Conclusion
The many hours we put into overclocking Ryzen and Asus' Crosshair VI Hero were made more difficult than we're used to due to the many bugs in AMD's nascent Socket AM4 platform.
Of course, it is never easy to start with a new platform in-hand, but when every single component is unfamiliar, and complicated by the fact that AMD seems to have rushed its launch without disseminating information to everyone who needed it, don't even bother counting the hours you spend trying to explore various settings for the first time.
The target is constantly moving, too. Regular BIOS updates intended to smash show-stopping bugs often require trashing old results and starting over from scratch. We didn't think we'd ever finish. And indeed, many updates have happened since this piece was published on Tom's Hardware's French site.
At a certain point, though, with all of the data in front of us, overclocking Ryzen becomes child's play. Increase a multiplier, fiddle with the memory data rate; it's naturally pretty intuitive.
The BCLK Frequency & RAM Surprise Attack!
If you want to add 4 to 5% more performance, you must have a motherboard that lets you modify the reference clock, such as our Crosshair VI Hero. You'll want to pore over our data and try replicating some of our experiments using the options and settings we dialed in.
For tinkerers, Ryzen 7 1700 is the eight-core model we suggest. Once these CPUs are pushed to their limit, the final difference between them is negligible.
Be sure to configure your memory with relation to the BCLK Frequency setting, which can significantly improve gaming performance. Don't hesitate to spend extra on high-performance memory. G.Skill's Flare X kit proved to be very practical thanks to Asus' D.O.C.P profiles.
The Ryzen platform, in all of its newness, still suffers from several bugs. Watch carefully for BIOS updates from your motherboard vendor. Little by little, these will correct problem spots, improving stability and increasing performance.
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