This means we saw a much tighter turbo boost algorithm compared to Zen. The end result promised by AMD was an aggressive voltage/frequency curve that would ride the limit of the hardware, right up to the TDP listed on the box. In order to get the highest turbo frequencies, users would have to score big on all three metrics, as well as cooling, to stop one being a bottleneck. Ultimately the boost function of the processor relied on three new metrics, alongside the regular thermal and total power consumption guidelines: Turbo in Zen+, then Zen2ĪMD dropped XFR from its marketing materials, tying it all under Precision Boost. When more than two cores are active, the CPU drops down to its all-core boost, 3.7 GHz, and may transition down to 3.6 GHz depending on the conditions (thermals, power, current). If possible, the CPU will use the (now depreciated in later models) eXtended Frequency Range feature to go beyond 4.1 GHz if the conditions are correct (thermals, power, current). So the Ryzen 7 1800X was a CPU with a 3.6 GHz base frequency and a 4.0 GHz turbo frequency, which it achieves when 2 or fewer cores are active. Users that had access to a better cooling solution, or had lower ambient temperatures, would expect to see better frequencies, and better performance. AMD also announced XFR, or ‘eXtreme Frequency Range’, which meant that with sufficient cooling and power headroom, the CPU could perform better than the rated turbo frequency in the box. This bit was easy to understand: it meant more flexibility in what the frequency could be at any given time. You may remember this graph from the Ryzen 7 1800X launch:įor Zen processors, AMD enabled a 0.25x multiplier increment, which allows the CPU to jump up in 25 MHz steps, rather than 100 MHz. However, most cores shipped with features that allowed the CPU to get higher-than-turbo frequencies depending on its power delivery and current delivery limitations.
Turbo in ZenĪt a base level, AMD’s Zen turbo was just a step function implementation, with two cores getting the higher turbo speed. It should be made clear at this point that Zen (Ryzen 1000, Ryzen 2000) and Zen2 (Ryzen 3000) act very differently when it comes to turbo. These processors do not have any form of turbo tables, and AMD states that the design is not engineered to decrease in frequency (and thus performance) when it detects instructions that could cause hot spots. When users look at an AMD processor, the company promotes three numbers: a base frequency, a turbo frequency, and the thermal design power (TDP). What needed to be pushed home was the sense of a finer grained control, and how the Ryzen chips respond and use this control. Certain parts of how the increased performance were understood, however the finer points were missed, with users (and press) assuming an Intel like arrangement, especially given that the Zen core layout kind of looks like an Intel core layout if you squint. AMD had a lot of things to talk about with the new Zen core, and Turbo, while important, wasn’t as important as the core performance messaging. Despite AMD making it clear that Turbo doesn’t work the same way, the message wasn’t pushed home. Every time an Intel processor family is released, we ask for the Turbo tables, and life is good and easy.Įnter AMD, and Zen. For everyone, saying ‘Turbo’ meant only one thing: Intel’s definition of Turbo, which we subconsciously took as the default, and that’s all that mattered. And this has repercussions for the company.īy the time AMD introduced their first Turbo-enabled processors, everyone in the desktop space ‘knew’ what Turbo meant, because we had gotten used to how Intel did things. With AMD introducing Turbo after Intel, as has often been the case in their history, they've had to live in Intel's world.