Asus 'Turbo Game Mode' arrives on its AM5 motherboards — second CCD and SMT toggles arrive for up to a 35% performance boost on X3D chips
Gigabyte and MSI have also updated AMD mobo BIOS files with AGESA ComboAM5 1.2.0.2a enhancements.
Asus has released a new BIOS update for select AMD motherboards, introducing the "Turbo Game Mode" designed to optimize gaming performance on a range of Ryzen processors. This mode is aimed at users seeking the best possible experience from AMD’s high-core CPUs by adjusting core usage. Specifically, it disables one of the CPU’s two chiplets (CCD) and turns off Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT), optimizing single-threaded performance for games that do not benefit from high core counts.
As confirmed by Computer Base, the update is said to be available for Asus's ROG X870E Crosshair Hero motherboard. However, other models like the X670, B650, and A620 lineup are also being updated. By disabling the second chiplet, the Turbo Game Mode should reduce potential latency, enhancing efficiency in games that perform better with fewer, faster cores. This approach allows users to quickly toggle between game-focused performance and multi-threaded setups for other tasks.
To enable the feature, users simply need to update their BIOS and activate the setting through the BIOS interface, making it easy to switch back and forth based on specific workload needs.
Last month, Gigabyte announced a similar BIOS update for its AMD motherboards which includes their “X3D Turbo Mode”. As per Gigabyte, this feature can help boost the performance of AMD's Ryzen 7000X3D, Ryzen 9000X3D, and Ryzen 9000 processors by up to 20%—35%. The company said that the X3D Turbo Mode is a set of 'unique optimization parameters' that can improve the performance of AMD's CPUs.
Unlike Gigabyte, Asus doesn’t specifically mention ‘X3D’ in their release notes. It does however mention the inclusion of AMD’s AGESA AM5 1.2.0.2a firmware update for the AM5 platform, aimed at bringing "performance enhancements, for its upcoming Ryzen 9000X3D CPUs including the recently launched Ryzen 7 9800X3D." Similarly, MSI has also started rolling out motherboard BIOS updates including the 1.2.0.2a firmware without any additional tweaks.
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Kunal Khullar is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. He is a long time technology journalist and reviewer specializing in PC components and peripherals, and welcomes any and every question around building a PC.
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setx This approach allows users to quickly toggle between game-focused performance and multi-threaded setups for other tasks.
You have a funny definition of "quickly". Having to reboot and change BIOS settings is anything but.
This option is completely useless as you can do exactly the same by changing 1 already existing option on 1-CCD CPU or 2 options on 2-CCD ones... -
bikemanI7 Suppose i won't really need this Uefi bios update with Agesa 1.2.0.2a for my Ryzen 7 7700X when its final from MSI? or would it be advised that i install it anyways?Reply
Still kinda new to the AMD platform, but have updated to previous 1.2.0.2 Agesa Firmware when it went final -
Dementoss Can't help thinking, that any game old enough to only run in a single thread, is not going to need any help running on an AM5 Ryzen CPU.Reply -
rluker5 Daniel Owens tested SMT off on his 7800X3D a year or so back and it exacerbated AMDip in CPU intensive games. But on average games should do better, just with a lot more variance and stutter in some. Kind of like CFX.Reply -
thestryker Unless there's a software interface for this feature it doesn't sound like anything that users can't already do pretty simply with the BIOS. I suppose AMD will probably release more information when the 9800X3D launches.Reply -
awake283 I understand the logic and mechanism, but I have no desire to toggle bios settings back and forth depending on if Im going to play a game or not. AM5 systems boot so slow already (yes I know about MCR). Maybe I lost the chip lottery but my 7800X3D is already very finicky about things like PBO, ASUS performance mode, messing with voltages, etc. Last thing I want to do is introduce another variable.Reply -
criticaloftom
Dwarf Fortress and yes I would buy an enthusiast level CPU and overclock it if it could handle such 'an old game' .Dementoss said:Can't help thinking, that any game old enough to only run in a single thread, is not going to need any help running on an AM5 Ryzen CPU. -
Hotrod2go 1.2.0.2a AGESA was not implemented well on my Asrock X670E with 9700X. 3.10 bios was up for a day or so then pulled & now 3.08 is the current bios at time of writing this comment. When running Zentimings v1.32, the power table from which it derives voltages turned into a mess with erroneous data. I've never seen this before in yrs already using Zentimings with AM5 & no wonder Asrock pulled 3.10 bios down already!Reply