AMD has finally acknowledged a wide-scale problem with its Ryzen 3000-series processors not reaching the expected boost frequencies that they market.
This follows an extended period of silence which has only added to the frustration that some of their users have already experienced with their Ryzen 3000 boost clocks.
AMD’s Statement
AMD released a recent statement where they announced that there would be a fix for this problem and that there will be an update to come on the 10th of September 2019. As for the fix itself, AMD recently announced that this will come September 30th, so affected customers don’t have too long to wait.
AMD said in their statement: “While processor boost frequency is dependent on many variables, including workload, system design, and cooling solution, we have closely reviewed the feedback from our customers and have identified an issue in our firmware that reduces boost frequency in some situations.
“We are in the process of preparing a BIOS update for our motherboard partners that addresses that issue and includes additional boost performance optimizations.”
This announcement comes after a growing number of complaints directed towards AMD from Ryzen 3000 owners through social media including Reddit and forums.
Ryzen 3000 Boost Clocks
As a response to the complaints, Youtuber Der8aeur tested the boost clocks available from a survey of 2,700 respondents. The results found that only 5.6% of respondents were able to reach the expected boost clocks for AMD’s Ryzen 9 3900X CPU.
Such a small portion of users getting what they paid for was bound to get the attention of AMD eventually. But why has AMD missed the mark with their Ryzen 3000-series processor?
An investigation from Tom’s Hardware found that only one core of any Ryzen 3000 CPUs can hit the expected boost clock. This is something that AMD later confirmed.
What does this tell us about AMD’s Ryzen processor? It means that the 3000-series processors are made up of a mix of faster and slower cores – a clear 180 from how AMD usually spec their processors. This is extremely disappointing to hear and really puts them behind when comparing them to their Intel counterparts.
In order for users at the moment to access the high boost clock frequency, they must have the latest version of Windows 10. This is so that the Ryzen-aware schedule can target the faster cores in order to get the right performance. However, it was found that even when users had the appropriate Windows 10 scheduler, driver and BIOS, some users still couldn’t attain the advertised speeds with any of their available models. We’re hoping that AMD can target this and fix it in due course, but for now it’s looking like a ‘wait and see’ moment.
What Now?
While we’re not sure exactly what AMD will be announcing on September 10th, it’s unlikely to affect the Windows 10 or AMD driver too much. Whatever changes are coming, we hope they will put an end to the controversy and satisfy all the frustrated and unhappy customers this has resulted in.
When this issue is solved, users will finally be able to unlock the full potential of their hardware. This will be a sigh of relief for users that have paid top dollar for this processor.