We’re overclocking the Ryzen 9 7900X3D CPU up to 5789 MHz in 5 minutes or less using the GIGABYTE B650I Aorus Ultra motherboard and EK-Quantum custom loop water cooling.

I’ll speedrun you through the BIOS settings and provide some notes and tips along the way. Please note that this is for entertainment purposes only and not the whole picture. Please don’t outright copy these settings and apply them to your system. If you want to learn how to overclock this system, please check out the longer SkatterBencher article.

Alright, let’s do this.

5 Minute Speedrun

When you’ve entered the BIOS, switch to the Advanced Mode view.

Then enter the Advanced CPU Settings sub-menu.

Enter the Precision Boost Overdrive sub-menu. Here is where we will do most of the performance tuning as PBO provides us with tools to increase the power, current, and frequency headroom of the Precision Boost 2 boost algorithm.

Set Precision Boost Overdrive to Advanced.

Set PBO Limits to Motherboard. This adjusts the PBO platform parameters PPT, TDC, and EDC according to the motherboard auto-rules. On this motherboard, we find that the following values have changed.

For previous Ryzen CPUs, increasing the platform boost parameters substantially impacted performance, especially for the higher core-count CPUs. For Ryzen 7000 X-series CPUs, however, AMD’s default platform parameters were relatively unconstraining. For the 7900X3D, it’s clear that the platform boost limiters are not the constraining factor. During a Prime95 non-AVX workload, we see that maximum values for PPT, TDC, and EDC are 115W, 96A, and 98A, respectively. The main limiting factor for the 7900X3D is the maximum allowed voltage for the V-Cache CCD, which is around 1V under a high load.

Set CPU Boost Clock Override to Enabled (Positive).

Set Max CPU Boost Clock Override to 150. This increases the CPU’s frequency ceiling by 150 MHz over the programmed max 1T limit. On this Ryzen 9 7900X3D, that’s 5650 MHz. Increasing this by 150 MHz results in a ceiling of 5800 MHz. Note that the 3D V-Cache CCD has a lower Fmax of 5150 MHz and that the CPU Boost Clock Override does not affect this CCD.

Enter the Curve Optimizer submenu and set Curve Optimizer to Per Core

Here’s where the real magic happens as curve optimizer allows us to finetune the V/f curve for each core in a negative or positive direction. Each step represents around 5mV.

Setting a negative offset means the CPU will use less voltage for a given frequency and boost to a higher frequency at a specific voltage. Setting a positive offset means the CPU will use more voltage for a given frequency and boost to a lower frequency at a particular voltage. It’s the former we need in our overclock. Note that the Curve Optimizer settings are highly CPU-specific, so you should find the best values for your CPU rather than copying mine.

• For every core, set Curve Optimizer Sign to Negative
• For Cores 0 and 6, set Curve Optimizer Magnitude to 5
• For Cores 1 and 3, set Curve Optimizer Magnitude to 15
• For Cores 2, 4, and 5, set Curve Optimizer Magnitude to 20
• For Cores 7 and 11, set Curve Optimizer Magnitude to 25
• For Core 8, set Curve Optimizer Magnitude to 10
• For Core 9, set Curve Optimizer Magnitude to 45
• For Core 10, set Curve Optimizer Magnitude to 35

Leave the Curve Optimizer sub-menu

Leave the Precision Boost Overdrive sub-menu

Leave the Advanced CPU Settings sub-menu

Set Extreme Memory Profile(XMP/EXPO) to EXPO 1. That will make the memory run at our EXPO-rated frequency of DDR5-6400 and timings.

Set System Memory Multiplier to 60.00. While our memory kit is rated at DDR5-6400, unfortunately, our CPU can’t run that frequency. By enabling EXPO, we still benefit from the improved memory timings.

Then save and exit the BIOS.

Ryzen 9 7900X3D Overclock Performance Improvement

We re-run some benchmarks to ensure everything works as intended and check the performance increase compared to the default settings. Higher is better, and all are higher. We see a maximum performance increase of +8.97% in Geekbench 6 Multi.

The highest Core Clock reported in the operating system is 5789 MHz.

When running Prime 95 Small FFTs with AVX disabled, the average CPU effective clock is 4670 MHz with 0.991 volts. The average CPU temperature is 77.2 degrees Celsius. The ambient and water temperature is 25.8 and 31.1 degrees Celsius. The average CPU package power is 130.4 watts.

And that’s it, thanks for watching and see you next time!