July 30, 2025 -

Hi all!

So I was able to get a 9950X3D for my MB, which is a X870E taichi lite, that being said I know that primarily issues have been widespread with the 9800X3D and Asrock MB’s! Have there been issues with the 9950X3D too? If so what should I tweak to avoid CPU failures at all costs?

Any and all information would be appreciated! :)

April 15, 2025 -

Hello, I recently just finished building my PC build and I’m trying to figure out the best settings in BIOS and related driver programs to get the best performance out of my parts. I plan to use it to for work running programs like MATLAB and python. I do work and research in computational psychiatry and computer vision. I also do 3D modeling, rendering, and printing. I also game. What settings are best for my build. I’m using a 9950X3D, a gigabyte 5090 OC, 92 GB of 5600-DDR5 crucial RAM, a Asus ROG strix B850-F mobo, and a 1200R titanium rated silver stone PSU, and 18TB of storage (Data is gold). Will update with results later!

May 16, 2025 -

Sorry for multiple questions. I'm currently installing windows 11 on my upgraded 9950X3D using a ASRock b650 steel legend and was wondering which BIOS settings i should run with. •Already activated EXPO and PBO was set to "auto" I saw a setting to allow up to 105W TDP but didn't touch it as I was a bit scared it might over volt the CPU. (Very novice at PC building) I've seen something about core parking. Unsure where I configure that if it's even needed for the 9950X3D.

Thanks in advance.

February 10, 2026 -

I will start this guide off with a warning.

If you run your 9850X3D at stock you will degrade it pretty quickly - I am talking about weeks, not years - and reports of them dying "inexplicably" in the course of this year.

If you buy a 9850X3D and plan to run it at stock then, when you get it, I would advise you to download BenchMate BenchMate and run the CineBench R23 single- and multi-core benchmark (it is the least influenced by RAM configuration).

Run the Multi-Core benchmark (single run, not a 10-minute run) once to mark the Cache dirty and fill it with the data it needs, then run it a second time for the score.

Then run the benchmark again, this time with the monitoring software of your choice open to record the excessive voltage that is being pumped into your CPU - especially during the Single-Core run.

Save that result by taking a screen shot for the inevitable class-action lawsuit that will result against AMD when the 9850X3D CPUs degrade and die during the course of this year.

If you just want to jump ahead to being able to configure your 9850X3D to run optimally with the highest performance safe configuration then you can just click on the link to my 9800X3D configuration guide which you can find here:

Optimally configuring your 9800X3D step by step, a comprehensive guide.

Or you can watch the video I made with BossOverclock on that topic here:

Max Out Your Ryzen 9800X3D – Expert CPU Optimization w/ Michael Nager

With that I bid you adieu.

For the rest that wish to continue reading let me first talk about the difference between the Ryzen 9000 Series and previous Ryzen generations, then the difference between the 9800X3D and the 9850X3D specifically.

The Ryzen 9000 Series CPUs are unique in that for the first time EPYC and Ryzen CPUs are no longer on the same TSMC node (Ryzen is on the N4P node and EPYC is on the TSMC N3 node).

Previous generations of Ryzen were on the same node as EPYC and the chips from the center of the wafer (or "Better Binned" chips) went to the production of EPYC CPUs and Ryzen got the chips from the inferior silicon outside of the center radius.

For Ryzen 9000 this means that difference between good CPUs versus not so good ones was a lot bigger than in previous generations. That is your chances of winning the "Silicon Lottery" was a lot bigger than it was before.

The difference between the 9800X3D and 9850X3D is simply that the 9850X3D now gets the chips from closer to the center of the wafer and the 9800X3D is relegated to chips coming from the area outside of the central radius.

The maximum safe voltage for any Ryzen 9000 CPU is 1.2 Volts.

This is not my opinion, but rather this is what TSMC has stated with regard to the N4P Node upon which the Ryzen 9000 CPUs are made:

TSMC Introduces N4X Process

Here is relevant text from that announcement (emphasis is mine):

These HPC features will enable N4X to offer a performance boost of up to 15% over N5, or up to 4% over the even faster N4P at 1.2 volt. N4X can achieve drive voltages beyond 1.2 volt and deliver additional performance. Customers can also draw on the common design rules of the N5 process to accelerate the development of their N4X products. TSMC expects N4X to enter risk production by the first half of 2023.

