Question Ryzen 3 1200 Overclocking Help

Dec 21, 2019
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Im a newbie in overclocking and have heard that you should overclock the CPU that I have, Ryzen 3 1200. What do I set my voltage at when turning up the GHz? I would also love any other tips and recommendations too
 
No. I would not recommend overclocking that CPU unless you have aftermarket cooling and a good quality motherboard. Even then, it's probably almost pointless as you're not going to see enough gain from doing so to make the added expense worthwhile. If you are using the stock cooler, you absolutely do not want to be overclocking anything, ever.

If you need more performance, then I'd recommend that you simply replacing your CPU with a higher quality model. Right now you can get a Ryzen 5 2600 6 core 12 thread CPU that would drop right in place of that Ryzen 3 1200, for about 120 bucks. That's about the same price as most AIO coolers and only half again as much as a decent air cooler, and will offer much better performance than any level of overclock you could ever do on that or any other Ryzen CPU.
 
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Dec 21, 2019
2
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No. I would not recommend overclocking that CPU unless you have aftermarket cooling and a good quality motherboard. Even then, it's probably almost pointless as you're not going to see enough gain from doing so to make the added expense worthwhile. If you are using the stock cooler, you absolutely do not want to be overclocking anything, ever.

If you need more performance, then I'd recommend that you simply replacing your CPU with a higher quality model. Right now you can get a Ryzen 5 2600 6 core 12 thread CPU that would drop right in place of that Ryzen 3 1200, for about 120 bucks. That's about the same price as most AIO coolers and only half again as much as a decent air cooler, and will offer much better performance than any level of overclock you could ever do on that or any other Ryzen CPU.

I heard that you can overclock it on stock cooling but thanks
 
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rigg42

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Oct 17, 2018
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No. I would not recommend overclocking that CPU unless you have aftermarket cooling and a good quality motherboard. Even then, it's probably almost pointless as you're not going to see enough gain from doing so to make the added expense worthwhile. If you are using the stock cooler, you absolutely do not want to be overclocking anything, ever.
What? This is just flat out wrong. The stealth can easily take that CPU to 3.7 or better on stock voltage with temps in the 70's in 100% stress load. I got one to 3.9 on the stock cooler no problem and didn't go over 76 c in p95 26.6 SFFT. This is absolutely worth the massive performance gain. 3-500 mhz all core above the max single core turbo is easily achievable on that cooler. The same goes for a 1600 on its stock cooler.

The motherboard comment is also completely wrong. Any AM4 mobo in existence (that has a chipset that can overclock) can easily supply enough current to overclock that CPU to it's voltage and temp limits on ambient cooling without breaking a sweat.

I heard that you can overclock it on stock cooling but thanks

You can. IF you know what you are doing.

Im a newbie in overclocking and have heard that you should overclock the CPU that I have, Ryzen 3 1200. What do I set my voltage at when turning up the GHz? I would also love any other tips and recommendations too

I don't really feel like typing up a ryzen OC tutorial since this info is readily available with a google search. If you are sure you want to go down this route make sure that your motherboard has a chipset that is able to OC, you have a decent reliable power supply, and you understand how to clear CMOS if things go wrong. You will also need to download the appropriate monitoring and stress testing software.

If you are even mildly uncomfortable with any of those things than this might not be for you.

Do your research and familiarize yourself with the procedures before diving in.

Listing your full system specs would be useful. You can get a good safe OC with that CPU on its stock cooler but that doesn't mean the rest of system is up to snuff.

I could probably get you to 3.8ghz stable by typing one number into the bios but I honestly just don't want to deal with the tech support if things go wrong.

Good luck.
 
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No, it's not flat out wrong, and if you're going around making recommendations for ANYBODY to overclock on a stock cooler, ANY stock cooler, I don't care WHAT CPU is involved, you're going to be in for it I promise. We don't do that around here. It's irresponsible and it's poor advice. Your personal feelings about whether it's an acceptable level of cooling don't much matter. The fact is, those coolers are NOT anywhere near as capable as many of you would have people believe them to be. They are cheap piece of crap, bottom of the barrel Cooler master fans with two dollar heatsinks.

