Overclocking your CPU can enhance its performance in gaming and other tasks. The Ryzen 7 2700X is a powerful processor with eight cores and sixteen threads to deliver ideal performance in gaming. Now, this is a sheer amount of power to tackle the most demanding AAA titles. But if you want to squeeze more juice out of your CPU, you can do that by overclocking it. So, this guide is all about overclocking your Ryzen 7 2700X in simple and easy steps.
Things to Consider Before Overclocking AMD Ryzen 7 2700X CPU
Before you overclock your CPU, it is important to consider the type of motherboard installed on your machine. For the purpose of this guide, we will be using the X470 motherboard. We highly recommend going with an aftermarket motherboard like the MSI X470 Pro Carbon or Gigabyte X470 Auros Ultra that comes with high-quality VRMs.
Another thing that you need to consider is the CPU cooler to handle the enormous heat as a result of overclocking. Although the Ryzen 7 2700X comes with a good-quality CPU cooler from AMD, it would be better if you use a high-end aftermarket CPU Air or Liquid cooler.
Setting Your Ryzen 7 2700X to Overclock
The Ryzen 7 2700X is a CPU with a base clock speed of 3.7 GHz base clock speed and a boost clock speed up to 4.3 GHz. Now there isn’t enough headroom to overclock your CPU, but still, you can manage the Ryzen 7 2700X to achieve clock speed up to 4.3 GHz.
Now as you are aware of the overclocking limit of your CPU, it’s time to stress test. In stress testing, you push your CPU to its maximum capacity. By doing so, you can get insights into different factors like the clock speed, voltage, and temperature of each core.
Applications like Prime95 and Cinebench are ideal for stress testing your CPU. Once you stress test your processor using this software, note the voltage frequency and temperature when your processor is running at its full potential. AMD recommends 85°C as a safe temperature range for overclocking Ryzen 7 2700X.
So overall, there should be 25°C to 30°C of thermal headroom at stock clock speed before doing any overclocking stuff.
Entering into BIOS
Once you are done with the stress test, it’s time to restart your PC and enter into BIOS. If you using the MSI X470 Carbon Pro motherboard, then head over to the “CPU Ratio” under the OC tab. Now change the CPU Ratio from Auto to 42.
CPU Load Line Calibration
Load Line Calibration is the feature that supports the processor with extra voltage when needed. Usually, when the CPU is under load, the LLC provides the CPU with extra voltage for stability. Move down to CPU Load-Line Calibration Control under the DigitALL section and change the values to Mode 4.
Change the Voltage
Once you have set the CPU Load Line Calibration values, go back to the OC section and scroll down to the CPU Core Voltage Section. This refers to the amount of voltage supplied to the processor. Now you remember the voltage values that were displayed during stress testing.
Let say if the values in the stress test were 3900 MHz at 1.28V, so to run at a higher clock speed, we will need more than 1.28V. Let’s assume we set the CPU Core Voltage at 1.35V, now we can overclock the CPU at a clock speed of more than 3900 MHz.
Save & Exit
Once you are done with setting the values, it’s time to save your new configurations and restart your computer. Also, there would be a pop-up of changes that you have made in your BIOS.
Testing the New Overclock Settings
Once your computer logs into Windows without any problem, it means that you have successfully overclocked the Ryzen 7 2700X. On contrary, if your system crashes, it means that your CPU needs more voltage to become stable.
Go back into the BIOS, head over to the CPU Core Voltage section, and increase the voltage in small increments, usually 0.0125V. You click the + button right next to the CPU Core Voltage tab or you can do it manually by simply adding the 0.0125 into 1.35V. You can increase the voltage up to 1.45V without doing any harm to your CPU.
Once you’ve made it into your Operating System, perform a stress test again to check the stability of the system.
Overclocking Completed
Once you are satisfied with the stress test, go back into the BIOS, head over to OC, and search for the AMD Cool’n’QuietAMD option. The AMD Cool’n’Quiet helps in reducing the voltage and clock speed of your CPU at idle mode, saving extra energy that your CPU cooler needs to put in to cool down your processor.
Finally, this is how you can easily overclock your Ryzen 7 2700X using the BIOS. If you want to overclock your CPU without BIOS, you can do that by installing the MSI Afterburner or Intel Extreme Utility.