As an aside, if anyone from AMD (and by "anyone" I don't mean some low-life Skript-Kiddie from the SalesCritter/MarketDroid department) wishes to dispute anything I say in this article, then they are welcome to leave a comment below.

Specifically, the difference between the 9850X3D and the 9800X3D is the following:

1. The 9800X3D at stock is, or should be, limited to 5.225 GHz at a maximum voltage of approximately 1.18 Volts get ("Get" is the ultimate internal voltage also called "CPU Telemetry Voltage"). The "Boost" clockspeed of the 9800X3D (depending on cooling) is the same as the maximum all-core clockspeed

2. At stock, the 9850X3D reverts to the unlocked voltage and clockspeed of other Ryzen 9000 Series CPUs. As with all other normal Ryzen 9000 Series CPUs the "Boost" clockspeed refers to the maximum burst Single-Core clockspeed, with the maximum achievable Core clockspeed after that depending on the number of Cores engaged and the load on the CPU.

Observing this behavior on the 9850X3D is very easy.

1. Turn off SMT

2. Run CineBench R23

3. Run the Single-Core benchmark and note the clockspeed and the voltage.

4. Change CineBench R23 to run on two Cores under "File" and then "Preferences" and "Custom number of threads" and note the clockspeed and the voltage.

5. Rinse and repeat for as many cores, up to eight as your patience can stand.

What you will notice is that the clockspeed and the voltage will be highest on the Single-Core run, and as you add Cores, the clockspeed will steadily decrease, as will the voltage due to droop caused by the load.

With the 9850X3D running at stock and overvolted means that you will be degrading it from day one.

Two things degrade CPUs:

1. Electronmigration, this results from excessive heat.

2. Oxide Breakdown, this results from excessive voltage breaking down the material of the CPU itself.

In the Gamers Nexus review video of the 9850X3D running at stock, under an All-Core Blender workload it was running at 1.231 Volts (compared to the 9800X3D running at 1.18 Volts) and under a heavy Single-Core workload in CineBench, the 9850X3D was running at 1.31 to 1.32 Volts (compared to the 9800X3D running at 1.11 Volts for the same workload).

I have been very disappointed with Steve from Gamers Nexus, with regard to his Ryzen coverage in general, because in that video, as in other videos, he states that he had spoken with AMD and that they said this was perfectly OK. He has not spoken with TSMC however to get their opinion.

There is an old English saying, "You should always speak with the engine driver, and not his oil rag".

AMD is especially pernicious because, when you look at the specifications page of their 9850X3D they will state the following:

Max Boost Clock: Up to 5.6 GHz
Base Clock: 4.7 GHz

Notice the use of the weasel words "Up to" with regard to the Max Boost Clock. AMD defines the Boost Clock as:

"Max Boost Clock for AMD Processors is the maximum frequency achievable by a single core on the processor running a bursty single-threaded workload. Max boost will vary based on several factors including, but not limited to: thermal paste; system cooling; motherboard design and BIOS; the latest AMD chipset driver, and the latest OS updates"

Notice that AMD gives itself plenty of culprits to blame when, not if, your 9850X3D no longer hits that boost clock after it has started its inevitable journey into decay and death due to the irresponsible overvolting AMD allows the CPU to be subjected to.

What really grinds my gears is the "Geniuses" of YouTube (and by "Genius" I do of course mean monumental weapons-grade cretins) who suggest or even outright state that 5.6 GHz is the maximum All-Core frequency for the 9850X3D.

The only thing that AMD guarantees is that your CPU will run at an All-Core average of 4.7 GHz and when, after three years, which is the Warranty Period for your your 9850X3D, it falls below that (if it hasn't already fried) then you are SOL, and you can, as God said to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, "Go forth and multiply", which was the first documented use of the phrase "Fuck Off".

JayzTwoCents in his recent 9850X3D video demonstrated how quickly a 9800X3D will degrade when running it above the TSMC spec of 1.2 Volts.

