When you built your system, keeping an eye on price/performance is probably one of the factors that led you to an AMD GPU, possibly a higher end one. So if power consumption is of any concern to you at all (shoutout to my EU people), you can’t deny that it hurts at least a little bit to see that 300W+ wattage number burning into the top right of your OLED screen 24/7. And I’m not even talking about the haunting sound of the cards fans ramping up to keep your baby cool, or your card raising the ambient temperature of your room by a few degrees during summer.

In comes Radeon Chill.

Set the FPS range to something like 50/60/70 to 120 or whatever the upper end of your monitors refresh rate is and enjoy watching those wattage and temperature numbers drop during dialogue or slow paced scenes of otherwise very demanding AAA games where you can’t even tell the difference between 60 and 120 FPS. When you need the frames during faster movements, they’ll be there. Even a tight FPS range like 90-120 can go a long way if you’re not comfortable with lower values.

Or, if you don’t want any FPS fluctuation during gameplay at all, set the shortcut to something like Alt + F1 and make a habit of manually enabling/disabling it during dialogue, saving energy at no cost whatsoever. By setting the min/max to the same value, you can also use it as an FPS cap for games that need but don’t have one.

It‘s a good way to tackle one of the major advantages NVIDIA cards have over AMD: efficiency. This kinda sounds like an ad but Chill is probably one of the best AMD software features that barely gets talked about, especially when people mention how the price difference between AMD/NVIDIA ends up becoming negligible after a few years when factoring in electricity costs.

So yeah, if you weren’t aware that Chill existed, you should give it a try! Personally I don’t see myself ever not using it because the benefit is huge in the long run, even if it was just about not heating my room up 24/7 and keeping the fan noise down.

I’m making this post in hopes that it will help other 7800X3D owners (current and prospective). The following is a summary of two weeks worth of testing/benchmark using AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) and Curve Optimizer (CO). Please feel free to correct/expand for the benefit of anybody stumbling upon this in the future.

I am by no means an overclocking expert or master of the Ryzen platform. But this data may be useful to beginner and advanced enthusiasts alike. If anything, it is the diary of a tinkerer looking to squeeze the most out of their hardware.

Build Components

• MSI PRO B650M-A WIFI MATX

• AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

• Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE (TF7 Thermal Paste)

• G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30-38-38-96 (SK hynix A-die)

• Corsair RM850x 80+ Gold

• Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB

• XFX Speedster MERC 310 Black Edition Radeon RX 7900 XT

• Corsair 4000D Airflow case

Case Configuration and Test Environment

• Ambient room temperature ~22°C

• Corsair 4000D, with all filters installed

  • Front: 3x120mm intake fans (Arctic P12)

  • Top: 2x120mm exhaust fans (Artic P12)

  • Back: 1x120mm exhaust fan (included case fan: Corsair AirGuide)

  • Bottom: PSU oriented as intake

• Fresh installation of Windows 11 22H2, OS build 22621.2283

• Fan Control v170 using a combination of Mixed and Auto curves (CPU set to 40°C idle, 70°C load)

  • At 100% fan speed, CPU idles between 38-41°C; at 30% CPU idles between 40-43°C

Note About Temp Readings

• I found there was a lot of inconsistency with how users reported their temps: Tctl/Tdie, Package, Tdie, Core Temps, etc.

• HWiNFO64 CPU Die (average) matches Ryzen Master the closest; both are roughly 0.5 to 2. degrees lower than CPU (Tctl/Tdie)

• When setting a PBO thermal limit in the BIOS, it pegs the CPU Die (average) temp at the selected value. Therefore, I used this measurement throughout my testing

Thermal Paste and Cooling Concerns

• The Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE (PS120SE) is more than capable of keeping up with the 7800X3D

• The CPU will do everything in its power to boost into the high 80°C range; rest assured, this is normal

• There are diminishing returns as you approach the upper end of the thermal limit (more on that later)

• Initially doubted my thermal paste application using the pea-sized method following Noctua’s recommendation from August 2022

• Updated instructions for AM5 say to use the 5-dot method

BIOS Settings, Boot Times, and RAM

• BIOS version 7D77v19 (released 2023-08-11)

• Using Optimized Defaults, Last BIOS time as reported by Task Manager was 45 seconds

• Enabled both Memory Context Restore and Power Down Enable: boot time reduced to 14 seconds

• However, experienced instability using these settings with EXPO enabled (had to clear CMOS with a paperclip numerous times)

• Apparently this is a known bug in AGESA ; some motherboards are impacted worst than others

• Enter: Buildzoid’s Timings (credit to u/buildzoid)

  • SOC Voltage at 1.25v

  • FCLK 2033 MHz

  • Primary timings at 30-38-38-28

  • VDD = VDDIO = VDDQ = 1.35v

  • Video Guide can be found here on YouTube

• Make sure to save an overclocking profile after applying these settings. You will thank me later!

