

First, I recommend getting a baseline of your CPU at stock settings. You're probably itching to get going, but resist the urge to start pushing clock speeds just yet. This guide outlines the basic steps, but there are always ways to push it a little farther if you learn more about your motherboard's advanced features. Even though it won't guarantee the same results for you, you'll still get a general idea of what's reasonable. If you decide to overclock, it's a good idea to research your motherboard, your CPU, and what kind of results other people are getting. Overclocking my Ryshaved about 20 minutes off a typical 2.5-hour 4K Blu-ray conversion in Handbrake, which is nothing to sneeze at. You'll notice the benefits of overclocking most in multi-threaded tasks, like editing or rendering video, and even then, your mileage may vary. Since newer model Ryzen processors are so great at boosting out-of-the-box, overclocking may or may not have a huge impact on your work. Even with the exact same model CPU, every motherboard has a slightly different selection of overclocking features. Even if someone on the internet achieved a certain overclock doesn't mean you will. You're pushing the chip beyond its rated limits, and every single chip is different. There are no guarantees with overclocking. If you want to see how far you can push your processor, though, it just takes a few tweaks in your computer's BIOS. The non-X chips, like the AMD Ryzen 5 3600, have a bit more, but still have diminishing returns compared to some of the older Ryzen chips, like the 10 series. AMD's Precision Boost will make sure you aren't leaving any performance on the table. Many of AMD's newest chips, like the Ryzen 5 3600X and Ryzen 7 3700X are great processors but don't have a ton of overclocking headroom, so there's probably little benefit to pushing them further. (Oh, and this will void your warranty, just in case you were wondering.) In most cases, your computer will automatically shut down to prevent this from happening, but it's best to be cautious and go slowly. If you aren't careful, you could degrade your CPU’s lifespan or damage it permanently. While overclocking is fairly easy these days, it comes with a small amount of risk. Ryzen changed that, providing plenty of CPU cores with solid performance for a great all-around CPU-and you can push that CPU a little farther than its out-of-the-box speed with a bit of overclocking.

For a long time, AMD played second fiddle to Intel in all but the most budget-focused builds.
