Custom 3rd Gen Ryzen power profile enables improved boost speeds, core load balance and idle temps

AMD has found plenty of success this year thanks to the launch of 3rd Gen Ryzen but there was at least one issue around launch that stuck out. Some early adopters found that their new CPU wasn't hitting its rated boost clock speed. AMD has been ironing out this issue with microcode tweaks but 3rd Gen Ryzen 9 CPU owners can now take matters into their own hands with a custom power profile.

1usmus has been heavily involved with Ryzen since launch, posting memory tweaks and overclocking guides along the way. For a while now, he has been working on a custom power plan for Ryzen 3000 Zen 2 processors with the goal of fixing boost clock speeds and smoothing out power usage depending on different load scenarios. Ryzen 9 and future 3rd Gen Threadripper owners in particular should see the biggest benefit. On the Ryzen 9 3900X for instance, boost speeds up to 4.6GHz have been observed under some loads, while the average speed improvement is around the 200MHz to 250MHz mark.

1usmus describes this as a modification to Collaborative Processor Performance Control, making adjustments to how the CPU and Windows interact with each other to give snappier performance to AMD Precision Boost. The custom power plan should also help with managing when the processor boosts up too, focusing more on legitimate workloads and filtering out background processes eating up CPU resources while the system is idle.

Installing the profile will take some fiddling in the BIOS first to get all of the groundwork in place, then you will need to run a batch file to get the custom power plan set up in Windows 10. Once all of that is done, you can activate the new setting in the Windows 10 control panel and see the improvements for yourself.

If this software tweak interests you at all, then we highly suggest you check out the full technical breakdown and benchmark results from 1usmus, as well as all of the installation instructions over on TechPowerUp.

KitGuru Says: Further improvements to the profile are planned, so there should be some updates over time. Either way, it is extremely interesting to see the improvement some software-side tweaks can bring to performance. Perhaps AMD will take a look at this and consider using some of the modifications in an official capacity. 

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