ClockTuner 2.0 for Ryzen (CTR) Guide - How to beat the 5GHz

How to beat the 5GHz

The capabilities of the MOSFET play a huge role in these processes. The ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark has Texas Instruments 95410RRB, which has a rated power of 90A(!) for a temperature of 25 degrees.

This wonder is covered by a massive aluminum heatsink, as is the chipset (finally!).

In most cases, the MOSFET operating temperature will range from 30-50 degrees, which means that we will not get the theoretical 90A, but will be content with values of 45-55A. However, the VRM is capable of delivering 320-350A. I want to note that the current Thermal Pad has a thermal conductivity of only 2 W/mK, which is the cheapest solution that can be. For example, the common Arctic Thermal Pad has a thermal conductivity of 6 W/mK. So, if you are not worried about loss of warranty, I advise you to replace them.

Despite the impressive theoretical capabilities of the board, the reality is usually different, but not in this case. To check it I used an oscilloscope. First, I checked if the Load Line Calibration (LLC) works in Auto mode, since 99% of the users will use this mode. To test that I manually set the VID to 1.35V and the frequency to 4400 MHz. The load generator was Prime 95 in FFT 1344 mode with FMA3 turned on (I think this is quite enough for evaluating LLC performance in a typical user task environment).

In automatic mode, the LLC does quite well, showing maximum voltage peaks of 1.37V, and the average value is 1.29V. The software monitoring shows 1.283, which is slightly lower than the results from the oscillogram. The waveform is as follows:

As you can see the average voltage value is quite close to the minimum and the transient takes a short period of time. This allows us to conclude that LLC Auto copes with its task perfectly. I also did an experiment with LLC3, the average compensation value that users like to use.

In addition to the increased average voltage, you can clearly see an increase in the overshoot, which is now 1.43V.  Of course, this will not kill the processor in the long run, but it will cause a slow degradation process (roughly 25-50 MHz per year).  Software monitoring showed a value of 1.325 and the RMS was 1.34V. The difference between the underdrive and overdrive increased slightly, 0.17V instead of 0.15V. This suggests that the LLC3 loses slightly to the automatic mode. As for the safe voltage and AVX Light load, it's simple. I don't recommend going over the 1.35V mark if you are using a fairly aggressive LLC mode. If it is a loyal mode (Auto) - maximum safe voltage will be about 1.412 - 1.425V. Anyway, CTR will tell you what to do.

Aside from LLC for ASUS motherboard users I suggest to use phases in Extreme mode. This is probably the only thing you can do to improve the power stability of the CPU.

In the UEFI screenshot, you can also notice the Fixed VRM Switching Frequency (kHz) 500, this setting helps to reduce the transient time, thus the processor gets a more stable voltage.