Mmkay, I swear I read this and heard it in a tech video. But, of course, when I google anything AMD and thermal all I get are exploding X3D’s and how to repaste your CPU.
I remember hearing that AMD changed how they handled the thermal versus performance with the last generation or two of CPU’s to “let the CPU run away with performance until it gets too hot then throttle back”. This would mean the CPU will hit thermal limits much faster than the stepping method. But, means more performance sooner and running hotter with less limits or controls on performance until the CPU experiences degradation.
Am I crazy? Does this only apply to certain CPU’s? Does anyone have an article (maybe on this site that I didn’t find?)
No this is correct. If I recall correctly, the latest Zen 4 systems will max clocks until the CPU reaches 90 degrees then figure out which clock is required to maintain this speed - atleast when you stress the CPU. Subsequent runs will then run at those boost speeds, so say your specific CPU is rated at a 3.6 GHz base clock and 4.7 GHz boost, then you have a beefy cooling solution and AMD will now automatically raise the clock to 4.9 GHz since it can run at that speed without exceeding 90 degrees of temperature.
Can anyone confirm if I got this right though? I’m a bit hazy on the details, and still waiting for a sub-$200 ITX motherboard with AM5.
Zen 4 is designed to run at 95 degrees without sacrificing longevity.
You can’t compare temperatures of chip A with chip B, it depends on the design and the manufacturing process how much temperature a chip can tolerate.
As wertigon said, Zen 4 adjusts the clock until a maximum of 95 C. or 170 W TDP or 230 W PPT are reached.
And by the way, a 13900K goes up to 100 degrees and 350W.
But you won’t see these numbers while playing, these are Cinebench or stress test numbers.
