For many PC enthusiasts, overclocking means a lot of fun, both in terms of process and the end result. To a large degree overclocking is a lottery that is never guaranteed, and when it comes to AMD’s latest Ryzen 3000 processors, getting a CPU with high overclocking potential is not easy at the moment. This has left an opening in the market for retailers who are selling pre-binned chips with guaranteed overclocking potential.

There are several stores that sell pre-binned CPUs and other components: Silicon Lottery from Texas, USA; Caseking from Germany; and Overclockers UK. Silicon Lottery was the first company to start offering pre-binned AMD Ryzen 3900X processors last month and by now their entire first batch has been sold. Meanwhile, this week Caseking began to sell AMD’s latest CPUs with a guaranteed overclocking potential.

The list of pre-binned AMD’s Ryzen 3000-series processors to be available from Caseking includes Ryzen 9 3900X, Ryzen 7 3700X, and Ryzen 5 3600, but at present only the model 3700X is available. All the CPUs are pretested by Roman "der8auer" Hartung, a well-known overclocker, using Prime95 26.6 software with an FFT length of 1344 for at least one hour with AMD’s Wraith Prism cooler. Meanwhile, voltage of the chips is kept under 1.4 V.

Pre-Binned AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs by CaseKing.de
  Cores/
Threads
Default Clocks
Base/Boost
Guaranteed OC (base) L3 TDP
(default)
Price
(EUR)
Ryzen 9 3900X 12/24 3.8/4.6 GHz 4.3 GHz 64 MB 105 W €619
4.25 GHz €599
4.2 GHz €579
Ryzen 7 3700X 8/16 3.6/4.4 GHz 4.3 GHz 32 MB 65 W €449
4.25 GHz €429
4.20 GHz €399
Ryzen 5 3600 6/12 3.6/4.2 GHz 4.3 GHz 32 MB 65 W €300
4.25 GHz €280
4.2 GHz €260

Pre-binned processors from Caseking cost €50 – €100 more than regular models, so overclocking in this case is not a ‘free’ performance upgrade. Furthermore, buyers in Germany have to pay VAT of 19%. The good news, however, is that as per European laws, the CPUs are backed with a two-year warranty.

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Sources: Hardwareluxx, Caseking, Tom’s Hardware

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  • hbsource - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link

    'Binned' Does not mean 'good'. The chips that don't overclock are still binned. They're just in the bad bin. The OP said non-binned chips will be bad. That's just wrong. Non-binned chips have unknown properties.
  • PeachNCream - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link

    Ah, I see. You knew what the OP was talking about the all along and were being obtuse in order to reach a point where you would lawyer over wording. Well don't let me stop you. Have fun with that.
  • Harry Lloyd - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link

    How is that even worth anything?
  • leexgx - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link

    So you don't have to waste time and money (return them is not free or resell unwanted ones on ebay) buying multiple cpus to find a golden chip that can do high overclock
  • evanh - Thursday, August 15, 2019 - link

    Any Ryzen can have the base all-cores frequency raised to max boost (For the 3k range that's around 4.8 GHz) on two conditions:
    1: The CPU core voltage has to be locked down to base set voltage to prevent excessive heating.
    2: Get a decent cooler! The stock coolers aren't built for more than a couple of cores going flat out.
  • pyro226 - Sunday, August 18, 2019 - link

    While is true for Intel and it used to be true for Ryzen 1000 and 2000, that's no longer the case. The CCX dies are binned such that only a single core needs to be efficient enough to hit *near* the boost clock. The CCX with a strong core is then paired with a weaker CCX. This allows Ryzen to have strong single thread performance as well as fairly good multi-core for consumers. The two downsides to having only one strong core (for non-overclocked users) are increased power (shuffling workloads) and a slight hit to performance (mostly mitigated by the scheduler prioritizing stronger cores). AMD is potentially saving the best CCX dies for threadripper or higher binned parts if they need to better compete with Intel.

    https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-300...
  • evanh - Sunday, August 18, 2019 - link

    Tom's isn't saying anything new. All the cores have to be good for it to boost that fast at all. Just, as a collective, they're throttled to stay in a temperature range.

    Cap the voltage and boost the cooling, then you're good to go for the all-cores base to be set at max boost+XFR. The frequency is the same for all models of a generation. Which I believe is 4.8 GHz for the Zen2 chips.

    Binning doesn't apply until above the top XFR frequency. Given the lack of info on those retailed "binned" parts I wouldn't be trusting my money on them delivering any extra value at all.
  • pyro226 - Sunday, August 18, 2019 - link

    Toms was using a "beefy" Corsair H115i.

    "All the cores have to be good for it to boost that fast at all."
    That part hasn't changed. What has changed is that AMD is now only targeting one core to hit the full boost clock on consumer parts. On previous models, all cores could hit the boost clock.

    Short of phase change cooling, you won't be able to overclock the 3700X/3900X to the 4.4 / 4.6ghz. When taxing AVX2, most aren't going to make it past 4.1 even with good cooling (per Silicone Lottery). For non-AVX, 4.2 to 4.3 is the highest overclock on water cooling.
  • evanh - Sunday, August 18, 2019 - link

    The individual cores things sounds like a coolade story to me.

    The same physics is still there. Cap the voltage and you restrict the heating. Do that and it's a lot easier to control the temperature. Keep the temperature under control (70°C) with a better cooler and you can go right to XFR across all cores at once without needed any special binning.

    I haven't seen any indication of the review sites even trying this though.
  • evanh - Sunday, August 18, 2019 - link

    And capping the voltage also means much lower power needed from the regulators as well. A 350W power supply does the job fine.

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