Overclocking The AMD Ryzen APUs: Guide and Results
by Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on April 16, 2018 2:30 PM ESTHow to Overclock With ASRock UEFI BIOS
The ASRock BIOS design and layout is consistent throughout the AM4 motherboard range. Everything was present on our motherboard, except the ability to change the settings of the integrated graphics. The only options for overclocking the graphics were in the way of SoC voltage, and even then, it could only be set as an offset value, not a true value. This is a little disappointing given that the ASRock X370 Gaming-ITX/ac hasn’t got any hard issues within the BIOS for the graphics, but on the plus side, everything else is done well.
Upon entering the BIOS, the initial menu screen offers information about the board including the installed components including the processor. It is not an easy mode, and the information is very limited. Everything needed for overclocking is in the OC Tweaker menu.
In the OC Tweaker menu, changing the 'CPU Frequency and Voltage Change' from auto to manual opens up the frequency and voltage options. At the top is the frequency, while down the bottom is the voltage. Starting with frequency, rather than offer a CPU ratio, ASRock just offers a plain frequency, and clearly does the multiplier manually.
When it comes to applying the XMP profile, unlike the MSI board in our data testing in this article, the ASRock board only opens up a single XMP profile, the standard DDR4-3600 CL16 that the sticks are rated for. Enabling XMP and then changing the memory frequency to the setting that’s required is easy enough, as the value goes up in increments and can be adjusted using the + or – keys on a numpad. Alternatively, if the user presses enter a long list via a drop-down menu appears.
Further down the same page, options are present for changing the offset values to the SoC voltage or VDDCR. Just below these is the DRAM voltage, which when we enabled XMP automatically set the value to 1.4 volts, rather than 1.35 for which our kit is rated, which was a little odd.
Pressing F10 and selecting yes saves the settings and reboots the system. Unfortunately the options changed to not appear as in some other vendors Save and Exit popups.
Note – To overclock the integrated graphics on this board, users will need to install the AMD Ryzen Master overclocking utility within Windows. We go into Ryzen Master on the next page.
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Alexvrb - Monday, April 16, 2018 - link
One thing that was odd about an older stock Asrock board I was using was that you had to update to the "Bridge BIOS" (3.4? I think) before you could flash the latest 4.50. But it wasn't a big deal because Instant Flash did not even acknowledge the 4.x BIOS until I flashed the bridge BIOS. Shrug.Lolimaster - Tuesday, April 17, 2018 - link
Your OC's are a joke, you don't OC the cpu a part at all, it's worthless with a chip that runs at 3600Mhz base, you focus solely on the igpu.1.3v for soc voltage 1600-1700Mhz pretty much guranteed on any chip properly OCed
Lolimaster - Tuesday, April 17, 2018 - link
OCing the cpu part only takes aways precious heat that gpu could benefit from.gavbon - Tuesday, April 17, 2018 - link
This particular piece isn't the end of the testing, it's only the first part. Each stage including CPU frequency, memory frequency and iGPU frequency is being analyzed/tested. Where someone looking to opt for a Ryzen 2000 series APU over say an Intel i3/i5, not everyone automatically buys an APU marketed at gaming just solely for gaming.Rest assured, each element is being deep dived to determine sweet spots for specific tasks and uses. Of course, gaming will benefit more from increased iGPU clock speed, but not everything will and every motherboard I've tested on AM4 has multiple overclocking profiles available so setting an overclock for each individual need is easier than ever.
id4andrei - Tuesday, April 17, 2018 - link
In sentiment with the OP, I will add that Techspot has reached 1600 Mhz on the GPU side of the 2200G by abandoning the CPU side altogether and that with the stock cooler. For the budget conscious gamers a GPU only approach would make more sense.gavbon - Tuesday, April 17, 2018 - link
Yeah achieving higher clocks on the iGPU is possible if you completely ignore overclocking the CPU, that much is true! Of course we have to explore all the avenues as not everyone games, and you'll see the script as more of the series (around 4-5 pieces in total including this one) get published.eastcoast_pete - Wednesday, April 18, 2018 - link
Hi Gavin,If you can, please go one step further: undervolt the CPU, and then see how far you can push the iGPU, even (or especially) on the stock cooler. Also, while you're at it, do the reverse - undervolt the iGPU, and overclock the CPU, and see how far it can be pushed on the stock cooler. For example, if I run handbrake to compress the 4K videos from my camera, I don't care much about iGPU speed, but take all the sped the CPU can give me. With gaming, it's usually the opposite.
SanX - Tuesday, April 17, 2018 - link
Hi overclockers. Looking back i feel like probably one of the world oldest overclockers. Such happened that i overclocked my 4.77MHz IBM PC XT -like comp soldered on the knees from low integration chips on the home-made motherboard to ~10MHz continuously. That was in the middle of 1980th. Overlock happened just by lucky chance that i had no crystal oscillators so just the LC-based variable freq generator was made for it and it was easy to change its frequency. The overclocking was on air up to approx 10 MHz, after which dirt started to appear on the TV which was used as a monitor. Sometimes the dry ice was used too (but mostly to find bad overheating chips). Then when i added missing FP-coprocessors this computer gave me orders of magnitude larger computer power then i was getting on my job where of course the entire institute of 1000s of people time-shared couple mainframes getting very little each. There was also one very funny moment with this overclocked PC. That was the behavior of floppy drives "on steroids" when computer was more then 2x overclocked. Drives were spinning, opening, closing and reading data so fast and also producing noise of lifting rocket, that my friends who also were making their own computers, laughed hysterically. I overclock each and every computer since then.Death666Angel - Tuesday, April 17, 2018 - link
Great article. One thing though: the position of the two processors in the charts is not always the same. At first the R5 is always #1 and the R3 is #2, but then it changes in the discrete section and even changes within the F1 section again.bcronce - Tuesday, April 17, 2018 - link
" I find it amusing to note that DRAM bit-errors, unaffected by overclocking, can happen on the scale of one per GB per four years (or less). That's about a worse case scenario, but it translates to about one bit-error per three months in a system with 16GB."Googling the topic, I'm seeing most sources say in the area of 1 bit error per 1GiB per hour.