Overclocking Ryzen 7 1700 vs 1700X vs 1800X
Overclocking at Equal Voltages
Knowing that all of these processors are identical and come from the same manufacturing line, we have to ask whether there's any real reason to splurge on the highest-end model. To that end, we compared their base frequencies and maximum overclock with all eight cores under load. The memory was set to 3200 MT/s, and all of the other BIOS settings were left at their defaults.
| Model | Frequency (MHz) | Voltage (V) | Temperature (°C) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 7 1700 | 3200 | 1.07 | 35 |
| Ryzen 7 1700X | 3500 | 1.16 | 52 / 32 |
| Ryzen 7 1800X | 3700 | 1.23 | 58 / 38 |
The "entry-level" Ryzen 7 1700 seems to have an advantage, given a base core voltage of 1.07V (compared to the 1.16 and 1.23 volts measured on the pricier chips). Temperature is affected by the Vcore of course, but our comparison is made imprecise by AMD's offsets.
We applied the recommended -20°C offset, but again, we're reminded that the correction isn't perfect. The discrepancy between the reported and real values isn't constant. It changes as a function of multiple parameters. Applying this offset gets us closer to the right temperature, but it isn't guaranteed to be accurate.
| Model | Frequency (MHz) | Voltage (V) | Temperature (°C) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 7 1700 OC | 3975 | 1.35 | 45 |
| Ryzen 7 1700X OC | 3950 | 1.35 | 63 / 43 |
| Ryzen 7 1800X OC | 4050 | 1.35 | 66 / 46 |
While the 1800X has a clear base advantage, the difference diminishes after overclocking. If tuning your CPU doesn't scare you, we recommend going for the Ryzen 7 1700 in light of its more attractive price.
Performance
The Ryzen 7 1700 serves as our baseline. Operating at just 3200 MHz (across eight cores), it obtains a score of 1438 points in Cinebench R15. That's a long way from the Ryzen 7 1800X's 1640 points. Given the 1800X's 500 MHz advantage, though, we don't have a difficult time explaining the 14% performance difference.
Overclocked, that delta disappears. Our Ryzen 7 1700 even beats the 1700X. Of course, you can expect overclocking results to vary from one CPU to another, as we mentioned in our Kaby Lake overclocking test.
The 1800X maintains a less-than 2% lead over AMD's Ryzen 7 1700. It is quite astonishing that the 1700X achieves a lower score; this cannot be explained simply by a lower frequency. Even at the same clock rate, our 1700X sample consistently fares worse than the 1700.
MORE: How to Overclock a CPU
