AMD Issues Statement on Low Ryzen 3000 Boost Clocks, BIOS Update Soon

[W1zzard]

After AMD's Ryzen 3rd generation launch many users have reported that they are not seeing the advertised boost clocks that AMD promises in their specifications. This has been an ongoing issue, with various tweaks tried, with limited success. This lead to serious allegations about "false advertising", and all AMD had to say up to this point was that these clocks are "up to".

AMD has now issued a statement regarding these lower than expected clock frequencies on Zen 2 processors, and it looks like there is indeed an underlying BIOS issue that's responsible. Let's hope that this new firmware gets released quickly and is able to restore faith in AMD's otherwise excellent track-record.

AMD is pleased with the strong momentum of 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen processors in the PC enthusiast and gaming communities. We closely monitor community feedback on our products and understand that some 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen users are reporting boost clock speeds below the expected processor boost frequency. While processor boost frequency is dependent on many variables including workload, system design, and cooling solution, we have closely reviewed the feedback from our customers and have identified an issue in our firmware that reduces boost frequency in some situations. We are in the process of preparing a BIOS update for our motherboard partners that addresses that issue and includes additional boost performance optimizations. We will provide an update on September 10 to the community regarding the availability of the BIOS.

Our resident Ryzen memory overclocking guru 1usmus is reporting the same on his Twitter account:

SMU FW 46.44.00 will improve the boost of processors of the Zen 2 generation, very soon in all BIOSes. ETA: 10 September

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Metroid]

Finally some good news about it. AMD trolls must be scared with this statement hehe

 

[TheMadDutchDude]

We will see... but hopefully this is going to change for the better soon.

 

[R-T-B]

Good news, provided the fix is released soon... every day is still a say the product is on the market not performing as advertised, even if only by a miniscule amount.

Honestly, this should never have happened, but on the same token, I'd still buy a 3rd gen in a heartbeat for a new build.

 

[Nordic]

I am very happy that the problem is acknowledged and will be fixed. All those people who didn't believe us can go eat their words.

September 10.

 

[Tomgang]

Good news. Some thing tells me this bios update also maybe will include support for Ryzen 9 3950X as rumors says it maybe lauch around september 7 give or take a few days.

A boost update is also needed as it is now. To many 3900X has difficulties to just reach 4.6 GHz, so with current bios/boost preogram how would that not go with 3950X and its 4.7 GHz boost.

 

[Eskimonster]

Would be amusing if a bios update makes AMD knock of the King 9900k

 

[trparky]

Honestly, this should never have happened

No system is without bugs. I often look at modern computer systems and marvel in the fact that they work as well as they do. I swear that these systems are made from half engineering and half straight-up voodoo magic.

At least AMD acknowledged the issue, they could be more like Intel and simply stuck their collective fingers in their equally collective ears and denied it.

 

[Nordic]

Would be amusing if a bios update makes AMD knock of the King 9900k

Unlikely given intels clockspeed advantage. My 3900x averages 4.2ghz given great air cooling. Average clockspeed is determined by temperature constraints. The fix is going to address the maximum speed which might help in some benchmark.

 

[R-T-B]

No system is without bugs.

And no bug tester should miss something this obvious...

At least AMD acknowledged the issue, they could be more like Intel and simply stuck their collective fingers in their equally collective ears and denied it.

I can't really think of a case where Intel did that.

 

[trparky]

I can't really think of a case where Intel did that.

Really. Security issues and lying about their TDP values and what they mean. Yeah...

 

[Xaled]

And no bug tester should miss something this obvious...



I can't really think of a case where Intel did that.

IMO It's a more like a "give them less and wait , if they found it out and asked for it, give it to them" situation more than a bug

And yeah intel has made obvious lying official and true. 90% people thinks that the virtual cores AKA "threads" are real cores. But yeah ..if intel did it it is ok.

 

[trparky]

Intel says the 9900K has a TDP value of 95W but the moment you even try to do anything with it the TDP value shoots through the damn roof because really, who runs at stock?

