Question Ryzen 5 2600x overclock on a Asrock ab350 Pro4

[Loonmario]

I have a Asrock ab350 pro4 and just ordered a Ryzen 5 2600x. I already have a Cooler Master Hyper T2 cooler and DDR 3000 ram. After reading so many comments about Ryzen 3000 series cpus just not working right with these older 350 boards I decided to avoid potential headaches and just got the 2600x instead and save some money. Apparently this motherboard even has some trouble supporting even a 2000 series cpu so I didn’t want to push my luck.

Anyway, If the R5 2600x has a turbo boost of 4.2ghz, what’s the point of overclocking it? Won’t it just automatically get to 4.2ghz anyway? Also, if I do overclock it what can I except using a 350 board? I don’t want to burn up my board.

I’m only going to play World of Warcraft Classic which is heavily dependent on single core performance.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I’m only going to play World of Warcraft Classic which is heavily dependent on single core performance.

Hate to say it, but if single-core performance is what you're after, you really should have stuck with the Ryzen 3rd-gen / 3000-series CPUs. If they were supported by your board. (Even with some limitations.)

 

[Loonmario]

Yeah, I wanted a R5 3600 but from searching on google with my board I saw way too many problems with Asrock bios issues on revision 5.80. Not being to post, blue screens, and instability. The game is being released on Aug 27 and I don’t want to take a chance of my system being messed up. The prospect of possibly having to buy another motherboard is way over budget too. The 2600x was only $140 so I’m just hoping it’s good enough with a decent overclock maybe.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I don't know about the ASRock AB350 Pro4 (ATX version), but I owned three of the ASRock AB350M Pro4 (micro-ATX version), and honestly, I bought them because they were the cheapest AM4 mobos I could find, with the features that I wanted. They worked alright for a while, with 1st-gen Ryzen CPUs (R5 1600 CPUs), but I burned one out from mining, and I never could get the other ones stable, with a 2200G APU on them. I think that the SoC VRM section was too weak, when I was mining or serious gaming on the APU. I finally, sort of, got them working with some Athlon 200GE APUs, which have only Vega 3 graphics, I think, and thus, don't draw much power from the SoC VRM section.

Anyways, I know that you said that a motherboard was above budget, but honestly, I would re-consider. Newegg and Microcenter both have CPU+mobo combo deals, that you could use if you bought an R5 3600, and save some money. Newegg's combos are specific, but I think MC is just a discount off if you buy both.

Alternatively, you could pick up an open-box / refurb AM4 mobo, something MSI or Gigabyte (those are the two I see most often), if you really keep your eyes open for one. I've picked up a number of relatively-cheap older boards that way.

Just about any alternative is better than that ASRock board, I think, or at least, something without an ASRock BIOS for an older B350 board.

But those Pro4 boards, their BIOS really went downhill after 1st-Gen Ryzen. So I'm not fully confident that you will have success on that board with a 2nd-Gen Ryzen CPU, either, quite frankly. I guess, search the web for comments and reviews on that combination.

Edit: Also, even with updated BIOSes, memory-compatibility (with faster DDR4, 3000 and above) was really poor on those boards, IMHO.

 

[Loonmario]

Do you think the integrated graphics on your 2200g was causing the VRM to overheat? Would it make a difference if I’m I’m using a video card and 2600x without integrated graphics? I don’t know enough about this stuff.

I’ve look on pcpartpicker and there are many people using Ryzen 2000 series with my board and don’t really see complaints. There are some comments that the Ryzen 2000 ready boards like mine that shipped with bios 4.60 was causing problems until they updated to 4.70.

I’m on bios 4.70 right now with a R5 1400 and totally stable with DDR4 3000mhz ram. My plan was to just install the R5 2600x and see if it’s stable. If not I was going to move up to 4.80 and so on until I find a stable version.

If none of this works then I’ll dump the board and probably just go with an Intel i5-9600k and a compatible motherboard since World of Warcraft loves Intel single core the most. That’s around $300 and ouch my wallet.