AMD Ryzen Sample Hits 4 GHz Turbo in Ashes

Over the past couple of months, various AMD Ryzen engineering samples have surfaced. Starting off at 3.3 GHz, the most recent ones have gone as high as 3.6 GHz base clock. During their various events, AMD promised 3.4 GHz base but it appears they’ve been to exceed that by quite a bit. According to a benchmark score done for Ashes of the Singularity, Ryzen is now able to hit 3.6 GHz base clock and boost all the way up to 4 GHz.

In the previous reports, the 3.6 GHz engineering sample did 3.6 GHz base with a boost up to 3.9 GHz. With 4 GHz out in the wild, it means that AMD is still working to tease out the limits of their silicon. Of course, this was done with the 8 core, 16 thread variant of the chip. Intel’s equivalent, the i7 6900K, clocks in at 3.2 GHz and boosts up to 3.7 GHz. As we know from earlier leaks, the 3.3 GHz Ryzen sample is already capable of matching the i7 6900K in some workloads. With this extra frequency boost, Ryzen should have no trouble being competitive.

One important consideration to keep in mind is that factory clock speeds are generally not representative of what the silicon can do. Obviously, AMD needs to keep Ryzen within their set 95W TDP and thermal characteristics. This means there could still be plenty of room to overclock. Regardless, the peak turbo clock should set the baseline for a overclock of all 8 cores. With just a month to go, I can’t wait to see what AMD has to offer.