AMD fixes Ryzen 3rd Gen algorithm causing lower than expect boost clocks, BIOS update Sep 30

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AMD has issued a statement on the state of the boost frequency issues surrounding its 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen processors. During a survey it emerged the vast majority of AMD Ryzen 3000 series processor owners were failing to hit the advertise turbo speeds, even on just a single core.

The issue has been identified and a fix for the entire 7nm AMD CPU line-up is ready to roll out later this month.

“Alongside this feedback on the incredible performance of 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen, we have also heard from some users who express concerns about their ability to hit the maximum boost frequency of their product,” AMD began.

“We understand how this can be confusing and frustrating for those users, so we are providing more context on how we set the boost frequencies on 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen processors, and what you should expect to see.”

As AMD explains it, there are many factors at play which can determine the maximum boost clock speed on a Ryzen processors, including voltage, ambient temperature, up-to-date software, cooling solution used, and the effectiveness of the thermal paste. That’s a whole lot of variables then, already it doesn’t really account for 90+% struggling to  the advertised boost rates on a single core.

It’s a two-pronged issue then. The user must have the correct conditions to ensure optimum performance, while AMD needs to ensure up-to-date software and BIOS are available.

AMD says its own analysis determined  there was a problem with the boost algorithm which could cause lower-than-expected boost clock frequencies. Team Red’s rogue algorithm has now been resolved and it’s up to the motherboard partners to ready a BIOS update and make them available to customers. The end result is there will be a BIOS update at the end of this month, which will increase the maximum boost frequency of various Ryzen 3rd Gen CPUs by around 25-50 MHz, depending on the workload they’re under. 

“Following the installation of the latest BIOS update, a consumer running a bursty, single threaded application on a PC with the latest software updates and adequate voltage and thermal headroom should see the maximum boost frequency of their processor,” explains AMD. 

“PCMark 10 is a good proxy for a user to test the maximum boost frequency of the processor in their system. It is fully expected that if users run a workload like Cinebench, which runs for an extended period of time, the operating frequencies may be lower than maximum throughout the run.”

Crucially, AMD believes the changes made to the core frequency algorithm will not have any effect on the lifespan of its Ryzen 3000 range.