Well, AMD’s latest generation of processors hasn’t exactly come out with all-around praise. Its reviews showed its great efficiency but no great generational improvements. So it could be that AMD went too hard on the efficiency and turned down the power bit too much, especially considering the low TDP ratings all of these CPUs have. With so much headroom for temperature and power even with more simple CPU coolers, it might have parked the power a bit too much.
That’s where MSI might have a good solution, by offering its own version of Precision Boost Overdrive. PBO is a sort of overclocking available to AMD processors, it enables them to run beyond the voltage limits of the board and running them longer. So, this usually leads to better performance at the cost of higher temperatures and possible damage to a chip. But MSI AM5 motherboards have their own version as well to push it even more.
MSI introduced and showed what their Enhanced mode can achieve, by optimizing the processor for better performance. Providing its own benchmarks testing out how much these change. Of course, as the seller and manufacturer, it has got a bias in these tests so waiting for an independent review might be worth it to get a second opinion. but still, we see what’s improved with this mode enabled.
MSI enhanced PBO OC turn on in BIOS, Source MSI
MSI enhanced PBO 9600X, Source MSI
MSI enhanced PBO 9700X, Source MSI
MSI enhanced PBO 9900X, Source MSI
MSI enhanced PBO 9950X, Source MSI
Enhanced PBO improvements and another features
MSI set a baseline performance value with PBO on auto and with the following testing rig:
- Processor: AMD Ryzen 9000 Series
- Motherboard: MSI MAG X670E TOMAHAWK WIFI
- Memory: Kingston FURY Beast DDR5-6000 16GB x2
- Graphics Card: MSI GeForce RTX 4080 16GB SUPRIM X
- CPU Cooler: MSI MAG CORELIQUID I360
- Power Supply: MSI MEG Ai1000P PCIE5
- Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 23H2
Then ranging between PBO, PBO Enhanced 1, Enhanced 2, and Enhanced 3 it got a performance uplift for the 9000 series in its suite of Cinebench tests. For the 9950X that ranges an uplift of 4-10%, 3-8% for the 9900X, 7-15% for the 9700X, and 3-8% for the 9600X. So it might be a worthy setting to enable if you have an MSI motherboard and have the overhead to do so.
There are also options to set lower thermal points allowed for your CPU. By default, they might reach 95°C at full load, so setting it down to 10 less may help keep it slightly cooler and according to MSI’s tests doesn’t impact performance too much. There is also a memory setting to optimize latency and bring it down to help with potential performance.
Ryzen 9000 processors are now available
Below are the range of new AMD processors if you do want to consider one. They also link to our reviews if you want to see what we think of them.
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AMD Ryzen 9 9950X
- Cores: 16
- Threads: 32
- Boost clock speed: 5.7 GHz
- Base clock speed: 4.3 GHz
- L3 Cache: 64 MB
- TDP: 170 W
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AMD Ryzen 9 9900X
- Cores: 12
- Threads: 24
- Boost clock speed: 5.6 GHz
- Base clock speed: 4.4 GHz
- L3 Cache: 64 MB
- TDP: 120 W
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AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
- Cores: 8
- Threads: 16
- Boost clock speed: 5.5 GHz
- Base clock speed: 3.8 GHz
- L3 Cache: 32 MB
- TDP: 65 W
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AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
- Cores: 6
- Threads: 12
- Boost clock speed: 5.4 GHz
- Base clock speed: 3.9 GHz
- L3 Cache: 32 MB
- TDP: 65 W
