Overclocking
Is the R7 1700 variant really cut from the same cloth as the other two processors in the range? The answer is yes. It took us all of a couple of minutes to increase voltage from 1.2V to 1.3875V and dial in a 40x multiplier on all cores, matching the R7 1700X and falling just shy of the range-topping R7 1800X. In fact, 4.1GHz was semi-stable, too.
You don't see a lot of improvement in the single-threaded PiFast test because frequency increases from a peak 3,750MHz to 4,000MHz.
The biggest gains are, of course, with the multithreaded benchmarks due to the 25 per cent frequency uplift. This £320 chip, once overclocked, has the beating of the £1,600 Core i7-6950X, albeit stock clocked.
And while the gaming numbers become better, it's SMT that, inevitably, holds it back. Switching it off gives Total War a boost, to 88.5fps.