In his original 9800X3D review video he showed the CineBench R23 result running his 9800X3D at stock (1.18 Volts and 5.225 GHz):

9800X3D original stock performance

He stated that he has only run his 9800X3D system to benchmark new graphics cards as they came out, and for that purpose he locked his 9800X3D to 5.3 GHz at 1.3 Volts (well above the TSMC limit of 1.2 Volts).

Because he has only been using it to benchmark new graphics cards, his 9800X3D system has basically been turned off for the past year, and has barely been used.

Yet even so, when he retested his 9800X3D at stock, to compare it to the 9850X3D at stock he got the following CineBench R23 result:

9800X3D stock performance after a year

Even though he has very rarely used his 9800X3D system over the past year, the overvolt he applied has degraded his CPU by 850 points, which is 3.83%.

To contrast and compare, I have been running my 9800X3D 24/7 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) adhering to TSMC's spec of a maxumum of 1.2 Volts and running it with a default clockspeed of 5.475 GHz for the past year.

Here is the CineBench R23 result of my 9800X3D running at stock and my RAM at JEDEC that I conducted on the 9th of January 2025:

My 9800X3D Stock and JEDEC result from Jan. 9th 2025

Now the CineBench R23 result from my 9800X3D again running at Stock and JEDEC which I ran on the 28th of January 2026 just after my BIOS update to AGESA 1.2.8.0:

My 9800X3D Stock and JEDEC result from Jan. 28th 2026

As you can see, even after one year of permanently running my system at a maximum of 1.2 Volts and a maximum All-Core clockspeed of 5.475 GHz, my stock CineBench R23 Multi Core results are within the margin of error.

I have a pretty normal system with a sub $100 AIO Cooler as you can see from my specs:

Motherboard: GigaByte X670e AORUS Master
CPU: Ryzen 7 9800X3D
Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360 with three Phanteks T30 120mm fans
TIM: Thermal Grizzly Duronaut
PSU: SeaSonic Prime TX-1000, 1000 Watt Titanium
RAM: 96GB Corsair Vengeance (2x48GB) DDR5 6000MT/S 30-36-36-76 EXPO
GPU: XFX 9070XT Mercury Magnetic Air

I started off with a lower spec system with my 7000 Series Ryzen CPU and gradually bought better kit as I found a great deal for what I really wanted as time passed.

As I have said in my other guides, if any of you reading this have problems configuring your Ryzen systems then you can feel free to contact me on Discord under the name "michaelnager" and I use the same avatar as here.

As you can see over 500 people have taken me up on my offer:

522 Discord Friends nearly all of themI have personally helped with their Ryzen systems

I will leave it up to any of them to post in the comments below how successful that help has been for them, if they read this.

That being said, you can see that I have had a lot of experience with configuring Ryzen on many different systems/configurations.

The worst one I encountered was a poor guy who had his 9800X3D running on an ASRock Steel Legend board with PBO enabled and I was shocked to see that it was running CineBench 2024 Multi Core at 1.27 Volts.

He had only had the system for a grand total of six weeks and I couldn't get that thing to clock stably above 5.1 GHz at 1.2 Volts.

Normally if you have a Ryzen 9000 CPU you should be able to stably run it at 5.3 GHz at a maximum voltage of 1.15 Volts, if you have reasonably good cooling.

The big difference between me and others is that I benchmark to configure, I don't configure to benchmark.

I don't paywall my info with PayPal or Patreon or the like, because I am a techie, not a grifter or an E-beggar.

So why do I do this?

I am now 66 years old and the reason why I go out of my way to help people is that I remember back in the day when I first started off with PCs (around the end of 1982) I was a clueless numpty, and couldn't understand what was written in tech journals because I lacked the basics. I was lucky that there were people who took me under their wing and with patience introduced me to what has become my passion - namely being a techie.

They are now either dead or I have lost contact with them, and I cannot pay them back, but I feel obligated, by their past kindness, to pay that help forward to others in the here and now.

I remember my roots and where I came from over 40 years ago, and how confusing and frustrating things can be.

To those in the Tech Media/YouTube peddling the "Moar Powa, Moar Gud" bovine excrement aspect of the 9850X3D I would like to show what can be achieved with a 9800X3D when you remain within TSMC's spec.

