# Asus dynamic OC switcher on Asus X570 Dark Hero. Possible the most briliant Zen 2 and 3 OC feature.



## Tomgang (Nov 10, 2020)

First of all, sorry for my english. It´s not my main language, so this might be harder for native english people to read.

I am not normally a person making high lights for hardware. But the feature called asus dynamic OC switcher exclusive for ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR VIII DARK HERO as far i know. Is brilliant i think. Specially for us that have 5900X/5950X (well for me some time in a near future if all goes well) with high max boost clocks.

Normally when we manuel overclock Zen 2 or 3. We can get high all core clock, but at the cost of the max boost clock. The higher max boost clock the cpu has, the better this feature is. So lets take the best case senario with 5950X. Max boost is 4.9 GHz (all throw i have seen severel reviews where this CPU actually reach 5.05 GHz in single core max boost clock). Manuel overclock i have seen 5950X reach 4.7 GHz all core, but using a lot of wattage and by that out put a lot of heat that can overwhelm even a 360 MM AIO. For that all core clock speed you need custom water loop. But it is not all of us that are using custom water. Most of us use a large aircooler or a 240/280 MM AIO and with that, you do not reach 4.7 Ghz with out melting the CPU. So for us with air/aio cooling we might reach some where between 4.3 Ghz and 4.6 Ghz all core clock at manuel OC. But at the cost of max boost clock up to 4.9 GHz and that means good performance in multicore load, but loosing performance in light load like games cause we are not boosting to the hight clock we will get with stock/PBO setings.

This is where Asus dynamic OC switcher comes in to play. This feature means you litterly set up two profiles in bios for cpu and memory settings. One for cpu running stock or with PBO on and one for a manuel oc or a manuel all core AVX offset depending on your workload. Then you activate dynamic OC switcher and set a given ampere like 75 Ampere load to trigger seconds bios profile with your manuel all core settings in bios and voila you now have a CPU that runs at stock or PBO settings by default and boost to max core clocks in light load like games for max gaming performance and when the CPU reach the 75 ampere load, it triggers bios profile 2 with your manuel all core oc or maybe AVX offset laod settings for when you need max all core performance for workstation use. When it is setup, it all happens by it own and you no longer have to settle with max boost or all core clock only and go to bios every time to change settings. With dynamic OC switcher it all happens by it self while you use your pc. It´s not a sale marked ting or a reccomendation of the Dark hero, cause this board is also pretty exspensive. But i cant be the only one thinking its annoying with have to chose between all core mauelt oc or max boost/PBO settings. dynamic OC switcher elliminates that problem.

Se more in these videos. That maybe also make you better understanding this feature.


















Have a good day. I just learned about this my self today.


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## Zach_01 (Nov 10, 2020)

Interesting feature indeed...

Der8auer made a little mistake?
He run 4000MHz on DRAM but UnCore (UCLK) freq was at 1000MHz and not 2000MHz. Meaning the mem controller was ½ of DRAM. Uncoupled...
We didn't see FCLK though.


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## Tomgang (Nov 10, 2020)

Zach_01 said:


> Interesting feature indeed...
> 
> Der8auer made a little mistake?
> He run 4000MHz on DRAM but UnCore (UCLK) freq was at 1000MHz and not 2000MHz. Meaning the mem controller was ½ of DRAM. Uncoupled...
> We didn't see FCLK though.



Yeah, it is. I am considering the Dark Hero. I am allready ment to get the normal hero version. But with better VRM, no chipsæt fan and now this feature. This makes me consider dark hero, even throw it has a hefty price tag to follow.

Der8auer dit make the Infinity clock mistake. 1:2 ratio. I guess even the hardcore extreme overclocker do make mistakes.


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## Zach_01 (Nov 10, 2020)

Tomgang said:


> Yeah, it is. I am considering the Dark Hero. I am allready ment to get the normal hero version. But with better VRM, no chipsæt fan and now this feature. This makes me consider dark hero, even throw it has a hefty price tag to follow.
> 
> Der8auer dit make the Infinity clock mistake. 1:2 ratio. I guess even the hardcore extreme overclocker do make mistakes.


