Custom PC - UK (2021-05)

ten minutes, which is a big jump but still
fine. The result of this was an increase in
the Cinebench score from 8,052 to 8,540,
which is actually higher than a test manual
overclock managed at 8,430, but unlike
our manual overclock, we barely lost any
single-core performance. It also added
nearly 4,000 points to the overall system
score in Realbench.
Next, we’ll deal with your graphics card.
The RTX 3080 is a little easier to overclock
and we’ve simply applied a 100MHz Core
overclock and 800MHz memory overclock
in MSI Afterburner.
Combined with our CPU overclock, this
saw a 10 per cent increase to the 99th

percentile minimum frame rate in Metro

Exodus at 4K and a 5 per cent boost at the

same resolution in Cyberpunk 2077.

ADDITIONAL

OVERCLOCKING STEPS

Overclocking can get quite complicated

very quickly once you delve into the finer

details. However, there are a couple of tools

at your disposal with an RTX 3000 graphics

card and Zen 3 Gen Ryzen CPU that are

worth exploring.

Firstly, as we already mentioned, there’s

AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive 2 with its

curve optimiser. Here you can potentially

lower the voltages at certain frequencies,

Stock speed 99th percentile Stock speed avg

Overclocked 99th percentile Overclocked avg

2,560 x 1,440, Ultra settings, High RT, HairWorks off, PhysX off, DLSS

METRO EXODUS

0 30 60 90 120

Custom gaming PC 53fps 91fps

55fps 95fps

3,840 x 2,160, Ultra settings, High RT, HairWorks off, PhysX off, DLSS

0 30 60 90 120

Custom gaming PC 41fps 64fps

45fps 69fps

3,840 x 2,160, Ultra High settings, High anti-aliasing

ASSASSINS CREED VALHALLA

0 30 60 90 120

Custom gaming PC 40fps 54fps

41fps 55fps

2,560 x 1,440, Ultra High settings, High anti-aliasing

0 30 60 90 120

Custom gaming PC 54fps 76fps

56fps 77fps

GIMP IMAGE EDITING

0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000

Custom gaming PC 67,841 69,299

HANDBRAKE H.264 VIDEO ENCODING

0 250,000 500,000 750,000 1,000,000

Custom gaming PC 939,940 949,845

HEAVY MULTITASKING

0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000

100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000

Custom gaming PC 349,885 357,704

SYSTEM SCORE

0

Custom gaming PC 348,791 353,442

Stock speed Overclocked

Stock speed Overclocked

Stock speed Overclocked

0 3,000 6,000 9,000

Custom gaming PC 8,052 8,540

CINEBENCH R20 MULTITHREADED

2,560 x 1,440, Ultra preset, Medium ray tracing, DLSS

CYBERPUNK 2077

0 30 60 90 120

Custom gaming PC 67fps 81fps

Idle 67fps 83fps

TOTAL SYSTEM POWER CONSUMPTION

0 150 300 450 600

Custom gaming PC 121W 129W

3,840 x 2,160, Ultra preset, Medium ray tracing, DLSS

0 30 60 90 120

Custom gaming PC 42fps^ 48fps

50fps

Load

0 150 300 450 600

Custom gaming PC 492W 511W

0 2,000 4,000 6,000

619

Custom gaming PC^623

CINEBENCH R20 SINGLETHREADED

44fps

Lower is better

Lower is better

while also achieving higher frequencies than

stock speed. This can be processor-specific

too, so it’s likely you’ll need to fine-tune

the settings to your PC, while our use of

Automatic Overclocking and Precision Boost

Overdrive in this guide should work on any

Zen 3 Ryzen CPU.

MSI Afterburner also has additional tools,

including OC Scanner, which is a new Nvidia

feature that allows you to automatically

overclock your graphics card. However,

it’s not usually as beneficial as a manual

overclock. You can also manually adjust the

voltage/frequency curve using the curve

editor tool to lower the peak voltage, which

can cut temperatures in games.

BENCHMARK RESULTS