Here is my result and ranking for the 9800X3D 3DMark CPU Profile benchmark, which contains 84,440 entries:

3DMark CPU Profile result

As you can see, my 9800X3D was running at 5.646 GHz, and my result is 39th out of the 84,440 benchmark entries.

There are 245 entries for the 9850X3D in the 3DMark CPU Profile benchmark and my result for my 9800X3D is currently third in the World in that list.

I ran the Super Pi 32M benchmark and on the third time of running it through I managed to get a screenshot of the benchmark run and it took around 5 mins 20 seconds.

Why the third time?

The first time I just ran it to see if it would crash or not.

The second time I had loaded Ryzen Master to show the stats for that run, at around 5 mins 10 seconds I realized that I had not loaded the snipping tool and it had ended before I could get it open and do the screenshot.

Below is the result of my third run, and by this time Super Pi 32M had been running for about 16 minutes:

Super Pi 32M towards the end of the run

As you can see, my 9800X3D is happily running at 5.8 GHz at under 1.2 Volts on this benchmark.

Next, what my friends call my favorite pay-2-win benchmark CineBench R23 (which is probably the best CPU benchmark you can use to configure your CPU) result.

This result and the others are the most recent ones after updating to the latest BIOS and run at 5.5GHz at 1.2 Volts

CineBench R23 result at 5.5 GHz at 1.2 Volts

Here are the stats for that run

Stats for the CB R23 run

For those who demonise the use of Ryzen Master for chicken-clocking my CPU, it would be interesting to know how they configure their CPU.

Divining rod?

Séance?

Aroma Therapy?

If you go into the BIOS every time then good luck with that with an MSI motherboard :D

Last for now is 7-Zip:

7-Zip at 5.5 GHz at 1.2 Volts

And again the stats for that run using Ryzen Master, just to trigger all those that suffer from Ryzen Master phobia:

Stats for the 7-Zip run

I have noticed recently that the 9800X3D CPUs of the people who have approached me on Discord cannot be configured to the level of 9800X3Ds from a few months ago.

For instance my 9800X3D will run CineBench R23 at 5.4 GHz at 1.15 Volts with a raised LLC, but it is not possible to get recent 9800X3Ds above 5.35 GHz at 1.15 Volts.

I have to keep the ambient temperature of my room a bit higher than normal, because I have spinal arthritis and have had two spine operations.

I would thus expect many of you who have bought a 9850X3D CPU to match or exceed the results I have shown above, if you configure it properly from day one.

For the others you should keep this link to be used when doing an RMA or participating in a class-action lawsuit against AMD when your 9850X3D stops working as it had, or just stops working period.

Addendum One:

I got a DM from the user u/Afferin and here is my reply to him that might clear up some things that have been put to me in the comments below.

Back in the day I found documentation that TSMC had a limit for the 7nm/6nm node of 1.3 Volts.

I put that in a guide and of course got similar replies to the ones I am getting on this article.

But fast forward two years or so to when the 7000 Series came out and the I/O die was burning up. This die is made on the 6nm node, which had the same voltage limits as the 7nm node, namely 1.3 Volts.

What did AMD do as a result?

Yep you guessed it, they limited the voltage of the I/O (or SoC) die to a maximum of 1.3 Volts.

As I said before, it is trivial to find out where the tipping point of Ryzen CPUs is when trying to find out the max voltage.

Just start at 1 Volt and see how much of an All-Core clcockspeed you can get out of it until it crashes. Then increase the voltage by 0.01 and repeat.

Now in the BIOS you only have a granularity of 25 MHz, but with Ryzen Master, this granularity is reduced to 5 MHz.

As you crash and have to increase the voltage, you will find, that the amount of voltage you had to increase to get to the last jump before 1.2 Volts is a lot less than the voltage you have to punt in to get the next 25 MHz jump above 1.2 Volts (edge case is of course where the last jump before 1.2 Volts was almost, but not quite, enough to get you to the next 25 MHz increase and you can test that by going to 1.205 Volts for instance.

You can again test this with just reducing the granularity in Ryzen Master from 25 MHz to 5 MHz per core.

Whichever way you do it, you will find that to get to the next 25 MHz increase in All-Core clockspeed takes way more voltage than the last 25 MHz before going to 1.2 Volts.

