Free performance for all Zen 2 CPU owners.
As reported by Guru3D, Yuri “1usmus” Bubliy, the creator of DRAM Calculator for Ryzen, is cooking up a new piece of free software for AMD Ryzen owners. The ClockTuner for Ryzen (CTR) aims to extract extra performance out of your Zen 2 processor while decreasing its power consumption.
The CTR software is designed to exploit AMD’s chiplet design, so first-gen Zen owners are out of luck for this one. Thus far, CTR supports the Ryzen 3000-series (codename Matisse) and Ryzen Threadripper 3000-series (codename Castle Peak) processors. The author says CTR will be compatible with AMD’s future Zen 3 chips as well because the Zen 3 microarchitecture also allows individual voltage and frequency adjustment for each core.
There is no black magic involved with CTR. The software essentially undervolts the individual CCXes (Core Complex) inside the processor, which reportedly helps the chip run faster and cooler while also drawing less power. According to the creator, all the energy-saving features remain intact. It sounds like a complicated process, but 1usmus has automated the entire operation. And best of all, CTR will be completely free for anyone to use.
CTR will work with any AMD motherboard regardless of the brand, and is even compatible with motherboards that don’t allow CCX modifications. Apparently, CTR uses low-level SMU access that permits it to bypass any obstacles that the motherboard or processor have in place.
CTR’s Smart Overclocking module automatically evaluates the quality of each CCX and adjusts the frequency accordingly. The author integrated a homemade version of Prime95 to assess the stability of each CCX. CTR also integrated the Cinebench R20 benchmark to compare before and after results.
To give us an idea of what CTR can achieve, 1usmus shared results for the Ryzen 9 3900X and the core-heavy Ryzen Threadripper 3960X. On the Ryzen 9 3900X system, CTR extracted 6.5% higher performance while decreasing the power consumption by 9%. On the Ryzen Threadripper 3960X system, CTR squeezed out an extra 5.3% performance and dropped the power draw by 4.2%.
While CTR appears to deliver promising results, it remains to be seen whether the benefits are perceptible in a real-world scenario. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long to find out as 1usmus expects to launch CTR next month.