How to enable Eco Mode with Ryzen 7000
The arrival of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 CPUs brings with it some of the fastest chips we’ve seen in the mainstream market. Gamers and workstation users can enjoy this stunning performance.
There’s no free lunch here though – these chips are also designed to get hotter and use more power. Don’t worry, AMD has also given us the ability to tame these hot rods with Eco mode. (Even if the performance remains high!)
We’ll show you how to activate Eco mode and what benefits you can expect with its new efficiency. Likewise, we demonstrate the performance to be expected for both gamers and workstation use cases.
1. Activate Eco mode: The easy way
AMD’s Ryzen Master software has been updated with Ryzen 7000 so we can easily enable Eco mode. Very simple: click on “Eco” and then on “Apply”. The software now automatically limits the power of your Ryzen 7000 CPU to 65 watts. That means the 7600X and 7700X will go from their 105W TDP to a lower 65W TDP. The 7900X and 7950X drop more drastically from 170 watts to the same power limit of 65 watts. (We’ll cover an advanced option for these chips to get more performance in the next section.)
This 65-watt lower limit saves energy, but more importantly, it reduces thermal heating. It’s otherwise normal for many users to see 95 degrees Celsius on stock readings in some use cases, even with a beefy 360mm all-in-one CPU cooler.
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What does this mean for performance? For gamers, the single-core reduction has minimal impact on frame rates. As a bonus, you get a cooler, more efficient chip. Games are typically not designed to run heavily with multithreaded workloads, favoring single-core performance. Let’s take a look at how the 7900X performs in Eco mode when tested at a CPU-intensive 720p in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Courtesy of PCWorld:
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Average FPS increases from 203 to a respectable 195 in Eco mode. That’s a significant drop in wattage and thermal output for less than a 4 percent performance hit. That’s all the more relevant considering the 7900X still outperforms full-powered CPUs like the 12900K in Eco mode.
For workstation users, you will see a greater performance hit if your use case involves significant multithreaded workloads. Take a look at this chart showing the various performance limits using the Cinebench R23 Multithreaded benchmark below, as tested by PC World:
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On paper it looks like a big drop in numbers for the 7950X (at the standard 65 watts) – in practice it’s an amazing result. Even in Eco mode it’s still able to beat the Intel i9 12900K score – very impressive!
2. AMD Eco Mode: Enhanced with Precision Boost Overdrive
Sure, clicking a watch face in Ryzen Master is an easy way to get Eco Mode working, but it has a downside: you’re currently capped at 65 watts, even on the 7900X/7950X 170-watt TDP CPUs . (AMD may add the option for other options like 105 watts in the future, but as of the date of this article, 65 watts is standard.)
If you’re looking to squeeze a little more performance out of those hot rods while conserving power and heat, you should head to your motherboard’s BIOS. (This is usually done by pressing the F2 or Esc key during system boot when prompted. You can also boot from Windows 10 into the BIOS by holding down the Shift key while clicking Reboot, and then into the UEFI Firmware Settings under Troubleshooting select Reboot .)
This is for advanced users only, so beware – any time you tinker with your BIOS settings, there are many things that can go wrong. (Especially with a new platform that may have some gremlins in the software this early, do so at your own risk and proceed with caution. If you get conflicts with your Expo RAM or other settings, reset them and try it again.)
When you are in the BIOS you should find the option for advanced mode and then go AMD overclocking.
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From there it goes on to Precision Boost Overdriveor PBO Possibility.
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You then set PBO to on Progressive by car and you are set PBO Limits You will adapt Manual. You have three areas to customize here:
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(These numbers are courtesy of overclock3d.net / OC3D and what AMD recommends for each default power setting.)
For Eco mode on 7600X and 7700X:
PPT limit: 88000 (recommended settings for AMD Stock 105W: 142000)
OT limit: 75000 (recommended settings for AMD Stock 105W: 110,000)
EDC limit: 150000 (AMD Stock 105W recommended settings: 170,000)
For Eco mode on 7900X and 7950X:
PPT limit: 142000 (AMD Stock 170W recommended settings: 230,000)
OT limit: 110,000 (AMD Stock 170W recommended settings: 160,000)
EDC limit: 170,000 (AMD Stock 170W recommended settings: 225,000)
The PPT is AMD standard “socket power”; the TDC is the “thermally limited VRM”; and the EDC is the “electronically limited VRM”.
You’ll benefit from manual tuning settings on the more powerful 7900X and 7950X, where you can set higher power limits to boost performance. This is particularly beneficial in use cases with multithreaded workstations. For gaming, Ryzen Master Eco Mode is generally fine at 65 watts as single-core performance is less impacted. (As with the 7600X and 7700X, Ryzen Master is better than manual tuning due to its lower TDP.)
Enjoy a Ryzen 7000 CPU that’s still lightning fast, but much cooler and runs more efficiently!