This is one of the best features I love about AMD. Moreover, AMD offers you more cores and threads than Intel counterparts. Of course, in terms of performance, Intel is still the best but for value, AMD is the choice of most people, especially those with a tight budget. Check out more on Intel vs AMD.

Before going deep into overclocking, let’s focus on the requirements and risks of overclocking. I’ll be running all the tests and guide on a Windows machine. Overclocking itself doesn’t require any operating system installation. However, for stress and stability testing, Windows is the best option available.

If you’re a Linux user, I recommend switching to Windows for just a couple of days. Don’t worry; you don’t have to either connect to the internet or install all those

What overclocking means

Before you decide to overclock your AMD processor, you need to make sure that your motherboard has the ability to “overclock” and your processor is “unlocked”. What do these mean, actually?

Whenever you’re buying a processor, you’ll always see something like “3.5GHz” or “7.1GHz” – these are called clock speeds of the processor; essentially, how fast that processor can perform a complete processing cycle. Needless to say, faster clock speed means better overall performance.

When you “overclock”, you are basically forcing your processor to perform a complete calculation cycle even faster. When you overclock, your processor will run at a forced state that will consume more electricity and generate more heat.

Think of it like this – an average human can run at 30-40 km/hour. That’s the base performance of your processor. Now, you can charge that human with adrenaline and lots of foods to push the limits – 40-45 km/hour. That’s the overclocked state of your processor.

Dangers of overclocking

You’re pushing your processor beyond what’s it meant to perform. That’s a pretty big thing for the processor. It’s not a biological object that would gain strength over time to overcome that wearing. In the above analogy, think of the human running at that overclocked speed for a long period of time. That person will eventually wear out and may get some serious physical damage! The same thing applies to the processor.

A processor is a carefully-designed state of trillions of silicone and other materials. When you overclock, that structure is under a huge load. That pushing can eventually break down the entire system. Of course, any electronics will die after a certain amount of time but overclocking speeds up the process. You may even end up with a dead one.

Another thing to consider is the longevity of your motherboard. If you overclock, your motherboard is also under load to provide more power to your processor. This overdoing can also hasten the degradation of the motherboard’s IC, transistor, capacitor or other parts.

Then, what about all the big tech savvies out there pushing their processors well beyond? Well, overclocking can harvest you enormous benefits if you stay within the safety zone. For each overclocking processor, there’s a safety zone. If you stay within that zone, your processor and motherboard (yes, the motherboard will be delivering the fuel to your processor) won’t have any issue in the long run.

Prerequisites of overclocking AMD processor

Do you still wish to overclock your processor? Good. At first, make sure that you have all your system specification at hand. Get Speccy. The free version is more than enough for the job.

Here, you’ll have to note your processor and motherboard model. In my case, the processor is AMD Ryzen 3 1200 and the motherboard is MSI B450M BAZOOKA PLUS.

Whatever motherboard you’re running, check out on the internet whether the processor is “unlocked” and your motherboard supports “overclocking”.

You also have to update your system’s UEFI/BIOS to the latest version. This is very important, especially for overclocking. Different motherboard manufacturers offer a different method of updating your UEFI/BIOS.

Overclocking the processor

When overclocking, you have to tweak the voltage and clock speed of your processor. You have to gradually increase the voltage and clock speed and then, check the stability of the system. This is a lengthy process, so you have to be patient.

For overclocking, the UEFI/BIOS method is the best option. It guarantees safety and ensures that your system will be running the configuration you declare. You also need a few other tools – HWMonitor, CPU-Z, Prime95 (stress testing) and IntelBurnTest (stability test). Download and install them in your system as we’ll need them later on the guide.

The following screenshots are for my motherboard and other MSI motherboards (almost). Depending on your system, you should be able to find equivalent/similar options.

Getting into UEFI/BIOS

When your system boots, you have to press “Del”, “F11” or other keys for entering the UEFI/BIOS setup. Note that the buttons can differ from motherboard to motherboard. Check out your motherboard tutorial on the option.

Once you’re in the UEFI/BIOS, find out the overclocking section.

Change the overclocking mode from “Normal” to “Expert”.

Now, we’re ready to tinker with the “CPU ratio” and “CPU Core Voltage”. The ratio is the multiplier that the UEFI/BIOS uses to multiply the base clock of the processor. Generally, the base clock is 100MHz. So, if you input CPU ratio to 40, you’ll get 4000MHz or 4GHz core clock.

The ratio is set to “Auto”. Let’s start with “33.00”.

Then, change the voltage of the CPU to 1.3V. According to AMD, the highest voltage you should go is around 1.4V. Don’t you dare exceeding that voltage, or you’ll kill your hardware.

Then, exit the UEFI/BIOS and boot into Windows.

Now, fire up HWMonitor and CPU-Z to identify that your applied configurations are properly working.

Fire up Prime95. Go to Options >> Torture Test.

Select the first option and click “OK”. This will stress your processor nearly 100%. Keep a sharp look on the temperature on HWMonitor.

Wait for 3-5 minutes to let the temperature saturate and stabilize. The safe temperature for a stable overclocking is 75°C at full stress. Going beyond isn’t recommended and will hurt your system badly.

Stop the stress test and fire up IntelBurnTest.

