I am putting together a mixed-use machine around a 9950X3D and I cannot decide whether it is worth going all-in on cooling and tuning, or just running the chip close to stock and calling it a day.

Use case is basically 50 percent work, 50 percent games. Blender, Resolve, giant browser tabs, then Helldivers and Cyberpunk at night. I have seen a lot of "just use Curve Optimizer and move on" advice, but not much from people who actually compared a good air cooler against a 360 AIO on this chip.

If you are daily-driving a 9950X3D, I would love to know what you landed on for PBO limits, Curve Optimizer, peak temps, and whether tuning made a real difference in your render times or compile workloads. I am less interested in screenshot OCs and more in settings you would trust for six months.