Don’t use Ryzen Master Eco Mode with Ryzen 9 7900X 7950X CPUs until you read this

You need to read this before using Ryzen Master’s Eco Mode

Eco Mode is an incredibly useful feature of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series, allowing PC gamers to adjust the performance, efficiency, and thermals of their systems with very little effort. Do you want maximised performance, or do you want lowered thermals and lowered power draws? With electricity being more expensive than ever, AMD’s Eco mode is an effective way to reduce the running costs of your system, and for those who are building compact PC with smaller heatsinks, Eco mode could be a way to keep your system running cool and quiet when you don’t require the full power that your processor has on tap. 

Earlier this week, we released a guide that detailed how to enable Eco Mode on your Ryzen 7000 series processors (you can read our guide here). Since then, AMD has released an update to their Ryzen Master utility that allows Ryzen 7000 users to enable Eco mode with a single click, making it easier than ever to tune your Zen 4 CPU to maximise its power efficiency. That said, we noticed a problem that PC builders should be aware of when using Eco Mode through AMD’s Rzzyen Master utility

Ryzen Master Eco Mode is not the same as Manual Eco Mode

When speaking to AMD about our Ryzen 7000 Eco Mode guide, they told us about their latest version of Ryzen Master, which can allow Ryzen 7000 series users to enable a 65W Eco mode within the utility with a single click. This eliminates the need for Ryzen users to enable Eco mode in their motherboard’s BIOS, and allows Ryzen Master users to enable or disable Eco mode without rebooting their systems. That said, AMD told us that enabling Eco Mode this way would set the TDP of all Ryzen 7000 processors to 65W. This is a huge decrease from the default 170W TDP of AMD’s Ryzen 9 7900X and 7950X, and a lot lower than the “manual” Eco mode for these processors, that sets their TDP to 105W.

With AMD Ryzen Master’s Eco Mode and Manually set Eco Mode having different TDP targets for Ryzen 9 processors, we felt if was appropriate that we test the difference between these two modes and recommend that AMD adds “65W Eco Mode”, and “105W Eco Mode” options to their Ryzen Master utilise.   

Wattage matters

Energy matters. There’s a reason why tradesmen typically have multiple teaspoons of sugar in their tea and there is a reason why performance-oriented users may want their CPUs to consume more power. You won’t do things quickly if you are low on energy, and in the world of CPUs, maximised efficiently and peak performance are two entirely different things.

With the ability to run Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 9 7900X processors with 65W, 105W and 170W TDP targets, consumers have the ability to tune their processors to run around like a bull on steroids with 170 watts of power, or calmly complete their work like a chess grand master at 65W. On the one side, you can brute force more performance with a higher power draw, or take a slower, more power efficient path with a 65W TDP. In the middle we have 105W, giving users a little bit of both.