Decided to mess around with some overclocking.

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NightShade

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So I am a geek, I am pretty sure most anyone who has seen my posts on here knows that. Anyway one of the things I did since my wife passed was build a computer out. Started messing around yesterday and decided to see what I could take a first gen Ryzen to. My intention is to pick up a 3rd Gen when they are in stock all the time and the newness wears off and price starts dropping.

Anyway I bumped the cpu from it's original clock of 3200 Mhz to 4100Mhz and was able to keep it stable. I was also able to run the ram at 3200Mhz which is what it is rated up to but still considered an overclock. One of the tests that I use to compare changes is Passmark. It works well for me even though some people complain that synthetic benchmarks do not equal real world performance. I disagree on some of that becuase it can show where one build can outperform another but you can't just look at one part, it is also great for comparing performance gains and losses on the same system.

Anyway here is what my test looks like in comparrison to the test some other people have done with the same CPU. Mine is running about 3000 points above the average and some poor sap is running about 5000 points below me... I have to laugh wondering how many people see that and try to get those results.

https://www.passmark.com/baselines/V9/display.php?id=124465456632

Anyway that puts me right around the range of a Ryzen 7 1800X which is an 8 core 16 thread CPU and the one I am using is a 6 core 12 thread cpu. I don't think that is too bad at all. For you car guys it's like having a 6 cylinder vs a V8. I just bolted on a turbo and dumped in some more fuel on a five year old car and got the same performance for less money than that brand new V8.

passmark.jpg


BTW for anyone looking to do a Ryzen build DO NOT skimp on the RAM. It likes FAST RAM. I did a test the day before with the ram at it's defaults which is DDR4 2133 vs the max settings which is DDR4 3200. The passmark test was 1000 points lower at 14507 for the CPU vs 15524. https://www.passmark.com/baselines/V9/display.php?id=124426558734

And here is another test showing the difference in RAM speed. This is Cinebench which is a rendering software. I went up from 1312 to 1348 on the CPU and from 119FPS to 134FPS on the GPU side of things. If you do any video processing this is a BIG deal. I use Handbrake to modify content and drop it on my server so that Plex can feed everything out to my stuff without transcoding on the fly every single time. My old computer would have been doing a CB score of around 665 that was an FX8350. That CPU overclocked to the max would be lucky to get to 779.

cb1312 ryzen 1600.jpg
cb1348 ryzen 1600.jpg


BTW if someone is interested in building something out to smash some benchmarks I work pretty cheap, LOL.

And I was able to benchmark at 4200Mhz but it would not pass a stability test at those levels.

Here are some other links to show different stages as I tested stuff after making some modifications.

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/16705324 First test

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/16710430 Another test couple tweaks

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/18634499 Overclocked, UFO incoming.
 

Tanis143

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I used to overclock my AMD's all the time, all the way back to my first (AMD K6/2 266 @ 500 Mhz on the stock HSF). Even had a kick ass watercooled tower back before watercooling was mainstream. Now, just don't care much anymore as I don't game and do not need faster than stock performance. But it was fun back in the day to push your system to its limit. Here was the watercooling setup I ran:

casefinal04.jpg
casefinal08.jpg
newmobo205.JPG


The case was a cheap 6 bay server tower I've had since 2002 that I cut the holes for the fans and did the custom paint job, including sealing and bondo to hide the 3.5 floppy bay by the power button.
 

NightShade

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cause it's fun to tinker with this stuff


Exactly, why change out the trigger on a rifle if it already shoots better than you aim?

Same goes for driving a v8 when a 4 cylinder still gets you there the same way.

Why settle for what you get when you can do so much more. I also stated handbrake. It's free, if you think your computer is just fine process this file https://www.videvo.net/video/container-port-machinery-1/456199/ which is also free to HQ 720P 30 Suround default settings.

I average 37 FPS and a total time of 30 seconds for that file and those settings. Processing a 4K video is HARD and getting it done in basically real time is a feat. My server can't do it so I keep a copy of some 4K content and other stuff that is 1080p.

@Tanis143 This is my first fortay into water cooling. 240MM radiator single block on the cpu. It's a kit but not an AIO with the pump on the water block. Never felt like spending a ton of money on stuff and this was a system built to last a while.

@tRidiot That's how it always is, stuff you need to mess with but never do. I don't have the time for LN2 cooling mainly because I expect my OC to work day in and day out not just pass a benchmark. I ran Linpack xtreme on this and it survived multiple runs back to back. I am happy to use this daily till the R9 3900X drops down pretty good or the 4000 series hits. I know AMD keeps sockets running for a lot longer which is the whole reason why I shy away from intel and gotta get a new board every couple years if you want to go faster.
 

NightShade

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@Tanis143 I just thought about something else. Probably around the time you were doing that build I was talking with a guy about doing a dual xeon build. He said that all I would need was one of the AMD's that had just come out there was NO REASON to do dual cpu for home use ever a single fast cpu was all anyone would ever need. Now we are running upwards of 16 cores and multiple threads at home... I wish I could talk to that guy now and ask him if a single core fast cpu still wins.

Even in cell phones it's pretty much all went to multicore now.
 

Tanis143

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@Tanis143 I just thought about something else. Probably around the time you were doing that build I was talking with a guy about doing a dual xeon build. He said that all I would need was one of the AMD's that had just come out there was NO REASON to do dual cpu for home use ever a single fast cpu was all anyone would ever need. Now we are running upwards of 16 cores and multiple threads at home... I wish I could talk to that guy now and ask him if a single core fast cpu still wins.

Even in cell phones it's pretty much all went to multicore now.

That's because everything is optimized for multi-threading. Back then he was correct to a point. You wouldn't need a dual cpu, but it did help.


@Tanis143 This is my first fortay into water cooling. 240MM radiator single block on the cpu. It's a kit but not an AIO with the pump on the water block. Never felt like spending a ton of money on stuff and this was a system built to last a while.

Yeah, I've looked at today's watercooling offerings and they still pale in comparison to Danger Den when they were still around. 350 gph pump with 1/2 ID tubing with a full 5.25 bay reservoir. Plus the waterblock was almost all copper save the top plate which was acrylic. Used 50/50 mix Prestone antifreeze as my coolant due to its anti-corrosion and thermal properties. Plus the green color was cool as hell. The last cpu I had o/c'd was about 600 mhz overclock on my Athlon 64 X2 (2.1 Ghz to 2.7 Ghz) and at idle it would only be about 5 degrees higher than ambient temps. I also custom made a 12v gateway for the pump a/c using the power connector from a scrapped psu. As soon as I turned on the pc the pump would kick in. Even did my first circuit board etching to make it. Also made a LCD panel that would show my temps, ram usage, cpu usage, and other stats and mounted it into a small box to sit on the top of my pc. When I got my next system the waterblock wouldn't fit and Danger Den had gone out of business so I hung my watercooling and overclocking. I've long since gotten rid of the case (front plastic part broke) but I still have the watercooling stuff. I'm kinda tempted to go find some new/old stock of my last system build and do an xp machine for playing old games.
 

Tanis143

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Of course this was back when most computer cases were plain old beige boxes except for Chaintech cases (wife still uses her Chaintech Dragon which was based off the Antec 4 bay server case). All total I custom modded 3 different cases with the last one being the most time consuming (that old beige paint was damn near bullet proof and getting it removed from the case was harder than getting rid of anti-gunners).
 

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@NightShade Great work, and awesome job on the detailed post! What are your thoughts on Intel vs. AMD processors? I have always leaned towards Intel for broader product support and a more well-known product lineup. I will be building a pc in a year or so and am curious as to which manufacturer to go with. Thanks!
 

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