It's not a matter of "knowing what you are doing". It's a matter of giving out responsible advice and yours, as usual, is not.

And this:

Any AM4 mobo in existence (that has a chipset that can overclock) can easily supply enough current to overclock that CPU to it's voltage and temp limits on ambient cooling without breaking a sweat.

Is flat out wrong. I don't care who you are or what you THINK you know, that's pure BS. There are MANY AM4 motherboards that are not only not suitable for overclocking ANYTHING on, they are barely acceptable for stock usage.
 
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rigg42

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Oct 17, 2018
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No, it's not flat out wrong, and if you're going around making recommendations for ANYBODY to overclock on a stock cooler, ANY stock cooler, I don't care WHAT CPU is involved, you're going to be in for it I promise. We don't do that around here. It's irresponsible and it's poor advice. Your personal feelings about whether it's an acceptable level of cooling don't much matter. The fact is, those coolers are NOT anywhere near as capable as many of you would have people believe them to be. They are cheap piece of crap, bottom of the barrel Cooler master fans with two dollar heatsinks.

Last I checked how well a cooler works has nothing to do with how much it costs to manufacture or whether or not it comes stock with a CPU. CPU coolers are made from copper and aluminum. They are not made of pixie dust and unicorn farts. I really don't care what brand name fan they have on them. This is irrelevant to how they perform with a specific CPU. I prefer to deal with reality. You can save your conjecture and fear mongering. There is temperature and frequency headroom on the 1200 and 1600 CPU with their respective stock coolers. This is a fact. Your statement literally makes no sense. You seem to say that by virtue of the cooler being stock that it doesn't have cooling headroom for overclocking. This is just irrational fear mongering about these coolers. I freely admit that these 2 examples of CPU and stock coolers having OC headroom is an anomaly and I'd usually agree with you in regards to stock cooling. With the specific SKU's being discussed you are wrong. I'm sorry you don't like having your misinformation corrected. These coolers appear to be intentionally over TDP'd for the purpose of overclocking. I wish they would have kept doing this in the subsequent generations.

Have you ever even overclocked a 1200 or a 1600 on a stock cooler? They are not my "personal feelings about whether it's an acceptable level of cooling" they are AMD's published specs. I never suggested pushing the CPU past mid 70's c in a full current load when overclocking. I stated what you could expect for stable frequency at safe voltages and the kind of temp range the stock cooler will give in this scenario. The fact of the matter is you can expect around 20c below AMD specked max temp while running what is essentially a power virus and will likely reach 3.7 ghz or more perfectly stable at perfectly safe voltage.

If you can't achieve these temp ranges with the stock cooler on either a 1200 or 1600 your ambient temps are high or your case and/or fans have REALLY crappy airflow.

It's not a matter of "knowing what you are doing". It's a matter of giving out responsible advice and yours, as usual, is not.

As usual your signature condescending and snarky tone comes out in this statement. I think this has nothing to do with giving responsible advice and everything to do with me questioning your gospel. You always treat me with condescension regardless of whether I agree with you or not. You have done this since day one and I don't appreciate it.

The only advice I gave was in the following quote. It seems to reread as fairly cautionary. Everything else in the post was mostly clearing up your misinformation and stating actually useful information about what the CPU can do with it's stock cooler.

I don't really feel like typing up a ryzen OC tutorial since this info is readily available with a google search. If you are sure you want to go down this route make sure that your motherboard has a chipset that is able to OC, you have a decent reliable power supply, and you understand how to clear CMOS if things go wrong. You will also need to download the appropriate monitoring and stress testing software.
If you are even mildly uncomfortable with any of those things than this might not be for you.
Do your research and familiarize yourself with the procedures before diving in.
Listing your full system specs would be useful. You can get a good safe OC with that CPU on its stock cooler but that doesn't mean the rest of system is up to snuff.
I could probably get you to 3.8ghz stable by typing one number into the bios but I honestly just don't want to deal with the tech support if things go wrong.
Good luck.

