Clock Frequencies and Boost Clock Analysis

Most modern processors feature a capability called "Boost" or "Turbo" that automatically overclocks the CPU beyond the nominal clock frequency provided certain conditions related to thread-count, power-draw, and temperatures are met. Our testing on this page investigates what actual real-life frequencies can be achieved in such scenarios. The data below presents the minimum, maximum, and average clock frequency of a given core/thread-count combination for a typical heavy workload. We start with one thread and go all the way up to the CPU's maximum thread count while at the same time measuring the average clock frequency for these timed testing runs.


Looking at the results, it becomes clear that the Ryzen 7 2700 will run near its highest boost clock with only two threads to then drop frequencies a little bit for three and four threads, after which a big drop reduces clocks to roughly 3.5 GHz, which sets the clock range for all additional thread count increases.

This got us curious, and we tested the Ryzen 7 2700's boost clock behavior for a comparison to its pricier sibling, the Ryzen 7 2700X, and the previous-generation flagship part, the Ryzen 7 1800X.


The data above springs up some interesting results. The top-dog Ryzen 7 2700X has a nearly linear reduction in boost clock speeds with an increase in threads, keeping up with AMD's claims of assured boost frequencies for each thread (which is the cornerstone of the multi-threaded performance uplift of Zen+).

The Ryzen 7 2700, on the other hand, also boosts clock speeds of all cores beyond the nominal clock of 3.20 GHz; however, its graph isn't as linear as the 2700X. There's a more pronounced drop in boost clocks beyond 4 threads, after which there's some semblance of linearity. Even with a 16-thread workload, you get some boost (of 200 MHz above nominal).

The previous-generation Ryzen 7 1800X works as expected. There's a linear drop in clock speed as you go from 1-thread to 4-thread, beyond which there's no boost clock, and parallelized workloads have to make do with nominal clocks of 3.70 GHz.

When not loaded at all, the processor's idle clock is 1550 MHz.