BIOS: Game Boost -> CPU?

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robman501154002d7

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Hello,
I'm a new user and I've recently purchased the MPG B550 GAMING EDGE WIFI motherboard and enabled the XMP profile under "Game Boost" and I was wondering, what does the "CPU" boost feature do? I'm very in to playing Flight Simulator 2020 which is more GPU dependent but it does put a heavy workload on my Ryzen 5600x. For games that put a large load on the CPU, does enabling this feature help?
I've started to scratch the surface of this feature by trying to learn what it does and it seems that it's a shortcut that enables "Precision Boost Overdrive" which overclocks the CPU based on the temperature? I never overclocked any systems before and don't really know how to but just by exploring the BIOS (and too scared to touch anything), I've noticed the "AMD Overclocking" submenu which gives me a screen saying overclocking can void the warranty of the CPU. So, that made me wonder if the "GAME BOOST -> CPU" thing on the top left of the main BIOS screen is safe to use. I do have a 3 year warranty on the CPU and I'm on year 1 so if it does void the warranty, I won't even touch it. I'm starting to wonder if it's some sort of "Turbo" mode from AMD.
To sum it up, is it safe to use (warranty/over heating/damage/etc.) and do you recommend that I use it?

This is the CPU cooler that I am using.
be quiet! DARK ROCK SLIM
 
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Game Boost is no good. It is a bad generic CPU overclocking function that only kills the efficiency, it doesn't achieve much more. It can even lose you performance because the CPU won't boost so high with single-core or less-than-full-multicore load than it would with it disabled. In other words, it will only look a bit better in full-multithreaded-load benchmarks, not in real-world use such as games.

Why is it bad: It will apply too much voltage everywhere, because MSI wanted to make it work with all types of CPUs of varying quality. So they add huge safety margins for the VCore, which is in no way adapted to your specific CPU. This usually makes power consumption and heat production increase a lot, without improving performance anywhere near as much (or at all). One of the reasons for that is, it doesn't take into account the best way to utilize the turbo modes. Any automatic overclocking that is not optimized to your specific CPU is bad, but this method especially so.

What's more, since a couple of years, Intel and AMD both squeeze 99% of the capabilities out of most of their CPUs with their different turbo modes already. So even with manually optimized OC, you won't get very far, there's just not much headroom left to exploit.

Even PBO will only account for a 2% performance increase on the 5600X (you won't be able to notice it), but will already increase the power draw considerably. So it basically just kills the CPU efficiency. This is because of the aforementioned fact that nowadays, most CPUs from the mid-range upwards, and certainly the higher models, will have almost all of their potential "pre-exploited" by Intel or AMD. If the silicon is capable of more during their binning, they tend to sell it as a more expensive model. They don't leave much free performance out there for the user to get.

Nowadays, it's more important to concentrate on the RAM. The sweet spot is DDR4-3600 with good timings, with the Infinity Fabric running in 1:1 mode. For the 5000-series CPUs, even DDR4-3866 or more should be possible without having to halve the IF frequency, but DDR4-3600 will always run properly and is the go-to RAM frequency now. I explain this a bit more in my RAM thread under 4).

Conclusion: Leave Game Boost off. You won't get far with CPU overclocking on your model. If you want a considerably faster CPU, i'm afraid you're gonna have to purchase one instead (not that it will help that much in games). Flight Simulator 2020 is very demanding, but you can't do much about it from the CPU side. Graphics card, yes, RAM, yes.
 
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Would Game Boost damage anything if I tried it for 5 - 10 minutes and ran a benchmark and turned it back off?

RAM: I have the Kingston HX432C16FB3AK2/32 kit (16GB x 2 @ 3200MHz XMP Profile 1). When you mentioned DDR4-3600/3866 are you referring to an OC or actual stock speed and would that be that "Memory Try It!" thing?

GPU: Will enabling "Resizable Bar (AMD Smart Access Memory)" help?
 
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No, Game Boost won't damage anything that quickly. When the voltage for an electronics part is too high for a long period of time, it will slowly degrade. Meaning, after some time of operating under excessive voltage, it won't be able to run at the frequencies it previously could, and you would get crashes as the previously stable frequency. But this is something that happens over months and years, if at all. The main thing Game Boost causes is usually a much higher power draw, and from that, increased temperatures, without achieving anything close to that for the performance in return.

About the RAM: Strictly speaking, XMP is already OC, XMP means Xtreme RAM Profile. But it's officially sanctioned by Intel and AMD, so it's not "real" OC in the traditional sense. I'm talking mostly about the XMP speed there, although there is certain RAM (often more high-priced) that you can additionally OC, from say DDR4-3200 to -3600. But by far not all RAM can handle such an OC, a lot of cheaper RAM will become unstable when you try that. With the "Memory Try It!" thing, MSI made some profiles of their own, and if you know the properties of your RAM, you could try one of these higher frequency profiles to see if your RAM works on it. But it's not so simple. You can't use some random "blanket" profile for all kinds of different RAM. RAM OC is almost an art. And RAM stability testing is also necessary with any kind of OC. So i would not suggest "Memory Try It!" to someone who doesn't know what they're doing or what their RAM can take.

Your RAM is a bit below the sweet spot, but not enough that it would become a serious bottleneck for the CPU performance. It's good that you have XMP on.

Re-size BAR support will help your graphics card performance a bit, and it basically has no downsides. So i would definitely enable that in the BIOS if your graphics card supports it.
 
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Just a reminder: Re-Size BAR support only works on RTX 30-series card if you have NVIDIA Card. Your CPU and motherboard are fine, just remember to update graphics card driver to the latest version.
You can verify Re-Size BAR status in NVIDIA Control Panel, MSI Center, or GPU-Z.
 
