Title. I see a lot of people running 10x and saying it's safe and others talking about degradation.

I've been playing around with my 3700x settings, I realised that when I set scalar to x10 I start getting that juicy 4.4Ghz more often than stock and I'm happy with performance, I also have LLC set to mode 3 on my MSI x570 MPG Gaming Plus, voltage doesn't exceed 1.490mv on light loads (same as scalar x1), max temp was 50c, please note that I use CTR hybrid profile for multicore tasks so whenever the CPU usage exceeds 30%, the profile activates and it sets to 4.3Ghz all cores at 1.325mv then at 80% it sets to 4.15Ghz at 1.244mv.

So I made sure that stock settings with scalar x10 only runs on light loads like gaming.

Is this safe?

After some testing on how AMD's PBO feature works, I found out that if you

Set “Precision Boost Overdrive Scalar” to manual at 10x, the CPU voltage

gets dangerously high with only a CPU test “System Stability Test” in AIDA64.

System configuration:

Gigabyte B550M DS3H (v1.x)

AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon Vega 7 Graphics

Crucial Ballistix BL8G36C16U4B.M8FE1 2x8GB Black

Note: I have already tried to change PBO Limits but the high voltage persists.

Does anyone know if this is a normal behavior, because with the CPU@stock the values are much less

(1.1volts - 1.3volts) and is more variable all the time.

I have an option in my BIOS to use a "Scalar multiplier" for PBO. The ranges are 2x to 10x. This means it will keep the voltages during PBO higher for longer, multiplying the default length of time anywhere from 2x to 10x.

Is this safe? My chip will stay at 1.45 for a really long period of time when using the multiplier. Will this cause damage?

Hello everyone,

I've been reading mixed opinions about scalar settings in various places. Some claim it's completely unsafe regardless of temperature or voltage, while others openly recommend using a scalar value of 10x. This left me wondering: are there any official documents or reliable sources that clarify how safe or unsafe this setting actually is, what it does, and what to look out for to determine if its current state is safe or not? If anyone has experience with testing, I’d really appreciate your input.

From what I understand, the scalar increases the Vcore curve and extends the boost duration. But if Vcore spikes stay below 1.3V and temperatures remain below 80% of tjmax, how exactly is this unsafe? According to HWiNFO, current limits aren't even being approached. The only potential concern I can think of is the extended boost duration. But isn’t that what the limits are for?

In some demanding stress tests, like Core Cycler, I’ve noticed that both the effective and target clock speeds drop by about 50–100 MHz after a while. Depending on the test, clock speeds range from 5.2 to 5.4 GHz, with the most demanding workloads typically at 5.2 to 5.3 GHz. Could scalar influence this? For example, could it allow higher clock speeds even under the most heavy loads? But then again, I wonder how this can be unsafe when there are limits in place?

Also, how relevant is any of this for someone who mainly plays games? Based on my in-game temps and Vcore readings, gaming scenarios don’t seem to resemble these stress tests at all. The only time I saw behavior that came close was during shader compilation or loading screens. Helldivers 2, spiked to 1.33V and hit 82°C for just a second when launching for the first time but then never again. This was with the scalar set to 10x. I am also pretty sure I could recreate this with the shader loading when you launch CoD, but I can't test that at the moment.

I tested scalar settings at 1x, 5x, 6x, 7x, and 10x for stability and benchmarks. Performance differences were minimal, under 5% across all scores. Vcore varied by about 0.02V, and temperatures differed by maybe 1–3°C. So for now, I’ve left it at 1x. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I might be missing out on some performance, and in general I’m just curious.

Apologies if these questions sound basic. I've really tried to understand this topic based on what I found online.

In case anyone asks, here are my current settings and specs:
Ryzen 7 9800X3D
Rog Strix B850-f
Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360
2x16 GB G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 6000Mhz CL30
Asus Prime Rtx 5070 Ti
1000w Corsair PSU
Fractal North XL

EXPO I enabled
PBO enabled
Curve optimizer: -20
+200 MHz boost override
Scalar: 10x (now at 1x)
Motherboard limits enabled

My Cinebench R23/R24 scores are in line with other similar OCs. Stability tests like OCCT and AIDA64 ran for 30–60 minutes with no issues. I’ve been gaming for the past three weeks without any crashes or instability, so I’d say it's stable.
Effective and target clock speeds range from 5.2 to 5.4 GHz depending on the task. Under full load, effective clocks are usually within 20-30 MHz of the target. In stress tests and some loading screens, Vcore very rarely spikes to 1.30V, but it averages around 1.22V. During gaming, it ranges between 1.0 and 1.2V. Temperatures in stress tests always stay below 85°C. To me, this seems stable, and I haven’t observed any signs of clock stretching. But if I’ve overlooked something, I’d appreciate any corrections or advice.

In almost every overclocking video I see for this cpu they using x10 pbo scaler isn't that a fast way to kill the cpu? , also I heard amd recommended to do this?

There are so many different opinions. What’s the actual correct response? Is it based off of chasing benchmark high scores versus daily use? What’s the consensus here?

Im using the 9800X3D with X870E Taichi and Noctua NH-D15-G2

I'm posting this because i really haven't seen much information about this topic from my searches, but it's definitely a real consequence that can come from pushing buttons in the Bios when you have no idea what they are actually doing.

Long story short. I bought a 5800x six and a half months ago. I went on youtube and found the popular PBO overclock settings videos, and i punched in some numbers. My benchmark scores were the highest they'd ever been, and the chip was barely hitting 70c in games. I thought all was stable. (In hindsight i should have run prime95 and the like to make sure, but i didn't).

I was running my ram at 3600 cl 16 infinity clock of course was then at 1800.

A week ago my pc started massively crashing in every game i tried to run. I dropped the ram down to 3200, disabled PBO. OCCT was reporting literally thousands of errors in a 30 minute period, and prime95 workers ALL were failing, and stopping.

I then tried to bump the SOC voltage to 1.1, and i put a .0250 voltage offset, and since then i haven't had a single crash. (for now) Prime95 is only reporting one failing worker after a long stress test now. Basically it seems like my settings degraded my CPU by literally years in just a matter of months.

The culprit may be the fact that i was using a 10x multiplier which i now know is a horrible idea. Because it really throws voltages out of whack. I got the idea about using the 10x multiplier from a youtube video with thousands of views. LESSON LEARNED.

Hopefully people read this, and save their chips before it's too late.