AMD Ryzen Master 2.11.2.2659

• Latest version missing auto-detect Curve Optimizer feature for 7800X3D (Start Optimizing button replaced by Validate Offset)

• Reverted to version 2.10.2.2367 and ran the auto-optimizer

• Many paperclip jump-starts later, I realized it was a waste of time

• Ryzen Master provided the following values which were ridiculously low (-45 to -49). Couldn’t even boot into Windows without BSOD

Stability: Perceived versus Reality

• Researched further online and decided to go with -30 all core offset

• Could run Cinebench R23 all day with ~18.5k Multi Core score

• Used it for 3-4 days gaming, browsing web, etc.; seemed stable with no crashes

• Ran Prime95 and 2-3 workers errored immediately

• Reduced to -20 all core and 2 cores failed after 2 hours of Prime95 Blend torture test

• Debated on proceeding with -15 all core, but didn't want to 'leave performance on the table’ by not individually pushing each core to the max

• Begin the Per Core Curve Optimizer rabbit hole

Note about Cinebench Scores

• Variance between tests reached as high as 2% using exact same settings (within margin of error)

• Note that the program defaults to priority Below normal

• Switching between Below Normal to Realtime can add a few hundred points (be aware of this when comparing to other users)

• Background applications can also impact scores, including monitoring software which poll/refresh during the benchmark

• Here’s my best run using -45 all core offset (unstable) with Realtime priority: 19,221 pts

CoreCycler-v0.9.4.2

• This utility lets you test the stability of each core individually while the boost clock is maxed out

• It’s a great start for baselining your best/worst cores

• Here are the settings I used in the Config.ini:

  • stressTestProgram = YCRUNCHER

  • runtimePerCore = auto (10 minutes for y-cruncher)

  • numberOfThreads = 2

  • mode = 22-ZN4 ~ Kizuna

  • tests = BKT, BBP, SFT, FFT, N32, N64, HNT, VST, C17

• Tip: use coreTestOrder = x to focus on an individual core while finetuning

Error Reporting

• I found that HWiNFO64, CoreCycler, Y-cruncher, and Prime95 didn’t capture all Windows Hardware Errors (WHEA)

• Therefore, best to create a custom view in Event Viewer by filtering on Source = WHEA-Logger

• Note the Processor APIC ID is the logical core number; CPU 7 resides on Core 3, while Ryzen Master labels it as C04 (see below)

Testing Methodology

• Created a table which lists offset value for each core (Core 1 is fastest, Core 5 is second fastest)

• Started with -40 offset value for each core

• Ran CoreCycler and observed which core threw an error first

• No point in continuing with the test; failure-first approach reduces runtimes

• Add 5 to the offset (i.e., -40 becomes -35), and re-run the test

• Use coreTestOrder = x to target the failed core first, or cycle through it more often

• Repeat this process until you are able to pass CoreCycler overnight

• Now run Prime95 Blend torture test. Use the same approach as above and repeat the process until you are able to pass overnight

• Repeat again for Prime95 Small FFTs

• Lastly, run y-cruncher overnight with all tests enabled

• I believe stress testing to be more comprehensive and strenuous when using multiple utilities

• Each iteration has a different load profile, single and multi-core scenarios, and acts as a filter to catch errors that the prior cycle didn’t

• Below are the per core values it took for me to pass each test overnight

• Final Blessing: run the AIDA64 CPU SHA3 benchmark (to avoid getting roasted in the comments)

• Make sure to cycle through all-core (default), and per-core by setting Processor affinity in Task Manager to 0+1 for Core 0, 2+3 for Core 1, 4+5 for Core 2, etc.

Additional Stability and Peace of Mind

• Synthetic tests are not reflective of real-world applications and gaming workloads

• Stability can be subjective—it all depends on your workflows and use cases

• However, some people can’t risk a random crash since it will cost hours/days of work (or thousands of dollars)

• Make sure to include comprehensive idle testing and not just load testing

• Extreme negative offset values are more likely to cause instability during low load scenarios (per my research)

• Leave the system idle overnight (disable screen and sleep in Windows Settings > System > Power)

• Put your PC to sleep and wake it; try different durations ranging from seconds to hours

Performance and Thermal Data

• Average of two Cinebench 3-minute runs, with priority = Normal

• Only applications open were Fan Control and HWiNFO64

• All Configurations under Per Core Manual (PCM) are assumed to be stable since they add a power consumption limit or thermal limit; i.e., no change to Curve Optimizer values

Choosing a Configuration (and Living With it)

• Results above sorted by ascending Effective Clock Speed

• Immaterial performance difference between base Per Core Manual (PCM), and PCM Limit 80°C

• Now compare the same two configurations in terms of average and max temperatures

• No-brainer to add a thermal limit: Reduces temps by 5°C, while maintaining 99.7% of the performance

Conclusions

The 7800X3D is great out of the box. Tweaking PBO+CO to limit thermals/power consumption— while increasing performance over stock—is a game within itself (min/max, anyone?). Just don’t get caught up trying to chase online benchmarks. The real-world difference is negligible.

That being said, the observed difference between the lowest Cinebench score to the highest (stable) was a mere 2.8%. That’s not much potential you are leaving on the table should you decide to go with all-core, per-core, fixed wattage, and/or applying a thermal limit.

I didn't test in a temperature-controlled room or utilize state-of-the-art equipment, but the observed results confirm my hypothesis: the 7800X3D running at/above 85°C is by design. Over 80°C and you add additional heat for limited performance gain. It’s up to each user to decide if the trade-off is worth it.

The last time I messed around with overclocking was an Intel Q6600 which ran at 2.4 GHz stock. I pushed it to 3.2 GHz on air cooling, but settled for 3.0 GHz daily usage. That’s a 33% and 25% bump, respectively. Nowadays, we're pumping less juice for more power. My have the times changed!

Technology has advanced tremendously since, and that includes online resources available to PC enthusiasts. Hopefully this post summarizes all the information that took me days to research and compile. Lastly, we should all be glad that a chip like the 7800X3D exists and makes high-performance gaming accessible to all who can afford it.