AMD has confirmed that its most affordable B650 motherboard chipset will support overclocking of its Zen 4 processors. There were doubts about the chipset’s overclocking capabilities after it officially announced the X670E, X670, and B650 at Computex 2022.
A slide showed the top two chipsets supported “Extreme Overclocking” and “Enthusiast Overclocking” respectively, but there was no mention of the overclocking next to the B650.
Maybe AMD couldn’t think of a good enough adjective to go with the overclocking capabilities of the mainstream offering? “Mediocre Overclocking” lacks that all-important marketing zing. “Everyday Overclocking” has a surprising ring to it though and is more in line with the naming of the other two.
How much you’ll be able to get out of the Ryzen 7000 chips on this mainstream platform is a completely different question, of course, as the chipset supporting overclocking is just one factor in how good a motherboard is at pushing a chip that little bit harder. If the motherboard VRMs and power delivery aren’t up to the task of supplying enough stable power to the chips, then you’re not going to have much luck anyway.
This is probably the real reason it highlighted the overclocking capabilities of the X670E and X670—motherboards built around those chipsets are going to be higher-end offerings, and so will have the budget and price tags to make for the beefier power delivery. By confirming the B650 can overclock as well does leave the door open for the likes of MSI, Gigabyte, Asus, and Asrock et al. to produce a great budget overclocking option, if they’re so inclined.
That AMD felt the need to confirm this so quickly (in a video interview with PCWorld (opens in new tab)) speaks volumes about the growing backlash to the idea that the most affordable chipset would lose the option to overclock.
It’s worth noting that current B550 motherboards support overclocking, although it’s rare that anyone actually bothers, as AMD’s Ryzen 5000 chips are much better at managing their own clocks most of the time. Still, the option is there for those that like to tinker.
AMD’s Zen 4 architecture is expected to debut in the Ryzen 7000 in the fall, with the AM5 motherboards and PCIe 5.0 SSDs due at the same time.