u/Haorelian

Alright, I just bought a Ryzen 7 5700X as a drop-in upgrade for my system, moving up from a Ryzen 5 3600X since I was severely bottlenecked at 1440p with my RX 9060XT 16GB in games like Helldivers 2, CS2, and Overwatch 2.

I used standard PBO on my 3600X, but with the 5700X I finally have access to much more granular control, including Curve Optimizer.

The thing is, is it really worth tuning? I have more than adequate cooling for a 65W chip (Noctua NH-D15), though my motherboard is aging a bit (Asus Prime X370 Pro). I've been testing with Motherboard PBO limits, a +200MHz boost clock override, and a -20 All-Core CO. I've verified stability with CoreCycler and in-game testing. The effective clocks are completely solid without any stretching, consistently holding a real 4850MHz, but my gaming temperatures jump from 65°C stock to the 78°C range with PBO enabled.

Is this extra push actually worth it for gaming framerates, or am I just losing efficiency and dumping wasted wattage into dead heat? If it is worth pursuing, what's the best approach to optimize this? I want to make sure I'm not riding the chip's FIT system too hard or risking degradation.

On a semi-related note: I've read mixed info on Reddit about CPPC and CPPC Preferred Cores. Some say they boost performance, while others claim they cause micro-stutters. Is it advisable to enable them on a single-CCD chip like this under Windows 11 Pro?

Built this PC back in 2017 and have been slowly upgrading it since. Went from a Ryzen 5 1500X to a 3600X in 2020, and five months ago my RX 5700 XT died on me so I ended up grabbing an RX 9060 XT 16GB as a replacement.

Problem is, the 3600X is clearly struggling to feed it. Hard FPS drops in Helldivers 2 and Wuthering Waves, and in CS2/OW2 I'm already running low settings and still hitting a CPU ceiling.

The 5700X3D would've been the obvious pick, but it's been out of stock across the entire country since 2024 and scalpers are listing it at 2-4x retail. We're talking "I could buy a 5950X and have money left over" territory. So that's off the table.

That leaves the regular 5700X. My main concern is whether it's actually enough of a jump to stop the drops into 30-40 FPS territory in those two games, or if I'm just throwing money at a problem that won't fully go away.

Cooling wise I'm not worried — NH-D15 with plenty of headroom. And 65W TDP on an X370 Prime Pro shouldn't stress the VRMs at all if I'm not mistaken.

Not expecting miracles here, just want the stutters gone at 1440p while I save up for a proper platform upgrade down the line. Does this make sense or am I missing a better option?