Disabling a CCD on Ryzen 9 7950X looks to bump performance significantly in some games

The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is a great CPU for gaming, particularly amongst the current crop of desktop CPUs available on the market. However, there seems to be a way to squeeze out some extra performance without overclocking. It seems that by disabling one of the CPU's CCDs, you can get a significant performance boost in some games. 

CapFrameX has found that disabling the CPU's CCD-2 can improve its gaming performance considerably versus the stock configuration. We only have results for Metro Exodus right now, using Windows 11 22H2, but the gains achieved by disabling a CCD in this game are still worth noting.

Ok AMD, this is serious. R9 7950X stock vs single CCD.

Windows 11 22H2. Huge difference between 1 and 2 CCDs. pic.twitter.com/XenZuxaknV

— CapFrameX (@CapFrameX) October 15, 2022

The Metro Exodus benchmark results of the Ryzen 9 7950X show the average FPS being about 17% higher when disabling one of the CPU's CCDs. The 1% percentile FPS and 0.2% percentile FPS also increased by 18% and 19%, respectively.

This behaviour seems to be linked to how the chip handles power distribution. Disabling CCD-2 allows CCD-1 to have all the power to itself, allowing it to boost higher than when the two CCDs are enabled. We're unsure if these results can be replicated in Windows 10 or other Windows 11 versions, so don't go running to the BIOS or Ryzen Master just yet.

KitGuru says: Do you own an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X? Have you tried disabling CCD-2 to see if the chip's gaming performance changes?

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