After the release of AMD’s firmware fix, the Ryzen boost clock controversy horse must be dead, right? Not for everyone, it seems. Even with AGESA 1.0.0.3 ABBA, Tom’s Hardware found that its Ryzen 7 3700X still couldn’t hit 4.4 GHz during its Cinebench R15 tests…even with liquid cooling.
Despite a -180 C environment, the Ryzen wouldn’t budge beyond 4.35 GHz. What did get the chip to the advertised speed was manually overclocking, however: “…all you need to do is set fixed overclocking mode. Set your Vcore and your CPU frequency, and that’s it!”
AMD did warn that the maximum boost frequency would only come with a “bursty, single threaded application.” Cinebench wouldn’t be the best candidate for that.
In short, fixed frequency IS the fix for now, and maybe forever. You aren’t saving power, and you aren’t saving heat or longevity by using the stock boost settings with its high voltage and overall lower clocks.