General Discussions

[pokester]

If you've already bought, or plan on buying, a Ryzen 5000 processor, AMD just made the deal a whole lot sweeter. AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) introduced one-click hassle-free overclocking to the masses for the Ryzen lineup of processors. Still, while the tech boosts performance in multi-threaded workloads, it has long failed to benefit single-threaded workloads. That changes in December when AMD's new Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2) lands in BIOS patches. The new PBO2 boosts single-threaded performance while retaining the benefits of the existing multi-core boosts, and even adds a little extra oomph there, too. 

The new PBO2 only works with Ryzen 5000 series processors, and AMD is also bringing in a new sophisticated undervolting technique to Ryzen 5000 processors for the undervolters among us.

Read the rest at Tom's Hardware

[colesdav]

You are better switching PBO off and manually overclocking in Ryzen 2700X. 
I saw no benefit of it in Ryzen 3000 either. Again manual overclock is better. 
I will look for some reviewer information on PBO2. 

[pokester]

I found the exact opposite with both 3600 and 3700x. Manual overclocks could not reach near the boost I get with PBO. Like what GN, JTC and LTT had said overclocking zen 2 was pretty pointless as Rzyen manages itself better. 

I had already though figured out to do what AMD is doing with PBO2 and that is switching to motherboard control, upping the max boost by 200, and setting a higher custom scalar limit. I don't know if all boards support those changes but the MSI Tomahawk does. With those changes my single core perormance is higher than a 3950x but just bellow a 3800xt. Pretty good improvement for a couple changes. Most importantly the power regulates itself and boost does too. So the voltage stays low like it should. Unlike the second you go to an all core clock and the voltage goes over 1.4.

[mackbolan777]

Same here. 3600X I can set a manual OC of 4300 stable at 1.38v, but prime gets it on the hot side. Benchmarks were slightly lower. Then went the PBO, 10X Scalar, +200, SOC 1.10 and wow. Scores are close to a 3900X, which by spec is actually what a 3600 is minus 2 cores and 1 CCX. CPUZ shows 531 single/4310 multi. HWINFO shows the CPU hitting 4.4+ consistently on 4 cores at a time. I turned scalar down to 1X because of heat concerns and there was no hit to the score or FPS in games. So relevance of the scalar setting may be limited to some benchmarks and have no real world value. I have no undervolt option per se on my AsRock X570 Phantom Gaming 4S. The BIOS is lack luster to say the least and it's missing things like LLC. It has a setting similar but vague to understand. LLC would be handy. I would never by an AsRock board again, it was on sale at $149 and has the 570 chipset, so I leapt. Boy what a cliff...

[pokester]

I have my scalar setting at 7, I found at 8 it was no better and at 10 it was worse.

My guess is just the silicon lottery in full effect. However super happy with the performance.

I wish I had a way to push that boost to 400 not locked at 2. I think it would do it. 

[colesdav]

Gamers Nexus :
https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3491-explaining-precision-boost-overdrive-benchmarks-auto-oc

[pokester]

That appears to be a 2019 explanation of the current PBO not PBO2. 

Good read as it explains a lot.