Yes, it is a matter of knowing what you are doing. I clearly have done this many times and you clearly haven't with the specific CPU's, coolers, and motherboards being discussed. You also didn't care to notice that I didn't give any specific overclocking advice. I simply pointed out what the capabilities of the cooler and CPU are (which you clearly aren't properly informed on in this instance). I never told the OP they should or shouldn't overclock their CPU. I told them what to expect and what they should be aware of. Other than that I encouraged them to do some homework before diving in.

Is flat out wrong. I don't care who you are or what you THINK you know, that's pure BS. There are MANY AM4 motherboards that are not only not suitable for overclocking ANYTHING on, they are barely acceptable for stock usage.

This is also complete misinformation in the specific context of overclocking a 1200. It further demonstrates you don't what you are talking about regarding motherboard VRM's. My comment about motherboards was clearly qualified to be specifically discussing overclocking a 1200 CPU. Do you really think a motherboard expected to handle an 8c16t at stock operation (at the very least) couldn't easily deliver everything a 4C4T CPU could need in terms of current draw? Either you didn't clearly comprehend what I was saying or you don't understand how a VRM works. Name the b350/b450/x370/x470 motherboard that doesn't have the current capacity to handle a 4 core 4 thread chip overclocked to its safe current/temperature limits. You can't because it doesn't exist. Every single b350/b450/x370/x470 motherboard in existence can easily handle 75 amps of current through it's VRM with a down draft cooler blowing air over the VRM. Even at 1.4 vcore and 4+ GHz a 1200 won't pull anywhere near 75 amps. You're giving out advice on components you've have either never used or don't fully understand the capabilities of. That is irresponsible from a position of authority.
 
I'm not bothering to read that. It's just....ah, whatever dude. If I go any further with this, we'll both regret it. SO just, kill it now while you can.

Do you really think a motherboard expected to handle an 8c16t at stock operation (at the very least) couldn't easily deliver everything a 4C4T CPU could need in terms of current draw

Do you REALLY believe that every AM4 motherboard is designed to HANDLE an 8/16 CPU? I assure you, they are not. Some are, some are not. If you think running one on most of the A320 chipset boards or overclocking on one, is a good idea, then you're, I just don't even know what to say to that. Seriously, you're entire belief system is fundamentally skewed. Sure, you can do this, overclocking with a stock cooler on a lower TDP CPU, but it's BAD ADVICE to be giving people who obviously have never overclocked previously. And it's absolutely not something I'd recommend as a "best practice", here or elsewhere. If you want to give trailer park type advice, take it to Reddit. We try to keep things on the legitimate side of the sheets here.

And I assure you, I've overclocked more systems, on more different platforms, than you've ever even used. I don't give out piss poor advice that flies in the face of every accepted tenet in the overclocking community which primarily says that unless you're working with a dual core CPU you do not overclock on a stock cooler. You also don't overclock on a cheap board. If YOU wish to do that, great, but you're not going to be recommending to people here that they should do it. I assure you, you will not. So just don't. It's not irresponsible to recommend AGAINST something that is perhaps doable, but not wise. It is however irresponsible to recommend in FAVOR of doing something that could potentially be a bad idea, like this is. So, that's enough of that unless you want to take this to a higher level.
 
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rigg42

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Oct 17, 2018
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Fair enough. I don't know why we always tangle I think we actually agree on lot of things. And to be fair i think we could probably both take it down a notch when interacting around here. 🏳 I'm extremely confident in my argument in this specific topic and I think I have something you might not have considered. I'll try to be more civil so you don't ban me ;) .