Expensive board yes.
This would be DarkHero exclusive? I wonder...

That speed (1000MHz) shown in Der8auer's CPU-Z (as Uncore freq) was from UCLK (UMC), the Unified Memory Controller. We didn't see the speed of InfinityFabric (FCLK).


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## thesmokingman (Nov 10, 2020)

How's this different from just using a ratio overclock? The voltage scaling on Ryzen 5K already completely changed what is possible since it now uses .25v less to hit boost clock that means its stupid easy to run a big ratio overclock.


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## Tomgang (Nov 10, 2020)

Zach_01 said:


> Expensive board yes.
> This would be DarkHero exclusive? I wonder...
> 
> That speed (1000MHz) shown in Der8auer's CPU-Z (as Uncore freq) was from UCLK (UMC), the Unified Memory Controller. We didn't see the speed of InfinityFabric (FCLK).



As far i know and as Der8auer said. This is so far the only asus X570 board that has this feature for what i know. But it´s possible Asus can release this feature to other boards with a new bios update.

Ah i see. I just asumed the 1000 MHz in CPU-z is Infinity Fabrik clock.


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## tabascosauz (Nov 10, 2020)

thesmokingman said:


> How's this different from just using a ratio overclock? The voltage scaling on Ryzen 5K already completely changed what is possible since it now uses .25v less to hit boost clock that means its stupid easy to run a big ratio overclock.



Maybe for a very good bin single chiplet CPU. For a worse quality (obviously nowhere near Ryzen 3000's "bad" binning) 5900X/5950X that caps out at 4.4-4.5GHz @ 1.35V, there's quite a bit of performance left on the table considering that single core boost reaches 4.8-5.05GHz.

That said, given the general state of affairs with Ryzen launch firmware, I don't expect this to work well at all. It leverages a similar "activity filter" to what AMD implemented a few months after Matisse release in AGESA 1003ABBA and 1004, to stop the CPU from boosting all the damn time from background processes. Something tells me these CPUs are going to be switching to all-core when you want PBO, and be too slow and stupid to switch out of boost when you want all-core.


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## Zach_01 (Nov 10, 2020)

thesmokingman said:


> How's this different from just using a ratio overclock? The voltage scaling on Ryzen 5K already completely changed what is possible since it now uses .25v less to hit boost clock that means its stupid easy to run a big ratio overclock.


The stock 5950X has a single boost of 4.9~5.0GHz and all core around 3.9~4.0GHz.

If you do a manual ratio for example of x46 = 4.6GHz you lose the last 3-400MHz. With this, you can have both. Up to 5.0GHz of single boost and a 4.6GHz for all core. You just set it on what load(through current-A) it switches between them.

How is that the same?


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## Tomgang (Nov 10, 2020)

thesmokingman said:


> How's this different from just using a ratio overclock? The voltage scaling on Ryzen 5K already completely changed what is possible since it now uses .25v less to hit boost clock that means its stupid easy to run a big ratio overclock.



Zen 3 can be overclock in two ways. PBO + auto overclock. That gives you still the max boost clock, but not so high a all core clock as you can get with a manuel all core overclock, but at the price of max boost clocks. So what i have seen with Ryzen 9 5950X. At stock 5950X hits an all core clock around 4 GHz all core clock none AVX load. with PBO + auto overclock depending on cooling and motherboard VRM it can hit around 4.3 to 4.4 GHz all core clock and still have the max boost clocks. With a manuel all core overclock and you have suffient cooling, 5950X can go to around 4.7 GHz, but since you also lose PBO in the process, you also lose max core boost. So no 4.9 GHz low load core boost clock.

So this feature allows you to keep max boost clock and still use a high clock manuel all core overclock. Or said with other word, there is no compromises with dynamic OC switcher. With out, you have to chose between high all core clock or high single core boost clock. High single core clock boost game performance = higher FPS and high all core clock boost high cpu load like converting and editing, but at the cost of exsample gaming performance. dynamic OC switcher allows Zen 3 users to have bofh at the same time. You dont have to chose or make a compromise. That´s what makes dynamic OC switcher so great.


