Much benefit overclocking Ryzen 5-2600X?

[dpeel]

I have decided to go with a Ryzen 5-2600X in my new desktop computer. I initially was planning on just using the stock cooler. I have read several articles that would give me the impression that just upgrading the air cooler wouldn't give this CPU much of an improvement overclocking. If I'm wrong and buying a better air cooler would be a real benefit, please let me know and your suggestions as to the cooler you would recommend.

Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[atomicWAR]

Ehhhhhhh....weeelll...sorta. A good aftermarket cooler will increase your OC head room over stock cooler no question. Problem is the peak OC on Ryzen 2000 series seems to be between 4.025-4.3 ghz. Not a lot of overhead but some for sure. An after market cooler could be the difference between 4ghz and 4.2 or .3 if you got a golden chip. Question is, "Is that worth it to you for the price?" Me I love a good tinkering and would gleefully say yes to the idea if it were my rig.

 

[atomicWAR]

Also lower temps almost always lower voltage. Both minimized for an OC mean longer CPU life...so there is that.

 

[dpeel]

Ehhhhhhh....weeelll...sorta. A good aftermarket cooler will increase your OC head room over stock cooler no question. Problem is the peak OC on Ryzen 2000 series seems to be between 4.025-4.3 ghz. Not a lot of overhead but some for sure. An after market cooler could be the difference between 4ghz and 4.2 or .3 if you got a golden chip. Question is, "Is that worth it to you for the price?" Me I love a good tinkering and would gleefully say yes to the idea if it were my rig.

Okay, I'm buying an Asus Prime X-470 Pro motherboard. I know Asus has some basic overclocking built in. I doubt I'd ever try to overclock to anything too extreme. Do you have a recommendation as to the cooler?

 

[terry4536]

Plus on a side note, the aftermarket CPU cooler is likely much quieter. Stock CPU coolers tend to use tiny fans. For these fans to have much cooling air flow, it is necessary to have very high RPM on the fan. As such they tend to be noisy.

A cheap cooler like the Cooler Masrter 212 Evo or CRYORIG H7 would produce better cooling in general and quieter (if it fits in the case).

 

[atomicWAR]

Terry beat me to the recommendations. Good call Terry.

 

[atomicWAR]

One not up there I might consider is the Noctua NH-D15...or better yet

https://noctua.at/en/noctua-presents-three-special-edition-am4-cpu-coolers-for-amd-ryzen

 

[terry4536]

One not up there I might consider is the Noctua NH-D15...or better yet

https://noctua.at/en/noctua-presents-three-special-edition-am4-cpu-coolers-for-amd-ryzen

I'm a big fan of Noctua products, I've used the NH-D14 for many years. And when I want a quality fan or a quiet fan, Noctua is my first choice.

If you have the space in the case, the Noctua NH-D15 is an excellent CPU cooler. It is in a higher price category at $85, but that is competitive with other high end coolers.

 

[atomicWAR]

Yeah it is pricey-er but much worth IMHO if your going air cooling.

 

[drivinfast247]

Not really worth the extra heat. The boost on 2nd gen Ryzen works pretty damn good!

 

[vMax]

Agree with drivinfast247, the boost on the Ryzen 2600x and pretty much all the new Ryzen's make overclocking moot as the difference is really not that great as the boost does a terrific job in the first place hitting above 4GHz...A better cooler will help push that up further...

 

[dpeel]

Thanks for all your help. I ordered the CRYORIG H7. Hopefully I won't have too much trouble installing. I don't plan on going crazy overclocking but the Asus Prime X470-Pro motherboard has some easy overclocking built in and I will use that. I haven't built a computer for 9 years. I have gotten much use out of my I7-860 which I did install a Cooler Master air cooler on.

 

[drea.drechsler]

I have decided to go with a Ryzen 5-2600X in my new desktop computer. I initially was planning on just using the stock cooler. I have read several articles that would give me the impression that just upgrading the air cooler wouldn't give this CPU much of an improvement overclocking. If I'm wrong and buying a better air cooler would be a real benefit, please let me know and your suggestions as to the cooler you would recommend.

Thanks in advance for your input.

2nd gen ryzen boosts much better...more cores, longer and higher... than first gen. But to do so it has to be well cooled, so better cooling helps it quite a lot. But, with an X variant especially, conventional overclocking isn't always the best way to get performance out of these chips because they don't generally hold an all-core OC as high is it will boost, as needed.

The way you OC these chips is to get it to boost more cores high and hold them longer. The way they do that depends heavily on the type of motherboard you have: it has to support off-set VCore voltage selection and a range of PBO - Performance Boost Override - settings BIOS to relax max current and power limits among other things. But of course it also monitors core temperature and lowering the boost if it goes to high. That just doubles down on the benefits of better-than-stock cooling. A decent 240mm AIO will definitely help a lot with that and be quiet going about it.