And of course I did my testing with various LLC levels, but the difference in the amount of voltage before 1.2 Volts and after 1.2 Volts for the 25 MHz increase remains analogous.

With regard ASRock boards. as a default they run the LLC by default at a medium level, as opposed to other motherboard manufacturers who run their LLC with the most droop as a default.

In case it wasn't clear, the minimum clockspeed increase you can set in the BIOS is 25 MHz, whereas with Ryzen Master, the minimum clockspeed increase you can set is 5 MHz.

Of course the testing takes a hell of a lot of time, because, after each CB R23 run I have to wait until the idle temp of the CPU comes back down to "normal" due to the increase temp of the liquid in my AIO loop (which also counts as "Ambient Temp") cause by running the test.

Then I have to do the whole protocol of testing again with a higher LLC (less droop) level setting.

I think you can see now, that my article is not just something I pulled out of my ass, but rather something I researched (and yes it is difficult to find info where the likes of TSMC nails their ass to the wall with regard to voltages) and had a thorough protocol for testing.

December 12, 2025 -

Leaks are starting to become more prominent that AMD will be bringing out a Ryzen 9000 CPU with two X3D Chiplets instead of one which they look to be calling the 9950X3D2.

A friend of mine, BossOverclock, made a video with me on how to configure it optimally for gaming and you can find it here:

New Dual X3D Chiplet Ryzen CPU Optimally Configured For Gaming 9950x3d2

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D, which only has one X3D Chiplet and one normal Chiplet has next to zero advantage over a Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU in gaming. To call the 9950X3D "The ultimate gaming CPU" is to say it mildly, wrong. In fact I have not experienced so much misplaced concretion as I have in that statement since the time I accidentally squirted some Soda-Stream into my mothers urn.

In the following I will not only tell you how to use the new 9950X3D2 to your advantage when it comes to gaming, I will show you.

To this end I will be using my own 9800X3D CPU as an example.

I will be using CineBench R23 to illustrate my point for four reasons:

1. It is as pure a CPU test as you will find that actually gives you a resulting measurement, because its results are not reliant on Cache or RAM configuration.

2. It is relevant to gaming in that when games compile shaders the workload is a bit heavier than that of CineBench 2024, but not quite as high as the load on the CPU from CineBench R23.

3. It spits out a score at the end of the process and doesn't just give you a pretty meaningless pass/fail result. This score allows me to make comparisons with regard to the different configurations I apply to my CPU.

4. It is an actual CPU benchmark, and not just a test of the efficacy of my cooler. :D

My Hardware:
Motherboard: GigaByte X670e AORUS Master
CPU: Ryzen 7 9800X3D
Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360 with three Phanteks T30 120mm fans
TIM: Thermal Grizzly Duronaut
PSU: SeaSonic Prime TX-1000, 1000 Watt Titanium
RAM: 96GB Corsair Vengeance (2x48GB) DDR5 6000MT/S 30-36-36-76 EXPO

The rest of my hardware is not really relevant to this discussion.

As a baseline for the discussion, here is the result of my 9800X3D after running a 10 minute benchmark in CineBench R23 with 8 Cores/16 Threads:

10 minute benchmark result

After this I ran the same 10 minute benchmark again but this time I had the monitoring software loaded (Ryzen Master) and made a screenshot of the stats at the end of the run:

Stats toward the end of a second 10 minute run

If you buy a 9950X3D2 CPU and want to get the most out of it for gaming, then the very first thing you should do is go into the BIOS and turn off SMT (Simultaneous MultiThreading).

The following is the result of running a second 10 minute benchmark on my 9800X3D only this time with SMT turned off with 8 Cores/8 Threads:

10 minute benchmark run with SMT turned off

This is the second 10 minute run, only this time with the monitoring software (Ryzen Master) running and again I took a screenshot towards the end of that run:

Stats toward the end of a second 10 minute run SMT off

As you can see, with SMT off I am running at half the amount of threads, but the score is a lot higher than half of the previous score.

This is because a Core has approx. 1.5 times the compute power of a thread.

Not only that, but I can run my CPU with 100 MHz per core more clockspeed.

The other thing you will notice is the far lower temperature.

