AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Review

👤by Matthew Hodgson Comments 📅19-04-18
Temperatures & Overclocking
While reviewing the 1st Gen Ryzen CPUs, we ran into problems in regards to memory compatibility and stability, which hampered our results somewhat. With the 2nd Gen CPUs, we’ve not had any of those problems.

First off, we feel it’s worth mentioning that overclocking is the act of running a device outside of its specified limits, within which the manufacturer has found the product performs normally. We accept no responsibility for any damage caused to, in this instance, your processor, and offer this purely as a guide.

Every piece of silicon is different and will present different levels of overclockability, this is referred to as the silicon lottery. The silicon lottery applies because of tiny imperfections within the chip which affect all aspects of performance.

We set out trying to find the maximum 24/7 overclock for our 2700X sample, while staying within safe voltage limits and monitoring temperature closely.

To overclock a 2nd Gen Ryzen chip, you choose a multiplier within the BIOS. Thanks to Precision Boost 2, these multipliers are granular and adjustable in steps of 0.25x (25MHz) increments. The base clock of ~100MHz gives you the overall clockspeed of the processor. For example, a 42.75x multiplier will yield a 4275MHz core frequency.

We tested the CPU at stock settings, to gauge the headroom available to us without hitting any kind of thermal ceiling. The 2700X reached 55°C. This isn't a direct comparison of thermal performances, but merely a guideline.



It’s also worth noting that AMD have introduced a 10°C offset on their 2700X CPU. This offset is designed to encourage more aggressive fan profiles to aid with cooling and therefore allow AMDs XFR2 and Precision Boost 2 more headroom to operate.

We managed a 43x multiplier on our particular sample; operating a 4.3GHz core frequency across all 16 cores. This may seem like we’ve only managed to reach the quoted boost clock of the processor, but that 4.3GHz at stock settings requires the load to be optimal and doesn’t allow applications such as AIDA64’s burn in stress test to operate at 4.3GHz, at all, eventually settling at around 4.075GHz instead. After 20 minutes of stress testing within AIDA64, we topped out at 89°C (actually 79°C with the 10°C offset). This is well below any dangerous levels and perfectly usable on a daily basis.


Stock Settings



Overclocked to 4.3GHz, all-core.


Comparing stock Cinebench R15 scores with the overclocked result:


Stock result: 1859


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