I have one final (hopefully productive and relevant) point to make and I'm done. If you look at the power consumption testing from GN's 2600 review you can see that a 1200 OC'ed to 3.9 ghz draws 62.73 watts in P95 29.2 8k. This is properly measured with a volt meter on the EPS cable. The stock 2600 you recommended draws 92.25 watts in the same test. It also comes with the same stock cooler.

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwrevie...eview-stream-benchmarks-gaming-blender/page-3

While the 2600 is clearly a much better CPU, and a solid upgrade recommendation, it draws 32% more power through the motherboard than a highly OC'ed 1200. While I understand that power consumption and TDP aren't the same thing, I still think its logical to assume that If the cooler is acceptable for a stock 2600 it is enough to overclock the 1200.

A 1600x oc'ed to 4ghz consumes 109.47 watts vs a 2600x which consumes 120.54 in the same test. Again the CPU's come with the same cooler with the stock CPU drawing more power.

This is the point I was trying to make with overclocking these CPU's. On any AM4 board you'd put a stock 6 core on, the stock 6 core will put considerably more strain on the motherboard VRM than a max OC'ed 1200.

Pushing a 1600 to the practical limits on it's stock cooler draws similar if not less power than stock 2600 and runs cooler. In my experience with overclocking 1600's (with a sample size of more than 10) every one hit 3.8 -4.1 ghz 24-7 stable without leaving the mid 70's on stock cooling. You can't on one hand say that stock settings and cooling are fine for CPU A But overclocking CPU B on the same cooler wither lower temps and less power draw is bad.

Fallacies and broad generalizations about overclocking just don't hold up to logic and scrutiny in this specific example.
 

rigg42

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Oct 17, 2018
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I'm not bothering to read that. It's just....ah, whatever dude. If I go any further with this, we'll both regret it. SO just, kill it now while you can.



Do you REALLY believe that every AM4 motherboard is designed to HANDLE an 8/16 CPU? I assure you, they are not. Some are, some are not. If you think running one on most of the A320 chipset boards or overclocking on one, is a good idea, then you're, I just don't even know what to say to that. Seriously, you're entire belief system is fundamentally skewed. Sure, you can do this, overclocking with a stock cooler on a lower TDP CPU, but it's BAD ADVICE to be giving people who obviously have never overclocked previously. And it's absolutely not something I'd recommend as a "best practice", here or elsewhere. If you want to give trailer park type advice, take it to Reddit. We try to keep things on the legitimate side of the sheets here.

And I assure you, I've overclocked more systems, on more different platforms, than you've ever even used. I don't give out piss poor advice that flies in the face of every accepted tenet in the overclocking community which primarily says that unless you're working with a dual core CPU you do not overclock on a stock cooler. You also don't overclock on a cheap board. If YOU wish to do that, great, but you're not going to be recommending to people here that they should do it. I assure you, you will not. So just don't. It's not irresponsible to recommend AGAINST something that is perhaps doable, but not wise. It is however irresponsible to recommend in FAVOR of doing something that could potentially be a bad idea, like this is. So, that's enough of that unless you want to take this to a higher level.

I wasn't going to respond to this but since you went back and edited I will.

I never mentioned a320. You can't overclock on a320 boards. Yes I do believe all overclocking capable AM4 boards are designed to, and will support a stock 8c16t CPU. Sure the VRM might throttle if running p95 SFFT on one of the really junk boards but for gaming and day to day would be perfectly fine on most any b or x board. Suggesting a 2600 CPU that draws 32% more power than a max OC'ed 1200 is okay though apparently. This is your wisdom, best practice, and good advice? My stance that overclocking the 1200 on any motherboard capable of OC on the exact same stock cooler is still a bad idea compared to this? Despite you recommending a 2600 with zero thought to the motherboard or power draw of the CPU?

I'll ignore the insults and grandstanding in good faith. Why don't we try to have a productive discussion moving forward.