AMD 5600 performance remains stable without PBO enabled.
AMD 5600 performance remains stable without PBO enabled.
Hello! I recently upgraded to a 5600 (non x) on an ASUS B350F motherboard with the latest stable BIOS. However, it appears the processor only increases its speed briefly when PBO is turned off. During the Cinabench single-core benchmark, one core reaches up to 4.45 GHz according to hwmonitor. In contrast, the multi-core test or when using Handbrake it spikes to 4.4 GHz for a couple of seconds before dropping to 3.85 GHz. I’ve checked my temperatures and they seem reasonable compared to the max reported by hwmonitor (73°C with the original fan). When I enabled PBO, the clock reached around 4.25 GHz, but the temperature jumped to 90°C and the multi-core test went from 9500 to 10,800. The high temps suggest a cooler might help, yet the speed drops significantly when PBO is off. Since the temperature is low despite the slow speed, it’s unclear why throttling occurs. Would this behavior be typical with PBO disabled?
Unless you're regularly handling heavy all-core tasks, PBO is turned off. It doesn’t provide any significant speed boost and raises power use, heat, and noise levels (quieter operation). I didn’t see any game performance gains even with my 5600X cooled via a custom water loop.
The cooler is reaching its maximum frequency of 3.8 GHz despite the low ambient temperature because of other factors like PBO being disabled or system constraints. At lower temperatures, the device might be operating under different conditions that trigger performance limits unrelated to heat alone.
Because PBO drops the power ceiling and focuses on temperature limits, that’s normal. Also, for casual play you should be okay using PBO at 5600 unless your frame time still drops despite RAM adjustments—where you’ll want it most.
It runs very well with the PA120 cooler. Boosting to 4850 with PBO gives solid performance. At present settings, it can reach 125-130W PPT even under heavy stress.