If we now extrapolate these results to a 9950X3D2 with SMT turned off (16 Cores/16 Threeads) then you would have the result of my 9800X3D above multiplied by about a factor of two.

It would run a bit warmer, so I will round down the CB R23 result to 17,000 which, when multiplied by 2 gives us a score of 34,000.

Compared to running my 9800X3D with SMT On (8 Cores/16 Threads) that would be a performance gain of 34,000 / 24,790 or nearly 40%.

The fact that the workload is running on two CCDs as opposed to one isn't much of a concern due to the fact that Ryzen CPUs are pretty good when it comes to games thread hopping and a software thread once spawned will stay on the Core it was spawned on.

You can configure the 9950X3D2 the same way that I show in my guide to configuring the 9800X3D which you can find here:

Optimally configuring your 9800X3D step by step, a comprehensive guide.

Or you can watch the video I made with BossOverclock on that topic here:

Max Out Your Ryzen 9800X3D – Expert CPU Optimization w/ Michael Nager

March 17, 2025 -

Consider me a AMD n00b, I've been using Intel since the Pentium II days.
I have a few questions for you overclocking experts if you don't mind, I'll just get right to it.

Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix X870E-E

-PBO: Advanced.
-PBO Limits: Motherboard.
-PBO Scalar Ctrl: Manual
-PBO Scalar: 10x (should I set it lower, as in 5x?)
-Max CPU Boost Clock: +200
-Curve Shaper:
-Min, Low and Medium frequency: Negative 20
-High and Max frequency: Negative 10
-I tried min low and medium to -30, high and max -15, but Cinebench crashed while launching.

-DDR5 64GB 6400Mt (2 Kingston sticks, Hynix)
-EXPO Profile 1
-FCLK: 2133Mhz
-FCLK should lock in the MCLK and UCLK from my understanding.
(Also set the Infinity Fabric Frequency and DIviders to 2133Mhz, I'm guessing thats just doubling down on the same settings, probably redundant?)
-Scatterbencher also recommended to set the eCLK to Asynchronuous with BCLK2 Frequency to 105.5, which I haven't done, what are the benefits or downsides of doing so? Is this only necessary if setting the BCLK2 frequency manually, or also has benefits with auto? He also loaded Hynix primary timings from the memory presets, which I also haven't done.

-eCLK Mode: Auto
-tRef: 65535
-UCLK DIV1 Mode: UCLK=MEMCLK (Assuming this is 1:1 ratio)

-Cinebench multi core score: 2528

-Am I going in the right direction? What can I do better, and am I doing something wrong? Any insight or opinions is greatly appreciated.

-I tried the Curve Optimizer set to per CCD at -20 per CCD for a few days, thought I'd try the Curve Shaper for a more advanced approach.
With the CO value at -20 per CCD (and even -10) I had stability issues in just one game (The Division 1) with massive stuttering (every 2-3 seconds the frames would completely halt for a full second sometimes), tried reinstalling it, etc, but to no luck, I'm hoping its just really buggy, although it ran stable on my 14900k with the same GPU and Nvidia drivers.
I know it's not the frames, it sits at stable 237fps which is my set limit in NVCPL, and it doesn't drop in frames, it simply kinda freezes, lowering settings also doesn't help, I'm on a Astral 5090 OC and have tried stock GPU settings too, so it's not my GPU undervolt/overclock.
I didn't try before overclocking, so not sure if its just an AMD issue or unstable BIOS settings, I did try with EXPO profile 1 at 6000Mt but no change.

-I am fairly thorough with which guides I follow, I trust Skatterbencher and Blackbird PC Tech, they are straight to the point without any fuss, Blackbird is also really helpful with answering questions, what an absolute legend!

-Btw where is all the cake I was promised for switching to team red? I was told there would be cake??

September 25, 2025 -

I have settled into my PC and undervolted and overclocked my 9070xt. I have not touched the 9950x3d, I have only enabled PBO 1, nothing else.

I want to look into undervolting it as it can get quite hot (ex. Minecraft 4000 chunk render distance and stuff like that), but I am also unsure about other Gigabyte bios settings. I vaguely remember there being different PBO types too.

Any advice on what to enable / change is appreciated.