But as Jay's Two Cents would say... I digress.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Good to see AMD make a public statement on it. Until then, we had varying degrees of speculation on what was going on, across multiple generations of chipsets and board vendors. A public statement is the beginning—now we just need some closure!

 

[Space Lynx]

ETA is september 10th thanks wizzy

but that means we still have to wait for mobo manufactures to release it. so more like octoberish unless you own a high end board. or you own an MSI X570 board which seems to be slow as crap releasing BIOS updates. lol

 

[robert3892]

With 2 minutes of TechPowerup launching the original story I sent that to AMD. Good to see AMD responding quickly.

 

[holyprof]

Well all this noise made me download CB R15 and HWinfo and test my Ryzen 3700X using the stock cooler and with ambient temperature of 32ºC (yes it's hot here where I live). My case is NZXT H500i, with all fans on lowest speed (if I program lower speed they just stop spinning). CPU fan speed is set to auto / silent profile in motherboard settings.
All cores hit between 4.30and 4.375 GHz, except core 0 and core 2 which both hit the advertised clock of 4.4GHz. I guess if i program fan speeds (both case and CPU) to auto or max speed and in the winter, all cores will hit the 4.4 GHz clock.
Am I just lucky with the chip I bought?

*EDIT* strangely enough, when running the single-core test, the max boost clocks the cores hit were more or less the same from multi-core, with cores 0 and 2 hitting 4.4GHz and the rest between 4.325 and 4.375 GHz.
My testing is not scientific, not using a "clean" and fresh windows install, antivirus software is on and PBO is off with all other CPU, motherboard and RAM settings on default.

 

[Turmania]

As the article states at first the company refused the problem saying upto as dismissing the problem and making its customers look like a fool. now they say they will fix it with a bios update. Do I trust this company when they never own up to their mistakes? no definetely not. but a week away from a solution so lets see.

 

[Midland Dog]

cbf reading the whole forum, earthdog where art thou you and i both were right fam

 

[EarthDog]

cbf reading the whole forum, earthdog where art thou you and i both were right fam

LOL, dog...

I'm just sitting here chillin...vindicated... laughing at the hangers on in the other thread (and those who don't know how both AMD and Intel spec their TDP).

 

[KarymidoN]

Honestly, this should never have happened, but on the same token, I'd still buy a 3rd gen in a heartbeat for a new build.

Agree, but the same way, spectre and meltdown should never have happened too.
I'm pretty sure AMD will just increase the MAX treshold on Temps/PowerDraw on boards that can take it, people with shitty boards with bad VRM's and bad cooling will run with higher temps, and thats it, but hey more performance tho.

 

[Mephis]

Wait, I thought there was nothing wrong and we idiots didn't understand FIT tables...

I'm just happy to see them fixing this.

Really. Security issues and lying about their TDP values and what they mean. Yeah...

Really? So Intel hasn't released fixes for security issues? Then why do I keep reading comments about Intel CPUs being slower now with the patches installed?

 

[trparky]

Sure, the security issues have been fixed; I'll give you that. But you can't sit there and tell me that they've been very honest about their TDP values. 95W... at what? 3.6 GHz? Who the hell runs a 9900K at 3.6 GHz? Nobody I know! They usually run it at closer to 5 GHz speeds and that's where their TDP values go to shit.

 

[Midland Dog]

Sure, the security issues have been fixed; I'll give you that. But you can't sit there and tell me that they've been very honest about their TDP values. 95W... at what? 3.6 GHz? Who the hell runs a 9900K at 3.6 GHz? Nobody I know! They usually run it at closer to 5 GHz speeds and that's where their TDP values go to shit.

ur kinda wrong there for gens before kaby lake, my 4690k at 4.7ghz all core 1.389vcore uses only 119w max in full synthetic and ironically less than my g3258 in gaming loads as the g3258 was pegged in gaming

 

[trparky]

ur kinda wrong there for gens before kaby lake

That's why I'm referring to the 9900K. Even the 8700K runs hot. How many of us complained about the 8700K running hot and how we were blaming the "toothpaste" and then Intel came back and told us "Well then if you don't like the temps then don't overclock!"

But again... this is an AMD thread, not an Intel thread. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming for this thread.