AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU Doesn’t Support Overclocking Due To Voltage Scaling
In an interview with Hothardware, AMD’s Director of Technical Marketing, Robert Hallock, once again revealed some interesting details regarding the upcoming Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU. The rep, answering a question to AMD hardware enthusiast, Michal Simonek, on whether the chip would support overclocking or not, replied that it wouldn’t and for good reasons too. The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU is going to be the company’s first 3D V-Cache offering and as such, it needs to be optimized in terms of voltages before it ships out in the consumer segment. Robert states that while chips can reach up to 1.5-1.6V with overclock, the 3D V-Cache stack that sits on top of the Zen 3 cores can only do 1.35V and it is already running at its limit out of the box. If users try to overvolt the chip beyond that voltage curve, they can break the chip and hence why overclocking is not supported for the CPU.
But even though the CPU doesn’t feature overclocking support, memory and Infinity Cache (FCLK) overclocking will remain enabled, and as Robert states, it provides a more significant performance boost anyways versus standard core overclocking. Robert does hint that they were quick in rolling out the Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU in the gaming market so it is likely that given enough time to mature, AMD could have future generations of 3D V-Cache chips that support overclocking just like any other CPU. The voltage scaling also affects the clocks which have been reduced by up to 400 MHz down to 3.4 GHz and 4.5 GHz compared to 3.8 GHz and 4.7 GHz on the non-3D part. Robert Hallock (AMD Head of Technical Marketing) via PCWorld There were also recent reports that AMD is advising motherboard makers to remove overclocking features and support for the 5800X3D CPU from their products but Robert confirms that the chip is ‘Hard Locked’ for overclocking & there is no way board makers can bypass the restriction and enable overclock. But this also shouldn’t make you think that AMD is going the non-overclocking route for its future Ryzen Desktop CPUs. Robert says that this is just a one-off thing and they are committed to offering more overclocking enabled CPUs in the future.