AMD Ryzen 7000 RDNA2 GPU Clocked at 3.1 GHz

AMD Ryzen 7000-series desktop processors, based on the Zen 4 microarchitecture, include a tiny RDNA-based graphics processing unit inside their I/O die (IOD). This GPU isn’t designed for gaming, but as SkatterBencher discovered, it can be overclocked, increasing performance by around 42% in the case of AMD’s Ryzen 7900 processor (via VideoCardz). This does not mean that the GPU will suddenly become a viable gaming solution, but it will improve in terms of performance.

AMD’s Ryzen 7000-series ‘Raphael’ desktop CPUs is an RDNA 2-based GPU with 128 stream processors and 2 CUs.

This graphics system runs at up to 2.20 GHz and has a computation capacity of roughly 0.563 FP32 TFLOPS, which is similar to a high-end graphics card from 2007. (e.g., ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT). It is far from adequate to achieve acceptable frame rates in a modern game. This GPU can still show graphics and plays videos. Also, it is overclockable.

Nevertheless, overclocking the integrated GPU is not an easy operation. On the one hand, AMD’s Agesa 1.0.0.4 enables iGPU overclocking, but to get the most out of this graphics processor, one must experiment with AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive settings, as well as boost voltages and power limitations.

Meanwhile, even a greatly enlarged Precision Boost Overdrive power budget will not result in a meaningful gain for the built-in GPU because it is a little low-end graphics solution that isn’t intended to perform. As a result, manually increasing VDDCR SOC and VDDCR GFX voltages to get additional power to the integrated GPU makes more sense.

The GPU works at 2.20 GHz @ 0.997V by default, however with the voltage boosted to 1.2V, the graphics processor may reach 2949 MHz. Additional voltage/frequency curvature tweaks to 1.395V aid in increasing GPU frequency to 3.10 GHz. Meanwhile, this raises SoC power to 60.7W, up from roughly 38.5W by default, necessitating more cooling.

In terms of performance, this adds up to 42.5% more performance in titles like Tomb Raider, although at 17 frames per second, the title remains unplayable. Additionally, it enables the execution of a raytracing test that, by default, does not operate on the built-in GPU. Even such extensive overclocking, however, does not result in a significant performance boost in a number of synthetic benchmarks, probably due to other restrictions.

While overclocking the inbuilt RDNA 2-based GPU does not appear to yield any real-world benefits, it is a viable option. Additionally, because AMD no longer allows altering the voltage/frequency curve on discrete RDNA 3 graphics cards, it appears that overclocking its integrated GPUs is easier than overclocking discrete GPUs.