FEATURE / CUSTOMISATION
Onceyou’reinWindows,downloadandinstall
ASRock’sMotherboardUtilitysoftwareand
QuadM.2CardSoftware.Theformerwilllet
youcontrolthemotherboardfanheadersand
thelatterthefanspeedontheM.2expansion
card.We’vesetthefansandpumptositatlow
speedsuptocertaintemperatures,butwe’ve
keptthepumpatlowspeedsformostofthe
curve,asyou’llseeverylittlebenefitabove 30
percentpower.
We’veoptednottoapplya manual
overclock,butinsteadmakeuseofAMD’s
PrecisionBoostOverdrive(PBO)settings
intheEFI.Thisincreasestheall-coreboost
frequencyandcanhelptomaintainboost
frequenciesforlonger,boostingsingle
andmulti-threadedperformance.Startby
headingintotheEFI andsetting theXMP
profile.Thiswillapplythecorrectmemory
timingsandvoltages.
NextheadtotheAdvancedsectionand
thentoAMDOverclocking.You’llwantto
changethePBOsettingtoAdvanced,the
PBOLimitstoMotherboardandalsoset
a manualPBOscalarof10X.Finally,set
theclockoverrideto200MHz.Weused
Cinebenchtogaugethebenefitstothe
singleandmulti-threadedperformance,
andwerehappytoseethesingle-thread
scorerisingfrom 519 to 524 andthemulti-
threadedscorefrom13,640to14,124.The
all-coreboostbenefitedfrombetween
50-100MHzfrequencyincreases.A
manualoverclockwillseethatincrease
furtherto14,762,butthesingle-threaded
performancefallsto505,soPBOisa more
balancedwayofboostingperformance.
It’sworthnotingthatthiswillstillincrease
powerconsumptionandCPUtemperatures,
soit’sworthcheckingRyzenMaster.
Boostingthememoryfrequencyis a simple
overclocktoo.YoucansimplyheadtotheEFI
andincreaseit to3600MHz.Ourkitwashappy
todothiswithnoincreaseinvoltage,although
it onlyaddeda singlepointtothesinglecore
scoreinCinebenchandanother 90 pointsto
themulti-threadedscoreat14,214.
TweakingPrecisionBoost
settingsisaneasywayto
overclockyourCPUSETUP AND
OVERCLOCKING
If you want to apply a manual overclock to
get the best multi-threaded performance,
we recommend you head to AMD’s Ryzen
Master software. This can apply an all-core
overclock from the comfort of Windows, as
well as allow you to try out AMD’s automatic
overclocking and Precision Boost Overdrive.
For an all-core overclock, it’s a simple task of
inputting a vcore and then a CPU frequency.
Our Threadripper 3960X managed to hit
4.35GHz using 1.325V, so we’d suggest
starting at 1.35V and 4.2GHz and increasing
the frequency from there. Temperatures will
be your main enemy, so see how your system
fares, reducing the voltage if necessary.
The easiest way to overclock your graphics
card is to use OC Scanner – an automatic
overclocking tool that’s included with
several overclocking utilities including MSI
Afterburner. Click on the small vertical line
symbol next to the core clock bar and follow
through to OC Scanner. Click scan and then
the software will test your graphics card and
find stable overclocked settings, which you canapply. Alternatively, you can apply a manual
overclock. We’ve added 150MHz to GPU core
and set 500MHz in the memory frequency bar.PERFORMANCE
Overclocking yielded various benefits in
both lightly and massively multi-threaded
workloads, although not by significant
amounts. The video editing score increased
by 7 per cent and the Cinebench multi-
threaded score by 4 per cent, but it was slim
pickings elsewhere. Still, at 2,560 x 1,440, it
never dropped below 60fps in Shadow of
the Tomb Raider and stayed above 80fps
in Far Cry 5 too, with the latter gaining
3fps on the minimum frame rate once
overclocked. However, it’s worth looking at
the power consumption, which increased
by over 100W under load once we applied
these settings. Water cooling can certainly
help to gain more performance, but with
Threadripper, it’s all about keeping things
cool, especially as there can be modest gains
from overclocking anyway.