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citay said:
Your RAM is a bit below the sweet spot, but not enough that it would become a serious bottleneck for the CPU performance. It's good that you have XMP on.
Click to expand...
Could I try to bring up the speed a bit (small steps)? At the time of purchase, I only got the 3200MHz kit because it was 32GB and on sale so it was affordable. If I'd known that I was going to put it in a good gaming motherboard I would have got the 3600MHz 32GB kit if it was in my price range.
 

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You can read out the module's details with Thaiphoon Burner (run as admin, click on the "Read" icon and read the SPD information, then "File" - "Take a screenshot").
Then i can tell you how much potential this RAM might have.
 
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Ok, Hynix CJR. 16 GB dual-rank modules, so they're a bit harder to tune. You could try setting DRAM Frequency 3600, primary timings tCL 17, tRCD 19, tRP 19, tRAS 39, also enable Gear Down Mode.
First try if that passes memory training at default 1.35V. If not, try 1.38V DRAM Voltage.

Then run "Memtest86 Free" like i write in my RAM thread under 5). If it passes that, you can do additional RAM testing in Windows.

If you have no luck with that at all, try the same settings, but at DDR4-3466.
 
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Okay. Thanks. I'll give that a try. Only thing I'm not too sure about is the worst case, if the system doesn't boot how would I fix it? CMOS jumper or would it go through a loop and then put me back in the BIOS?
 
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The MSI BIOS is very good at recovering from a failed memory training. Either you will get the "Press F1/F2 Overclock failed" message, then you press F1 to enter the BIOS and set your previously working settings again (for example, DRAM Frequency back to Auto / 3200), then press F10 to save and reboot. The memory training will be done again and your settings are kept. Because if you press F2, you reset the settings and have to start from zero.

Or, sometimes it can't recover immediately from a too ambitious overclock, then it might hang on a black screen. In that case, hold the power button for 5+ seconds so the PC turns off hard. Upon the next boot, you should get the F1/F2 message and you proceed as above.
 
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Like this? I see the defaults have everything set to auto. Do I just leave the FCLK on auto also when I make these changes?
Memory Failure Retry is enabled and the count is set to 2. Not sure if that's a recovery thing and helpful for this project.
 

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Ah right, on AMD, you can have tRCD split up into two values. Put them both on 19. The rest is ok.

Another thing you can try before going down to DDR4-3466 if this fails is: DDR4-3600 CL18-21-(21)-21-39.
 
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fatedust said:
Just a reminder: Re-Size BAR support only works on RTX 30-series card. Your CPU and motherboard are fine, just remember to update graphics card driver to the latest version
You can verify Re-Size BAR status in NVIDIA Control Panel, MSI Center, or GPU-Z.
Click to expand...
Bull pure bull works on AMD GPU 5000 series as well as 6000 quite nicely will work on any AMD PCIE 4.0 GPU
Nvidia stole it from AMD I can't believe you typed that just
865720.gif
 
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citay said:
Ah right, on AMD, you can have tRCD split up into two values. Put them both on 19. The rest is ok.

Another thing you can try before going down to DDR4-3466 if this fails is: DDR4-3600 CL18-21-(21)-21-39.
Click to expand...
I was playing "PC Building Simulator" and built a system just like mine and I was surprised to see it had the MSI MPG B550 Gaming Edge WiFi and the same RAM and CPU as I do. So, I tried overclocking the RAM within the game and I got it to 3466 MHz @ 1.35v and 3600 MHz @ 1.40v. The only two options where frequency and voltage. In the real world, since I can manually adjust the CL, RCD, RP, RAS and Gear down mode, I wonder if I can get it at 3600 MHz without increasing the voltage. It looks like other folks who own this RAM can get it up to 3800 MHz but that can't be good for it's life span. Considering XMP - 3200 MHz (real BIOS) is running it at ~1.37v, I'm sure going a tad over 1.35v is okay. I wonder how much it can take before any damage occurs since the stock JDEC voltage has it running at 1.2v. It would be nice if the game can emulate the full BIOS, not just a stripped down basic version. ;)
 
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Running RAM at higher frequency will not damage it, it just becomes unstable at some point, or will not pass memory training, but it doesn't have lasting effects on the RAM itself. The voltage is the kicker. But only if you go above ~1.5V for a longer time. For Hynix CJR, you can often times stop at 1.4V, because it doesn't always scale well with voltage above that. Some RAM even scales negatively, meaning, once you go over a certain point with the DRAM voltage, it becomes more unstable again.

Yes, the idea was to loosen the timings a bit, so they are not hindering the higher frequency. Every RAM kit that comes with 1.35V XMP can normally handle 1.4V, but 0.05V is a pretty large jump for just +400 MHz in this medium frequency region, that's why i advised up to 1.38V for now. Plus as you rightly noticed, your board actually overshoots the defined voltage anyway, so if you set 1.38V, you probably land at 1.41V effectively.

There are also some RAM-related voltages other than DRAM voltage that become important for the memory controller to reach higher frequencies, but i hope that the board will adjust them accordingly by itself. If anything, MSI is known to give too much voltage on Auto, so those voltages shouldn't be a hindrance to your success.
 
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That was painless. Running DDR4-3600 tCL 17, tRCD 19, tRP 19, tRAS 39, and I enabled Gear Down Mode. Voltage wants to be at 1.372v - 1.378v no matter what I set it to.
 

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Nice. Yeah, you have a slight voltage overshoot, i've seen those +0.03V before, not too unusual. By the way, your CPU-Z shows 18-19-19, not 17-19-19, so check in your BIOS what's up there.

Now i would test this for stability. I recommend a mix of GSAT, Linpack Xtreme (also hammers the memory controller), TM5, MemtestHelper. Like i wrote under 5) in my RAM thread.
 
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