Ryzen BIOS

[Octopuss]

I have an Asus B550 board and the BIOS is a mess. There's AI Tweaker menu which has PBO entry in it, and there is AMD overclocking section elsewhere also with some PBO settings.
Can anyone tell me what's the deal with this and what is one supposed to use?

 

[freeagent]

98% of the changes I make are in AI Tweaker.

 

[tabascosauz]

Extra PBO menu that looks like a mess under AMD OC or CBS menus (depending on vendor and chip you have) is not for you, it's for software utilities like Ryzen Master that can access BIOS-level control from inside Windows. Sometimes that hidden PBO menu records values in hex so you can't even really use it if you wanted to. The easily accessible one in AI Tweaker is the one for you. Some boards will appear to apply changes only in the main PBO area, some will apply across the BIOS, it doesn't matter for you and you don't need to worry about it.

It's not Asus, all of AM4 is like this. AGESA is really half-assed, and we wouldn't have half the issues we have stemming from it if AMD considered polished firmware an integral part of the hard product, like other manufacturers do.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I'm not sure about more recent Asus boards, but my X370 was fine. Not having any issues with my Gigabyte board. I guess sometimes it's just the user that needs more training...

 

[freeagent]

Coming from Intel it took some getting used to. Once you poke around a bit and slowly get into clocking it becomes fairly intuitive.

 

[Octopuss]

Extra PBO menu that looks like a mess under AMD OC or CBS menus (depending on vendor and chip you have) is not for you, it's for software utilities like Ryzen Master that can access BIOS-level control from inside Windows. Sometimes that hidden PBO menu records values in hex so you can't even really use it if you wanted to. The easily accessible one in AI Tweaker is the one for you. Some boards will appear to apply changes only in the main PBO area, some will apply across the BIOS, it doesn't matter for you and you don't need to worry about it.

It's not Asus, all of AM4 is like this. AGESA is really half-assed, and we wouldn't have half the issues we have stemming from it if AMD considered polished firmware an integral part of the hard product, like other manufacturers do.

Ok, but the curve optimizer, which if I understand it correctly is the new undervolting feature I'd been hearing about for a while, is there, so how do I go about that?

 

[tabascosauz]

Ok, but the curve optimizer, which if I understand it correctly is the new undervolting feature I'd been hearing about for a while, is there, so how do I go about that?

You don't even have to go there. There's a search function in Asus BIOS. But anyways:



Advanced tab - AMD OC - PBO

Which goes back to my point about AMD tacking shit onto its firmware without thinking about how the user experience is in practice.

 

[Octopuss]

You don't even have to go there. There's a search function in Asus BIOS. But anyways:

View attachment 188901

Advanced tab - AMD OC - PBO

Yes but that's precisely the area others in this very thread told me not to touch. I am even more confused.

 

[tabascosauz]

Yes but that's precisely the area others in this very thread told me not to touch. I am even more confused.

Okay, fair enough, so maybe don't mess with that shit with the exception of curve optimizer. But it's not like curve optimizer can be found anywhere else (something you can easily verify by searching using F6 or something), so I'm really not seeing why this is cause for confusion.

 

[Octopuss]

It's confusing as hell to someone coming from Z77 board and the simple BIOS of archaic Intel platforms

 

[tabascosauz]

It's confusing as hell to someone coming from Z77 board and the simple BIOS of archaic Intel platforms

I can sympathize with that. I initially upgraded to Ryzen 3000, from a H97 board that had the Z77 style Gigabyte BIOS. Took some time.

Moral of the story, stick to AI Tweaker. Go to CBS or AMD OC if there's something specific you need in there like DF Cstates, TSME or Uncore OC.

I bet at some point you'll be glad you've landed on Asus on your first try. It's one of the most intuitive BIOSes out there.

 

[Octopuss]

I considered Gigabyte for a while, being the brand I always used in past.

 

[TheLostSwede]

It's confusing as hell to someone coming from Z77 board and the simple BIOS of archaic Intel platforms

Even Intel board have changed quite a bit since then and not always for the better.
Some of the "fancy" UEFI's are actually horrible.
Got a Z270N board from Gigabyte in my NAS and it has one of the worst UEFI's I ever used.
It's slow, laggy and unresponsive at times and other times it works just fine. It's also bright orange and just badly laid out.
Was using an MSI board in a different system and I can't make heads or tails of that, as they have a completely different layout to every other board maker with weird squares that takes you into the sub settings.
Gigabyte's current UEFI implementation is pretty good though and Asus doesn't seem to have changed too much since my X370 board.
I think you're just having shell shock from moving from an old UEFI from one brand, to a new one from a different brand.

I mean, this is still a tad orange, but nothing like my Z270 board.