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## Zach_01 (Nov 10, 2020)

tabascosauz said:


> Something tells me these CPUs are going to be switching to all-core when you want PBO, and be too slow and stupid to switch out of boost when you want all-core.


This is for (lets say) advanced users that must do their math first before let it on permanently and set and forget. First requires some testing about on what current(A) the switch is activated, so that it doesnt hurt light/medium loads where maximum boost is needed.


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## John Naylor (Nov 10, 2020)

I have always created specific BIOS profiles on each build based upon intended usage ... the selection however was loaded when PC was.   Back when W4WGs 1srt arrived on the scene, I used a boot menu with 6 different options and associated (6) autoexec.bat and config.sys files depending upon what I was doing and later when i moved to NT4, system would boot to windows 95 when the kids booted and to NT4 if i hit a certain key combo.

However, this auto switch thing ... well Im kinda unsure about that ... I dunno if I like the OS or system logic making that decision for me.


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## Zach_01 (Nov 10, 2020)

John Naylor said:


> However, this auto switch thing ... well Im kinda unsure about that ... I dunno if I like the OS or system logic making that decision for me.


Its a BIOS controlled switch as they say... so no Windows interfering or decision by it.

And there is no decision by it self(BIOS). The user is setting the trigger with CPU current(A).


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## tabascosauz (Nov 10, 2020)

Zach_01 said:


> Its a BIOS controlled switch as they say... so no Windows interfering or decision by it.
> 
> And there is no decision by it self(BIOS). The user is setting the trigger with CPU current(A).



I understand what you're getting at and I trust you also understand the point I'm making. Point is, I really don't place a lot of faith in AGESA after what it's done for me since the Zen 3 launch.

Asus' APE is really just an alternative to PBO using essentially the same methods, and never worked for me because it's not even remotely CPU stable.
The much-touted-by-everybody EDC trick never worked for me, because it's not even remotely stable.
Asus did its own EDC-trick-esque "Fmax" setting as a replacement for PBO, supposedly written for Asus exclusively by the Stilt, and is ridiculously unstable.
More times than I can count both Asus and GB BIOSes have lost their marbles over absolutely nothing at all, and that includes GB that likes to set the current limits I put in and surreptitiously change them to whatever the hell they like at an unspecified and unpredictable point in time. Understandably, these things make me leery.

It is a Dark Hero exclusive right now, but knowing Asus, it'll most likely come around sooner than later.


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## Zach_01 (Nov 10, 2020)

tabascosauz said:


> I understand what you're getting at and I trust you also understand the point I'm making. Point is, I really don't place a lot of faith in AGESA after what it's done for me since the Zen 3 launch.
> 
> Asus' APE is really just an alternative to PBO using essentially the same methods, and never worked for me because it's not even remotely CPU stable.
> The much-touted-by-everybody EDC trick never worked for me, because it's not even remotely stable.
> ...


I do not understand why you(people) dont get how this works and why you(people) confuse it with other stuff...
There is no EDC trick, no false feed back to the CPU to push it more.

Its like having 2 profiles.
Its all stock boost settings + static OC, and switching between them by a trigger. They cant work together.
To give you an example:

5950X has a limit of 140A EDC. You set the static OC profile to whatever you want (say 4.6GHz, 1.2V), enable it, and set the trigger to 100A.
Under 100A the BIOS will run the CPU on all stock boosting up to 5GHz. If the load reach the 100A, meaning you are close to all core load, then it switches to the all core static OC profile of 4.6GHz, which is greater than stock all core boost of 4GHz.

Its that simple.... end of story... short of
What we dont know is if the switching will cause any kind of glitch, as I didnt see it with my own eyes.


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## Marucins (Nov 12, 2020)

This new dynamic oc switcher feature in Crosshair VIII Dark motherboards is great.

I wonder if GIGABYTE in the X570 will add something similar?

Probably not enough memory. Fools ... Ideally let them kick out ZEN and ZEN + support to free up resources.


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