Is this a concern you need to address?
Is this a concern you need to address?
It appears to be a concern only for those who compete in high-end over-clocking and benchmarking on LN2, where even a small gain is highly valued. The real-world outcomes seem so different from expectations that it might surpass the limits of measurement error. If I run a utility that alters the system clock to make results look much better, am I being honest with myself?
It's interesting to consider this, though. You're right, you can't just glance at clocks to judge your Ry3k's performance. Running a benchmark like CB20 is essential to compare with what reviewers say. As long as I stay within the margin of error, I'm okay even if I rarely see 4.4Ghz boosting.
I also noticed my BCDEDIT store didn't have HPET turned on... so I did enable it. It didn't affect the CB20 scores much compared to before. But I think that might not be ideal for competitions where a single point can decide the outcome.
Turning on or turning off HPET typically doesn't resolve CPU timing problems and may actually worsen the situation by altering the default settings. The sole legitimate reason to activate HPET is when you're using particular benchmarks that fail to fully leverage the onboard timing protocol of your CPUs. For Ryzen processors, enabling HPET is strongly discouraged.
I'm fully conscious of the ongoing discussion about HPET since the Ryzen 1000 launch... and even before that. I haven't really seen any changes when switching processors (like P4, Core2Duo, 6300, 1700, or now my 3700X).
I only changed it this time because of that article, just to test. It was a simple on/off process, and if anything appears I'll revert it.
The main concern I observed in many recent HPET on/off reviews was the stuttering during gameplay. Some titles didn't show this problem, while others were significantly affected by the frequent stuttering and frame skipping. Regardless of whether you believe it's a major issue or not, it has been confirmed as a problem rather than a complete solution.