Not reaching Boost Clock Speeds

[Simple Hobbyist]

Hello everyone! Does anyone know why my Ryzen 5 3600 won't reach it's boost clock of 4.2 GHz? 

 

I've recently started to look at Hardware Monitor to check my system and I noticed that even after playing games like Project Cars 2 and Modern Warfare that my cpu never reaches its advertised boost clock.  However, my graphics card will reach close to 100% utilization.

I tried enabling Game Boost, but that caused a world of problems. I couldn't even boot into windows and after a couple of tries, after my PC kept rebooting itself I was able to go into the bios and turn it off. (Whew! thought I broke my PC). XMP is enable in my bios.

I'm not sure what Windows version I have, but I haven't seen any update alerts when I shut down my computer. As for the bios I have the VC02v34 version (third to last version).

 

My system:

MSI B450 tomahawk MAX

AMD Ryzen 5 3600

Corsair Vengeance 16 gb 3000 mhz

EVGA 1660ti XC Ultra Gaming

EVGA G3 650 watt 80+ gold

Samsung 970 Evo 500 gb as boot drive 

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated and thank you for taking your time to read this,

[FloRolf]

In order for the cpu to reach its desired clock speeds it has to be cool. What are your Temps like under load (games) and what cooler do you use? 

[Simple Hobbyist]

Hello! I'm using a Cooler Master 212 Black edition. After about 1-2 hours of gaming, the highest temp I reached for my cpu was 66-67C, while my Gpu reached around 68-69C. I usually don't play longer periods of time. I didn't check any other temps, but that day it was about 35C (95F) outside. On other occasions, my cpu will be around 60-65C and gpu will be at 66-67C. For cpu voltages, I've seen a min of 0.925V and a max of  1.475V

[MzHellcat]

20 minutes ago, Simple Hobbyist said:

...However, my graphics card will reach close to 100% utilization...

I think it was because of GPU bound
Please note that playing games doesn't always guarantee to fully loaded your CPU because games doesn't always stress your CPU. Try using CPU stress test to see if your CPU would boosting as advertised.

[Simple Hobbyist]

Hi thanks for the advice! I just finished using Cinebench 20 and I got max core speeds between 4026 and 4099 MHz.

Max values were:

temp=68C

voltage=1.475V

power=83.76 watts

CPU 0 through 11 were at 100% utilization.

 

EVGA 1660ti clock max values:

graphics=1980 MHz

memory=6001 MHz

Video=1830 MHz

 

Thank you FloRolf and MzHellcat for the advice!

 

Is it true that AMD Ryzen chips just don't reached their advertised boost clocks?

[MzHellcat]

2 hours ago, Simple Hobbyist said:

Hi thanks for the advice! I just finished using Cinebench 20 and I got max core speeds between 4026 and 4099 MHz.

Max values were:

temp=68C

voltage=1.475V

power=83.76 watts

CPU 0 through 11 were at 100% utilization.

 

EVGA 1660ti clock max values:

graphics=1980 MHz

memory=6001 MHz

Video=1830 MHz

 

Thank you FloRolf and MzHellcat for the advice!

 

Is it true that AMD Ryzen chips just don't reached their advertised boost clocks?

I think 3600 max clock would bounce around 4075-4125Mhz, and 4099 is very acceptable.

Yes, Zen 2 hardly reached their advertised maximum boost clocks without PBO+AutoOC enabled.