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trulyspinach / SMCAMDProcessor

Power management, monitoring and VirtualSMC plugin for AMD processors
BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License
1.06k stars 89 forks source link

What to expect? #67

Closed woutersamaey closed 4 years ago

woutersamaey commented 4 years ago

This is a beginner question. I read through the README and other issues here, but I’m curious what to expect when I install this vs not installing at all.

Assuming I have a new Ryzen CPU and X570 or B450 motherboard that is using OpenCore...

Maybe add this to the readme for other people as well?

aluveitie commented 4 years ago

In short: it gives you control over your CPU

So it’s yes to all your questions. You can use it to overclock, or enable the passive power management to downclock when there is little load. Disable precision boost when you don’t need the maximum performance but prefer less noise.

woutersamaey commented 4 years ago

Okay, so the question then becomes how good is the standard power management. Is it horrible, making this software essential or is this more like a gimmick?

Assuming I leave everything on the default settings for example.

Does a Ryzentosh have passive power management on board? I read there is “no power management” which sounds to me like a huge power bill...

trulyspinach commented 4 years ago

@woutersamaey if you did any research you will know that there isn't any power management in macOS for AMD.

Modern CPUs are unlikely to blow your power bill even if there isn't any OS level PM involved.

woutersamaey commented 4 years ago

Sorry, for annoying you. I am new to the concept of power management. I know CPUs have all kinds of power stepping, but failed to find any ryzentosh power usage stats, so I’m pas under the impression that the CPU would always be on 100% full blast and that I would “need” this tool as a fix?

trulyspinach commented 4 years ago

Sorry if my reply reads like I am annoyed, I'm not :) Without power management it will always run at 100% full speed when it runs. That saids, macOS will simply use the basic halt instruction when there is nothing to do and don't have any power management support loaded for the platform. Which is not so effective in many ways, but at least it won't let your CPU always run at TDP. But still, the end resulting power consumption which directly affects your power bill depend on a big amount of factor.