AMD is preparing a refined Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature for Ryzen 5000 Series processors. PBO 2 will arrive with the roll out of AGESA 1.1.8.0 BIOS updates for AMD 500 Series motherboard in December. Owners of AMD 400 Series motherboards won't be left out, they should start to get BIOS updates that enable PBO 2 from January next year.
The key benefits of PBO 2 are outlined in the slide above. If you have used or are using the original PBO you will likely be aware of the feature's limitations - the main one being that this one-click overclocking option only really benefitted multi-threaded workloads. PBO 2 is claimed to bring similar benefits to single threaded performance without taking anything away from multi-thread – it might even be faster.
In the PBO 2 design goals section above you can see another major feather in the cap of the update is that undervolting is supported in a number of ways. Firstly it can be automated by PCO 2, secondly the feature wil be available as a standalone tweak. To briefly explain, depending upon the silicon lottery, some chips can operate reliably at lower voltages. Turning the voltage down will bring benefits in cooler running, making the chip less likely to thermal throttle, using less power, and providing increased boost headroom.
Normally users have to try and set one reduced voltage level that is stable across all their application and particular use-cases. PBO 2 will provide Curve Optimiser to opportunistically adjust voltage based upon operating conditions and computing demands.
To provide some insight about how PBO 2 can deliver better results for Ryzen 5000 CPU owners, AMD provided some benchmarks with the various settings applied. The Cinebench tests show that PBO 2 doesn't deliver earth shattering results but, as mentioned above, the undervolting might make your processor consume less power and run cooler in general and that is why it has been a popular task for performance laptop owners to try out.
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PBO 2 is rolling out in December, as I said in the intro, as a BIOS-only function to start with. It is expected to appear in the Ryzen Master software early in 2021. Owners of AMD 4000 Series motherboards should find the feature enabled next year too. Last but not least, using PBO 2 isn't expected to be 'risky' but will void your CPU warranty.
Source: Tom's Hardware
