Amd precision boost overdrive: what is it and how does it work?

With the conglomeration of new components, leaks and technologies, you may find yourself a bit disoriented. So today we are going to talk briefly about a technology that has been causing some confusion. We are talking, of course, about Precision Boost Overdrive , which you don't have to confuse with Precision Boost 2.

If you just stayed in paintings because you thought it was the same, don't worry, it has happened to all of us. The issue is that we often mention certain names and you may not fully understand them, so today we are going to investigate a little more.

Index of contents

What is Precision Boost Overdrive ?

More specifically, it takes into account three parameters called:

• PPT (Monitoring of Power Packages, in Spanish): They are the watts that a processor accepts before being dangerous. It normally oscillates around 40% above the TDP (Thermal Design Power, in Spanish), that is, the maximum power established by AMD . TDC (Thermal Design Current, in Spanish): The maximum current in amps that the motherboard can supply depending on the temperature of the equipment. The figure is usually between 60 and 95 Amps , according to the TDP. EDC (Electrical Design Current, in Spanish): The maximum current in amps that the motherboard can supply at a certain key moment. We will have this extra power for a few moments to obtain superior performance.

If these three values ​​are below the established limit, the algorithm is activated and the power received by the processor increases. As we have indicated before, by raising the energy flowing through the equipment, the clock frequencies increase.

This improvement is maintained until one of the three parameters reaches its limit. With only one of the trio reaching dangerous numbers, the program will deactivate, thus returning to its standard power.

Here's a short video from Robert Hallock, Head of Technical Marketing at AMD, explaining how Precision Boost Overdrive works :

Results with and without PBO

As we will see next, Precision Boost Overdrive offers us a very slight improvement. It is not an advantage that we can get a lot out of it, but it can be interesting for those users who want to squeeze every drop of their equipment.

All the screenshots you will see below are the property of GamersNexus.net. If you want to know more about this topic and about his work you can visit them at this link.

Next we will see a couple of synthetic tests on Cinebench :

As you can see, the difference is minimal. We certainly have a better performance, but it is short-lived, usually, and not at all relevant, since the improvement is around 2%.

As for gaming, the results are even more peculiar, since sometimes it is even better not to have the Precision Boost Overdrive.

This may be because video games are often not optimized so that processor performance influences too much. Normally, having a high-quality graphics or SSD has much more impact on the general operation of video games.

Such a slight CPU upgrade may not affect the game at all or (depending on what context) even make it worse.

Next we will see some graphs of what we discussed:

In most titles we can see an improvement of approximately 1 to 3 frames per second . It is somewhat insignificant, but that some users will estimate.

However, there are also some cases where overall performance worsens when activating Precision Boost Overdrive .

Final conclusions on Precision Boost Overdrive

It is a very simple program to understand and it works in the background, so we recommend you give it a try and use it. As it is a software that works automatically, if you have a 2nd generation ThreadRipper or a 3rd generation Ryzen , it is best to activate it. It will not affect your user experience in any way, since you do not have to configure anything and will slightly improve the performance of your computer.

Also, as you improve your build and your pieces are of better quality, you will have more space for your processor to work freely. If we combine Precision Boost Overdrive with other programs like Precision Boost 2 and others, we will have a power of aúpa.

Possibly, in the future we can improve these numbers even more when the overclocking in Ryzen 3000 is more stable. However, until that option is unlocked, this is a good alternative that the same AMD offers us.

And what do you think about how Precision Boost Overdrive works ? Do you think it should have a more aggressive algorithm? Share your ideas below.

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