AMD’s Ryzen Master utility gives you a ton of tools to play with if you’re interested in hardware overclocking. We generally recommend this for enthusiasts only, as squeezing out every little bit of performance requires some time and effort for relatively minimal gains for most users. In any case, an important change to the functionality of Ryzen Master is here via the recent v2.14.1.3286 update.
AMD EXPO (Extended Profiles for Overclocking) is one of the easiest ways of pushing your memory to the limits, simplifying the process down to a handful of clicks and allowing your memory to reach higher frequencies. And now, you don’t even need to restart your PC after changing your EXPO profile.
Memory can be overclocked on the fly
First off, you can read the full AMD Ryzen Master Release Notes (2.14.1.3286) here. The patch focuses on providing support for the latest Ryzen 9000 series processors and delivers 105W Eco Mode for Team Red’s newest 65W and 120W desktop processors. This is especially useful for the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X, both of which shipped with a 65W TDP, but can now get a boost up to 105W.
A couple of patch notes that caught our eye are as follows:
- Memory can be overclocked on-the-fly (applying EXPO profile does not require a system restart)
- Additional memory tuning parameters are introduced, providing further customization options for optimizing memory performance
So, as described, you no longer have to restart your PC if you want to change your EXPO profile for memory overclocking. System restarts are one of the biggest annoyances when it comes to overclocking. Resetting to reach the BIOS to change a single setting is bad enough, so doing it directly through Ryzen Master without a reboot is a welcome change. We recently saw Gigabyte make switching to X3D Turbo Mode less of a hassle, but you still have to restart your system.
Overclocking your RAM can have several benefits and potentially improve the performance of your PC. Although you could argue that memory is one of the areas least affected by overclocking, it does allow your RAM to provide data to your CPU more quickly, this is especially relevant for the best DDR5 RAM on the market with high memory speeds.