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AB350 Pro4 SOC voltage control in BIOS

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mkmcgregor View Drop Down
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    Posted: 02 May 2017 at 4:56am
It seems odd that the BIOS for AB350 Pro4 has no setting to view or set SOC voltage, which is important for memory and possibly CPU overclocking according the recent AMD tech liaisons. Yet, in Ryzen Master you can tweak it. That's annoying that this is not exposed in BIOS (this is in latest 2.50 which opened AEGAS) but is in a Windows utility? Is there a reason why this is not exposed? Is it coming? Will there ever be a state where it's set from Windows that may prevent booting into windows? Does a reset of the BIOS reset this value? Does Ryzen Master stored into the BIOS or only tweak runtime? 

Either way, would like to see that in the BIOS since it is important reaching higher memory clocks.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cokaznrebel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 2017 at 6:48am
I agree that its kind of strange, since its clearly supported by the chipset and available to adjust via Ryzen Master...it aught to be in BIOS...

But I can understand ASRock wants to save some features for premium customers
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote parsec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 2017 at 1:18pm
I can think of multiple potential or possible reasons why the SoC voltage is not an option in the UEFI/BIOS of this board.

The AB350 Pro4 is a sub $100 board, with two M.2 slots, two extra ASMedia SATA ports, and RGB lighting and RGB lighting headers. Features like that use money that could be spent elsewhere, so corners are cut in other places, sorry to say. You really must check the specs on any and all boards before you buy them. Assuming a feature or capability is included in a board is a mistake.

The specs don't include adjustments or monitoring of the SoC voltage. That might be able to be added via a UEFI/BIOS update, but if it's not built into the basic design of the board, it won't be possible.

The SoC has its own voltage supply and VRM chips. The specs for this board show a nine phase VRM stage total, without a breakdown of phases for the CPU and SoC. Eight phases for the CPU leaves one for the SoC, which is not much for more voltage and power for the SoC.

The SoC itself does not support voltage adjustment, just like a CPU itself does not support an adjustable VCore, or DRAM memory itself does support adjustable DRAM voltage. Voltage adjustments are provided by the voltage source (VRM stage) to those components. Mother boards with more substantial VRM stages are more expensive, and become more sophisticated in their controls. We must pay for that of course.

I was disappointed in the Ryzen Master software, that requested a restart of the PC to apply any changes. That tells me it is applying them at the UEFI/BIOS level. If Ryzen Master can change a voltage like the SoC voltage without a setting for it in the UEFI/BIOS, or the ability to monitor that voltage, that is not safe for multiple reasons. We would need to verify that with AMD, since it is their software.

Intel's IXTU over clocking software applied changes in real time in Windows without a restart, but did not change settings in the UEFI/BIOS. That might seem strange, but if you've ever used it, you'd understand the advantages it provides.

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