Yuri Bubliy, also known as 1usmus over at twitter, just released a new program for Ryzen 3000 based machines. This utility, known as ClockTuner for Ryzen or CTR, allows users to increase the performance of their Ryzen devices.
Not only will this program help in achieving better performance. It also increases the efficiency of these processors by reasonably reducing the power draw on the chips. Previously the DRAM Calculator for Ryzen was a fantastic tool from this developer. We can clearly see the direction he’s aiming for this time.
ClockTuner for Ryzen or CTR is his latest development. This utility will work for any Zen 2 based AMD processors. This means that users having Ryzen 3000 and 3rd Gen Threadripper CPUs will be able to get some performance gains. Along with better power consumption. We won’t be diving into the exact working algorithm of this program. It is relatively easy to use, and most of the features are entirely automated.
However, we do know that it achieves these performance gains by undervolting each of the individual CCX modules on AMD Zen 2 processors based on a Chiplet Design. Using this undervolting technique on each CCX, the Zen 2 processors run cooler and therefore, can hit higher core clocks. As a bonus undervolting means lesser power draw from CPU. Consequently, it can retain an active-state for all the energy-saving technologies.
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Another great feature of this program is a Smart Overclocking algorithm. This evaluates the quality of each CCX and then fine-tunes the frequencies individually. 1usmus also developed a particular preset of Prime95, which is embedded within the utility and evaluates the quality of each CCX. This algorithm is designed to adjust the frequency for optimal performance of all CCX’s without any load on the CPU nodes. In addition to Prime95 developer has also added a plug-in test package for Cinebench R20 (the real CPU test). This test not only stretches the CPU to evaluate the performance but also CPU voltages and power consumption during the Cinebench R20 benchmark.
The results:
1usmus says that this utility is entirely free to use. Anyone can use this program to gain better results than run of the mill overclocking programs or any other automatic boosting techniques that motherboard vendors offer. While these utilities do offer small performance bumps. They also increase the TDP of the CPU by more than 50%, which is entirely nonideal. This is not the case with CTR, as it also yields better performance.
Talking numbers 1usmus provided results achieved from two Zen 2 based chips. The Ryzen 9 3900X and the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X. The results are from default and then tuned CTR settings on these processors. In the case of Ryzen 9 3900X, the self tuned variant delivers a 7% increase in performance. While also reducing the total CPU power draw by 12.8 Watts and running at 1.225V. For the Ryzen Threadripper 3960X, we saw a performance uplift of 5.2% while the full power draw of the chip dropped by 12 Watts.
Lastly, in terms of compatible chips, CTR software will run on all AM4 motherboards. Luckily even if your specific motherboard does not allow CCX configuration. It will most likely work as it can bypass any CPU or motherboard vendor limitations. This time around, the author has also fixed one of the significant issues with his last release AMD DRAM calculator for Ryzen CPUs. It is now stated explicitly that CTR does not contain any unsafe or harmful code that might trigger an antivirus program.
As for when users can get it, there is no release schedule out yet. We can hope the download links will be public in a month.