If you've got an AMD processor, or just thinking about buying one, you might be a little confused
by all the intricacies of team red specific overclocking.
And yes, I know that there are options for one-click, quick and dirty overclocking, but
there are some Ryzen-specific idiosyncrasies that are super helpful to know about.
Today, we're going to be talking about Precision Boost Overdrive, or PBO, my favorite type of
sandwich. Specifically, we're talking about PBO2, the version on modern Ryzen 5000 and 7000 chips,
but we're just going to refer to it as PBO from here on out.
Is that okay? Although it's often thought of as another one-click overclocking solution, it turns
out that PBO doesn't directly overclock your CPU, which has been a source of confusion.
What PBO actually does is send more power to the processor, which allows the CPU to sustain
higher clock speeds for longer periods of time.
So if you turn PBO on, but leave the rest of your settings on defaults, you'll see
the CPU spend more time hitting whatever the boost speed is on the spec sheet.
Simple enough, but here's a recommendation for you. The best way to ensure you do, in fact, have PBO turned on is to go into your BIOS and
specifically look for the AMD overclocking section.
Additionally, although you can enable PBO through Ryzen Master in Windows, Ryzen Master
can turn it back off upon reboot, depending on how it's configured.
So yeah, just enable it through the actual AMD settings in your BIOS and save yourself
some headaches. So once you've got it turned on, another optional but cool thing you can try is undervolting
the chip through PBO. Although this sounds counterintuitive as the point of PBO is to give the CPU more power,
many Ryzen CPUs can actually achieve the same level of performance with less power, also
meaning less noise and heat and money.
Yeah. This could be especially useful for the new 7000 series, which runs hotter and consumes
more power than the 5000 series. So if you want to undervolt, just set the curve optimizer to negative and enter a value
between 1 and 30 in the magnitude field.
The larger the number, the greater the undervolt. But you won't want to go too aggressive or your system will become unstable.
Try some different values to see which works best with your specific chip and hopefully
your PC doesn't disintegrate. So you know how to use PBO, but how do you combine it with an actual overclock to maximize
your performance? Actually turning your clock speeds up with PBO isn't too hard.
Although you can just select the auto overclocking option in Ryzen Master and Windows and call
it a day, you can get better results in the BIOS with minimal effort.
In that same AMD overclocking section in your BIOS that we mentioned earlier, look for a
setting that says something like boost clock override.
From there, you can enter in a value in megahertz that represents how far past the maximum
boost clock listed on the box you want to push your processor.
Starting small and adjusting in roughly 25 megahertz increments is a good way to find
a stable speed that maximizes performance without pushing the system too hard.
Now this might not sound super different from traditional overclocking, but doing it through
PBO is actually a bit safer. Because you're raising power limits without manually overvolting, meaning that there's
no risk of frying your poor CPU.
Why do you torture it? Not to mention that PBO actually uses a smart algorithm that'll keep you from completely
throwing caution to the wind. Of course, you'll still want to appropriately stress test your system to make sure your
PBO overclock is stable and your computer won't crash while gaming, watching the final
of The Bachelor, or in the middle of a crucial job interview.
Unless you're applying for a job here at LMG, in which case, I can assure you, we'll
have tons of sympathy for a failed overclock.
We might even give you bonus points. Hey, thanks for watching the whole video!
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