AMD has put a ton of R&D into power management and operational analysis for PBO and XFR, it would seem unlikely that the motherboard would have that much control over how the processors environmental analysis.
It would be interesting into seeing a proper analysis of misreporting versus properly reporting and if there really is a perf difference.
“These safeguards enforce the safety and reliability of the processor during stock operation.”
What is considered to be stock operation though, if the board is feeding bad/incorrect info to the CPU, does that mean its not stock…?
“Could shorten CPU life” is needlessly provocative when the result is just a raised power limit. I bet you don't word it like that when Intel boards push tau to infinity.
Predictably the number's being fully misunderstood in the official HWinfo thread about it, even after repeated explanations.
'[GSV
Trig;4219639']“These safeguards enforce the safety and reliability of the processor during stock operation.”
What is considered to be stock operation though, if the board is feeding bad/incorrect info to the CPU, does that mean its not stock…?
CPUs have internal power draw limiters so just because the source is providing one value, the CPU itself will be observing another. The CPU itself will also only rely on external variables in a limited fashion.
Basically, what stock means is that AMD provided a minimum specification to mobo manufacturers that the boards have to be able to provide
X amount of watts to the CPU, at stock a CPU will only really be drawing that amount. What the mobo manufacturers are doing are telling the CPU that mobo is being underutilised and therefore increases the potential headroom for something like PBO etc.
Except at stock, PBO isn't enabled IIRC?
I'd like someone to correct me if i'm wrong, but the above seems logical?
I agree that any effect on the lifespan of the CPU will be negligible in the context of the 15 or so years they should last with normal use.
The issue is that you're being misled. I would have absolutely no issue if this was an option, defaulted off and available in the OC settings of the mobo. To me, this is a little like gaming benchmarks on phones by altering throttling limits. I doubt AMD are happy at all and I suspect they'll push BIOS updates to either remove or default off this setting. Bear in mind AMD's R&D / endurance specs / binning, etc are all based on things performing within specification. If you overclock your CPU, you're operating outside of the warranty, so this produces a real grey area for warranty claims in my view. “I didn't overclock” yet the CPU failure mode is consistent with overclocking which your motherboard has done without your knowledge. Consumers could be left as a ping pong ball between the mobo manufacturer and AMD when trying to claim.
Check out GamersNexus analysis of it. It was very good and showed even with a large deviation it did not cause the CPU to draw the amount of power the devaition would suggest as it seems the CPU is still doing something itself to ensure that its not run too high.
Also most of the retail BIOS versions they tested showed deviation less than 5% either way. Which resulted in less than 10W differnce in power draw from actual spec.
Tabbykatze
It would be interesting into seeing a proper analysis of misreporting versus properly reporting and if there really is a perf difference.
Gamers Nexus did a bit of a deep dive into it if you've got access to YouTube, from what i can remember the misreporting didn't make massive changes in performance, something like higher initial boost clock and 25-50Mhz sustained.
EDIT: Oh, i just read Kanoe's reply so what (s)he said, silly me i should've read things properly. :)
edmundhonda
“Could shorten CPU life” is needlessly provocative when the result is just a raised power limit. I bet you don't word it like that when Intel boards push tau to infinity.
From what i understand that's the words Toms Hardware used, like you say needlessly provocative but THW isn't what it used to be (IMO).
Having suffered cpu death on Sandy Bridge 2yrs back, caused by electron migration (albeit after years of service under high load) I hesitate to be so optimistic about ‘entirely safe’ claims. After all these guys doing the tests did not run those cpus for very long periods of time. Though frankly, majority power users WILL upgrade to new machine/cpu long before this becomes an issue.
The Gamers Nexus video is really well laid out. The original HWinfo thread seems to have been willfully misinterpreted by Tom's Hardware. Not great shock since it's been worthless and sensationalist since Thomas Pabst sold it on in 2007.
Remember their infamous RTX “Just Buy It” piece? “When you die and your whole life flashes before your eyes, how much of it do you want to not have ray tracing?”
Just in case you run out of things to worry about…
Mine doesn't seem to be that far out, on a X570 AORUS ELITE
My Asrock X470 Taichi paired with a Ryzen 5 3600 is showing 77% under load… Not great.