Upcoming free software brings more performance to Zen 2

[midian182]

Something to look forward to: The person responsible for the excellent DRAM calculator for Ryzen is releasing another piece of free software that will help owners get more out of their Zen 2 platform. ClockTuner for Ryzen (CTR) not only squeezes extra performance out of your AMD processor, but also decreases its power consumption.

Yuri "1usmus" Bubliy is known for creating the DRAM calculator for Ryzen program (download here), a free tool that makes overclocking the memory on Ryzen-based systems easier and safer. As reported by Guru3D, their next project will likely be just as welcome by AMD fans.

Unlike DRAM calculator, CTR is limited to Zen 2 processors as it takes advantage of AMD's chiplet design. It supports both the Ryzen 3000-series and Threadripper 3000-series processors, and 1usmus says the software will work with Zen 3 CPUs as per-core voltage and frequency adjustments are possible with the upcoming architecture.

CTR works by undervolting each CCX (Core Complex), thereby making the processor faster and cooler while drawing less power. The Smart Overclocking module evaluates the quality of each CCX and adjusts the frequencies individually.

CTR keeps all the energy-saving technologies active. The whole process is automated and reportedly has no restrictions, and a version of Prime95 with a special preset—developed by 1usmus—evaluates the stability of each CCX. There's also an integrated Cinebench R20 benchmark to see how much CTR has improved a system's performance.

Another great aspect of the software is that it will work with any motherboard brand, even those that do not support CCX configurations. It does this by using low-level SMU access to bypass any limitations placed on the mobo.

1usmus posted some CTR results. Using a Ryzen 9 3900X, they were able to increase performance by almost 7 percent while reducing power consumption by 9.5 percent. A Threadripper 3960X test, meanwhile, brought a 5 percent performance boost and a power consumption drop of 4.5 percent.

CTR is scheduled to release this September.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/86498-upcoming-free-software-brings-more-performance-lower-power.html

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Yuri "1usmus" Bubliy is awesome!

 

[Aryassen]

I wonder how it will work in terms of one core boost vs all core speed, but either way, every little helps If it can raise the clocks by another 200MHz while consuming 5-10W less, that would be indeed awesome! Looking forward to trying it, and thanks to Mr. 1usmus for developing and sharing it for free!

 

[Hardware Geek]

I'm curious about this. Does it also work for renoir processors? Considering they are a single ccd, and this is per ccx tuning, I'm guessing no unfortunately because I want a renoir desktop processor.

 

[Burty117]

I'm curious about this. Does it also work for renoir processors? Considering they are a single ccd, and this is per ccx tuning, I'm guessing no unfortunately because I want a renoir desktop processor.

No it does not work with Renoir Processors I'm afraid.

 

[Puiu]

Undervolting needs to be made easy for laptops too, especially the 4000 series. They need to copy Intel on this.

 

[Irata]

Undervolting needs to be made easy for laptops too, especially the 4000 series. They need to copy Intel on this.

Does Intel still allow undervolting ? I thought they disabled this due to the plundervolt exploit.

 

[krizby]

Does Intel still allow undervolting ? I thought they disabled this due to the plundervolt exploit.

Undervolt stills work for intel 10th gen mobile, for some laptop it works out of the box, for others it need to be enabled from BIOS.
But yeah Intel need to enable per core voltage and clocks control for their next gen CPU, might be able to extract a little bit more performance outta them, just like how this ClockTuner does for Ryzen 2.

 

[Irata]

Undervolt stills work for intel 10th gen mobile, for some laptop it works out of the box, for others it need to be enabled from BIOS.
But yeah Intel need to enable per core voltage and clocks control for their next gen CPU, might be able to extract a little bit more performance outta them, just like how this ClockTuner does for Ryzen 2.

Odd, as Techspot stated the following in their i7-10875H review:

Another thing people might ask of us is undervolting performance, given it’s quite popular with enthusiast laptop buyers. Unfortunately, undervolting is disabled with the 10875H on the Aorus 15G and possibly other models as well. We suspect this is in response to the Plundervolt security vulnerability with Intel CPUs, though we didn't receive an official statement on the matter

Any kind of official statement would be better.

 

[Torrentius]

Lovely. Right now I run R7 1700 on ASRock B450M Pro 4, this will deifinitely become handy when I'll upgrade to Zen 2 in a year or so. I'll either upgrade to 3700X or 3900X - the first one is no brainer, the second one definitely could use some undervolting, even though Steve suggests it runs okay:
https://www.techspot.com/review/1872-ryzen-9-on-older-motherboards/
Maybe an update to the above piece, with use of CTR, could be possible after the official release?

 

[Puiu]

Does Intel still allow undervolting ? I thought they disabled this due to the plundervolt exploit.

Still works on my laptop. Acer Nitro 5 with an 8300H

 

[Lionvibez]

Cool app looking forward to trying it.

 

[krizby]

Odd, as Techspot stated the following in their i7-10875H review:

Any kind of official statement would be better.

Officially undervolt is not supported but many OEM still allow it, my Acer Triton 500 with 10875H allow software undervolting out of the box while MSI ones you need to enable XTU support from BIOS, for Asus ones only undervolt from BIOS is possible.

So then even laptops with the same spec (even same brand but different model) can differ in the ability to undervolt or disabling Optimus that make them very different from each other. For actual performance you have to read the specific review for that laptop model.

 

[ProDigit]

Too bad it's windows only.
I'm mainly running linux nowadays...

 

[MaxSmarties]

A similar, much less granular, tweaking took me hours and hours of testing. This tool will do the same in a few minutes, in a better way.
Great job as usual by 1usmus.

 

[ReMarkFromeMark]

Just built a Ryzen9 on Asus Prime B450M-A using stock cooler and it ran 58-60C. I installed Asus utility and clocktuner. Now running at 4000MHz and 35C!

 

[MaxSmarties]

Just built a Ryzen9 on Asus Prime B450M-A using stock cooler and it ran 58-60C. I installed Asus utility and clocktuner. Now running at 4000MHz and 35C!

I dont know what you did but I wouldn't use the Wraith Prism with a 3900X. It works, but far from being optimal.

BTW, why did you buy such an old motherboard for an high end CPU ?

 

[Mugsy]

I recently purchased a Ryzen 3100 to (temporarily) replace a 6 year old Intel 4770k-based system. I went with the newly-released (bargain) 3100 to tide me over till the Zen 3 series comes out.

The 4770k base clock was 3.5GHz, which I was able to overclock to 4.2GHz (a 17% boost) with a AIO water cooler and 2133MHz DDR3. Ran rock solid for 6 years till the MoBo gave out.

This new stock air cooled 3100 runs slightly faster than that overclocked 4770k at just 3.5GHz with 3600MHz DDR4. I'd love to see how much more I could squeeze out of this "Little Engine That Could."