AMD Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) Explained

Precision Boost Overdrive is a feature of AMD Ryzen processors that improves CPU performance by running at higher frequencies, provided you have sufficient cooling. PBO works in real time, meaning it can boost your performance during heavy workloads without requiring manual overclocking, which is a bit of a faff for everyday workloads.

AMD considers PBO to be overclocking, which means that it invalidates your warranty, which is reason enough for plenty to avoid it. But given that the technology monitors temperatures, voltages, current, and power in real time, it’s one of the safest ways of doing it. It is worth repeating that you will need to have a decent CPU cooler on your chip to really get anything of note out of it. Luckily, we make plenty of quality AIOs here at CORSAIR, including the iCUE LINK TITAN RX Series and NAUTILUS RS coolers.

PBO works by increasing the voltage and wattage to try and get more performance out of your CPU within the thermal limits available to it. It essentially allows you to go beyond the default power limits, and while you’ll probably achieve higher performance with manual overclocking, PBO is a lot easier to use and tune.

To get the most from PBO, you’re going to want to use it in combination with AMD’s Curve Optimizer (CO) to adjust the voltage-frequency curve for individual or all of your cores. This is a great way of undervolting your cores to achieve higher frequencies within the thermal limits of the CPU.

You don’t have to use the Curve Optimizer when trying out Precision Boost Overdrive, but you’ll generally get more benefit from the technology if you do. It is worth noting, however, that using the CO optimally can be time-consuming, and you’ll want to stress test the settings you’re using to hit the right balance. If you’re just looking for a little extra performance, it’s fine to ignore it.

PBO doesn’t directly set higher clock speeds like manual overclocking does. Instead, it increases the limits that control boosting, including power, current, and temperature. If your system hits any of these limits, boosting will stop. To get the most out of PBO you’re going to want to make sure that you don’t hit any of these limits. This means better cooling and stronger motherboard power delivery give PBO more headroom to sustain higher frequencies for longer.

There are two main ways to access PBO on your machine. You can either use your motherboard’s UEFI/BIOS or you can use AMD Ryzen Master. Our recommendation would be to use the latter, simply because you can tweak the settings a little more easily in Windows and don’t need to keep restarting to try out new things. It’s a useful tool for AMD processors anyway, as it shows real-time info, which can help spot problems and also make sure you’re getting the most from your chip. You can download Ryzen Master from AMD’s official website.

By default, Ryzen Master launches showing the System Overview. To access PBO, you’re going to want to select CPU on the left-hand side, followed by the Tuning icon in the top ribbon. Read and accept the warning about the dangers of overclocking, and then you can set the Control Mode to PBO. You’ll need to hit the Apply button at the bottom of the screen for the changes to take effect. You can tweak the settings if you want, but that’s all you need to do to start PBO.