Asus has announced that it is launching support for the Asus Performance Enhancement on several Intel 400-series motherboards.
Asus Performance Enhancement allows users to push the PL1 of Intel’s Comet Lake CPUs to a level higher than what is found as standard in the chips. In effect, Asus Performance Enhancement allows a locked Comet Lake CPU to push higher clock speeds while still running within predefined parameters set out by Intel.
Asus appears to be following in the footsteps of ASRock and its Base Frequency Boost feature. Much like Asus Performance Enhancement, Base Frequency Boost allows users to boost the PL1 rather than overclock the chip in a conventional sense. The only real difference is that ASRock appears to have pushed out support to a broader range of its motherboards compared to Asus. Expect to see other motherboard manufacturers follow suit shortly as the feature becomes more widespread.
Asus is pushing out the new compatibility via a motherboard firmware update. Turning on Asus Performance Enhancement is relatively painless and requires a quick visit to a compatible motherboard’s BIOS, where you can enable the feature. The Asus Performance Enhancement will take charge from there with no tinkering required on the user’s end.
As it stands, support covers eleven of Asus’ B460 and H470 motherboards.
Here’s the full list of supported motherboards: ROG Strix B460-F Gaming, ROG Strix B460-G Gaming, ROG Strix B460-H Gaming, ROG Strix B460-I Gaming, ROG Strix H470-I Gaming, TUF Gaming B460-Pro (Wi-Fi), TUF Gaming B460-Plus, TUF Gaming B460M-Plus (Wi-Fi), TUF Gaming B460M-Plus, TUF Gaming H470-Pro (Wi-Fi), and TUF Gaming H470-Pro.
For the sake of example, Asus motherboards with predefined PL1 of 65 W can run up to 125 W thanks to Asus Performance Enhancement. The PL1 boost is pretty much the case across the range of compatible boards, with the exception of the ROG Strix B460-F Gaming, which can hit 210 W thanks to Asus Performance Enhancement.