 

[INSTG8R]

Even Intel board have changed quite a bit since then and not always for the better.
Some of the "fancy" UEFI's are actually horrible.
Got a Z270N board from Gigabyte in my NAS and it has one of the worst UEFI's I ever used.
It's slow, laggy and unresponsive at times and other times it works just fine. It's also bright orange and just badly laid out.
Was using an MSI board in a different system and I can't make heads or tails of that, as they have a completely different layout to every other board maker with weird squares that takes you into the sub settings.
Gigabyte's current UEFI implementation is pretty good though and Asus doesn't seem to have changed too much since my X370 board.
I think you're just having shell shock from moving from an old UEFI from one brand, to a new one from a different brand.

I mean, this is still a tad orange, but nothing like my Z270 board.

View attachment 188920

Honestly GB BIOS is not that great compared to ASUS, granted I’ve gotten used to it and eventually it’s easy but it’s generally terrible compared to ASUS. That said the OC/PBO features seem to be duplicated in different sections no matter the vendor...

Edit @TheLostSwede disable that nasty Spread Spectrum....I have so many fights with AMD staff as to why it’s enabled by default it wreaks absolute havoc on sound card...also is literally makes any serious attempt at OC’ing an utter crap shoot because of the nature of how it works

 

[TheLostSwede]

Honestly GB BIOS is not that great compared to ASUS, granted I’ve gotten used to it and eventually it’s easy but it’s generally terrible compared to ASUS. That said the OC/PBO features seem to be duplicated in different sections no matter the vendor...

Edit @TheLostSwede disable that nasty Spread Spectrum....I have so many fights with AMD staff as to why it’s enabled by default it wreaks absolute havoc on sound card...also is literally makes any serious attempt at OC’ing an utter crap shoot because of the nature of how it works

Hey, I'm not the one complaining here, tell the OP. He's the one hating on Asus' UEFI.
Yes, the AMD menu stuff is enforced in a certain way by AMD, or Ryzen Master won't work.
And if you dislike Gigabyte, you would real loathe MSI's current implementation.

Not had any issues with it on Auto.

 

[INSTG8R]

Hey, I'm not the one complaining here, tell the OP. He's the one hating on Asus' UEFI.
Yes, the AMD menu stuff is enforced in a certain way by AMD, or Ryzen Master won't work.
And if you dislike Gigabyte, you would real loathe MSI's current implementation.

Not had any issues with it on Auto.

No no don’t get me wrong moving from ASUS to GB was a rude awakening but AMD having that ancient Spread Spectrum on by default almost made me smash my sound card and became a huge widespread issue on AM4 even Daniel K stepped in trying to fix it when it was just that setting “wiggling” the clocks which sound cards hate...

 

[TheLostSwede]

No no don’t get me wrong moving from ASUS to GB was a rude awakening but AMD having that ancient Spread Spectrum on by default almost made me smash my sound card and became a huge widespread issue on AM4 even Daniel K stepped in trying to fix it when it was just that setting “wiggling” the clocks which sound cards hate...

I guess it's a good thing I don't have a sound card then...
Disabled it, let's see if it makes any difference.

 

[R00kie]

All you need to do, to be honest, is set DOCP for RAM XMP, and the Curve Optimizer, if you want, in AMD OC menu.

Leave everything else alone.

 

[INSTG8R]

I guess it's a good thing I don't have a sound card then...
Disabled it, let's see if it makes any difference.

Just means your “clocks are your clocks” not 1798.5 RAM speed or 100.5 FSB. It’s an absolutely ancient setting meant to fight “interference“ it only applies to really running multiple machines in close proximity like an office for example. Intel hasn’t used it in a decade. It may be in the BIOS but always off

 

[tabascosauz]

Honestly GB BIOS is not that great compared to ASUS, granted I’ve gotten used to it and eventually it’s easy but it’s generally terrible compared to ASUS. That said the OC/PBO features seem to be duplicated in different sections no matter the vendor...

Edit @TheLostSwede disable that nasty Spread Spectrum....I have so many fights with AMD staff as to why it’s enabled by default it wreaks absolute havoc on sound card...also is literally makes any serious attempt at OC’ing an utter crap shoot because of the nature of how it works

Hey, I'm not the one complaining here, tell the OP. He's the one hating on Asus' UEFI.
Yes, the AMD menu stuff is enforced in a certain way by AMD, or Ryzen Master won't work.
And if you dislike Gigabyte, you would real loathe MSI's current implementation.

Not had any issues with it on Auto.

I think the GB BIOS would be massively improved by incorporating a search function - it's text-heavy and isn't quite as beginner friendly as Asus BIOS but if you know what you're doing, things are easy to find.

MSI BIOS is a pepega dumpster fire. The best BIOS they put out was that slimline cut-down BIOS they used to update non-32MB boards for Matisse support - simple, functional. The huge, pointless sidebar squeezing the actual features into a tiny box in the middle I just can't forgive, somehow MSI never saw fit to get rid of it since 2014.