Disable cores and hypertheads

[Thesonicboom01]

I am interested in the performance gains from overclocking specifically to do with gaming and I have noticed the lower frame rate when using the i9 7900x. My question is would disabling the hyperthreading and a few cores be able to increase the overclocking ability of the chip enough so the frame rate will match the 7700k or even best it?

[Damascus]

Sure, though maybe not.  I would start by going down to 6c/12t or 4c/8t depending on the game. 

[RadiatingLight]

it might, but it's not worth it.

those chips are still gaming beasts. I'm sure you don't have any problems.

 

it won't beat the 7700K most likely.

[ARikozuM]

[Disabling] anything that uses power can push the available headroom. By how much? I have no idea. @MageTank @Lays @done12many2

[porina]

Would you really buy a 7900X to turn cores off? If you're going to do that, might as well start lower down in the series. Otherwise, just run the 7900X as best you can.

[manikyath]

its not really an economically viable solution, you might as well then just have bought a lower end cpu.

[MageTank]

In my experience with consumer i7's (4c/8t), HT adds about 15w of heat. I don't think disabling HT in and of itself will yield higher overclocking unless you are seriously restricted by thermal headroom. Cores on the other hand, that might be a different story entirely. 

[done12many2]

Instead of disabling cores, you should consider manually setting your "favorite cores" to higher clockspeeds.

 

Your 7900X shipped with Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, which works seamlessly now with Windows 10.  Before the CPU left the factory, Intel determined what the best 2 cores were on the CPU (favorite cores) and programmed them to scale higher than the rest of the cores at stock in low thread situations.  These cores are marked in your BIOS with an asterisk (*).

 

When you manually overclock your CPU, you can still increase the 2 favorite cores 1 or 2 multipliers higher than the rest.  Play around with it to determine what suits you best, but it's really not that complicated at all.  Hell, it's a lot more convenient than continually switching overclocks or saved profiles in BIOS all the time when switching from a few core to all cores. 

 

With the 7900x I had, I was able to get 4 cores to run higher than the rest of the cores with perfect stability without increasing VCore.  Windows would still shift tasks that used lower threads to all of the higher clocked cores even though all weren't technically "favorite cores" programmed by Intel.

 

Don't worry about the Window's scheduler and whether or not Windows will use the higher clocked cores for lower thread applications such as games.  It does it automatically as Microsoft added the Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 driver into the OS a while ago with Broadwell-E.  Initially it relied on a separate Intel driver to be installed, but it all happens automatically now.  While it may not be perfect for every application, it's damn close. 

 

Setting up your system in this manner will allow you to reap the benefits of high single core performance while retaining the strong multi core performance.  

You can definitely get similar gaming performance out of a 7900x when compared to a 7700k at the same clockspeed.  Because the CPU was primarily designed with different things in mind, you just have to adjust some stuff to get there.  Once it's done, it just works.  In non-gaming applications, the 7900x will actually beat the 7700k core for core and clock for clock depending on what you are doing.  

 

In the example screen shot below, you'll see that I had 3 cores running at a higher clock (bolded blue).  This screen shot is NOT in load as the test had already passed when I captured it, but you can look at the max (2nd from the right) and average columns (furthest to the right) to see what was going on.  

 

If you need any specific help with setting any of this up, just ask.