or even down to 1.2v if you're pushing hard on the current. It might not sound bad until you start asking exactly where that line between "extreme" and "okay" goes...
About that, I'm stuck trying to fix Cool N' Quiet on my motherboard because the info says AMD took it away. It sounds like the feature is gone now or never existed for me. I need help figuring out why I can't access these settings in BIOS.
It won't work that way unless you change the multiplier, voltage, or the boost/drop ratio yourself. But when you do set those things manually, your power output and temperature will go down. You can tweak a little bit of voltage by using an offset like minus one volt, or with the LLC settings.
P state overclocking lets you keep power saving features even if they're in your BIOS. But honestly, the 3600 is probably not worth pushing it harder for precision boost unless you have great cooling. My guess is that manually tweaking settings isn't a big deal most of the time. The only time I'd change anything on my own is to undervolt at higher clocks, because Ryzen chips tend to guess voltages too high when things get hot (it's not dangerous but still).
Running an overclocked processor is like doing a crazy dance. The CPU boosts speed based on voltage, temperature, and current. If you lower all three of those settings, you actually get faster boost speeds up until a certain point. The best speeds happen with the perfect balance of all three factors. Just raising or lowering any one of them can drop the boost, not necessarily make it go higher. PBO does the balancing for you much easier than trying to figure it out yourself. Current levels are by far the biggest and most confusing part. Too many people get stuck on Intel thinking they need to raise speeds, fix voltages, or check temps just because of that. For Ryzens, you can handle up to 1.5v at idle, even when using very little current. At medium loads, 1.325v is okay. But if the load gets extreme, 1.2v might be needed. That's not too bad unless you don't know exactly what "extreme" means right now. What are we talking about? Are we just playing stress tests or gaming? Which games do we mean by that? Just Call of Duty or Battlefield 5, or is CS:GO and Minecraft included? People are using high speeds with settings they think are safe at 1.3v+, but burning their CPUs out in less than two years. Personally, I don't recommend manually overclocking a Ryzen. It's much better to use PBO, even PBO1 or PBO2, which lets the CPU give its best speed based on how well your cooling system works.