Set the value of “Times to run” to 5 >> hit “Start”. This will perform a fixed calculation and show the result.

If all the results are same, that means that your system is stable at that point.

This is the entire process of overclocking. You have to gradually increase the core voltage and CPU ratio. Then, check for heat and stability for that point.

If your system crashes, don’t worry. Boot into your UEFI/BIOS and reduce the CPU ratio and voltage at the previous stable point. If your system doesn’t boot at a certain unstable point, you may need to reset CMOS. It’s the memory of the UEFI/BIOS that holds all the configurations. For each motherboard, the process is different. Check out your motherboard’s manual for an in-depth guide on clearing CMOS.

The final thoughts

Overclocking itself is surely a lengthy process. However, you can easily enjoy a better performance with overclocking.

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When you’re in the market looking for a good processor for your next desktop build or planning to get an all-in-one PC or even a laptop, you may have seen available options of 2 different processor brands – Intel and AMD. Both of them offer very similar features and each of them excels at different specs.

It’s ultimately your choice to decide which one is better – Intel or AMD.

Choosing the right one

There are different categories for selecting your CPU vendor. Here are all of them.

• Performance – One of the most important categories you should focus on. The performance of the processor decides the overall experience of your usage. Your performance choice must be based on your usage. For example, you’re not going to buy a $1000 CPU just for your “Facebooking” rig, right? Again, using a $70 CPU with a $700 graphics card is also not going to give you enough performance.
• Cooling – Processors need to stay cool for performing normally. There are billions of electrons flowing through the chip, making it really hot. You need to keep that in mind for choosing your right CPU cooler.
• Power consumption – This is often underestimated but you should also keep an eye on power consumption. This ultimately decides your monthly electricity bill.
• Overclocking – This is something really interesting. Overclocking allows you to enjoy faster performance than your original CPU specs. For example, you can run a processor up to 4GHz that’s only been at 3GHz by default! Of course, you simply speed up the degradation of the chip but a safe overclock will definitely help in the long run.
• Price – Your budget for your next rig is also an important factor here. If you choose a lower end processor, you can spend that extra money on some other parts. However, you must also keep a balance between all your hardware, otherwise, your system will not work in the way you want.
  For example, you’re buying a $700 graphics card. For handling that graphics horsepower, you also must get a powerful enough processor. Otherwise, the FPS and quality output of your game will seriously throttle your gaming experience.
• Performance/price – The headline is EXACTLY what it sounds. For the price you’re paying, how much performance are you getting?

With the points being clear, let’s check out which brand is the winner of which category.

Comparison between Intel and AMD

Intel

• Pros

  • Strong single core performance.
  • Better overall performance.
  • Processor consumes less energy than AMD’s.
  • Produces less heat.
  • Good entry level processors.

• Cons

  • Despite having powerful single cores, Intel processors fall behind in multithread performance.
  • You can’t overclock all the processors. For overclocking, you need “unlocked” chips and “overclock” enabled motherboard (“X” or “Z” series chipset motherboards).
  • Better processors cost a lot more than entry-level processors.
  • Integrated graphics aren’t powerful enough to run popular game titles.
  • Less core/thread count.

AMD

• Pros

  • Strong multi-core and multithread performance.
  • Lots of cores. Yeah, AMD offers more core count than Intel at any price point.
  • VALUE for MONEY. AMD processors, despite being less expensive than Intel counterparts, offers better value for the money you spend. For building a budget build, this is one of the main things you should have in your mind.

Here’s a comparison between Intel and AMD in terms of value by Hardware Unboxed.

• • All the AMD processors have overclocking ability. It allows you to push your processor to a very powerful state.
  • Almost all the motherboards support overclocking AMD chips.
  • AMD offers their processor to be compatible with the existing platforms. For example, you can enjoy the latest 2^nd generation Ryzen processors on an existing AM4 socket motherboard.
  • Powerful integrated graphics

• Cons

  • Less powerful performance of single cores.
  • Processors consume more power and generate more heat than Intel counterparts. You need to have a powerful cooler for the cooling.
  • Older processors perform worse than their Intel counterparts.
  • If you choose a processor without integrated graphics, you need a discrete graphics card.

The final thoughts

Both processor vendors offer completely different features and facilities. Which one is the best? That depends, ultimately, on you.

If you need more cores and handle heavier workloads like rendering, editing etc. then AMD should be your right choice. AMD also offers more cores. If you’re a gamer need a strong performing processor, then Intel is the safe bet.

As of the current state, Intel seems to be having some supply shortage. This is resulting in dramatically increasing the price of processors. For PC builders and any consumer level, this is bad news. On the other hand, AMD offers a relatively stable platform. For example, you buy an AM4 motherboard and you can rest assured up to 2020. In the case of Intel, each processor generation requires its own motherboard.

What do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts down in the comments.

The post Intel vs AMD – Which to Choose? appeared first on Linux Windows and android Tutorials.

The flaws

The infected chipsets of AMD are AMD Ryzen and EPYC processors. The total number of flaws is 13 and they’re under 4 classes – MasterKey, RyzenFall, Chimera, and Fallout (named by CTS Labs). These were discovered and announced very recently by CTS Labs, a Tel Aviv based cybersecurity startup.

This scenery became more than dramatic. According to official reports, CTS Labs informed AMD about the flaws and submitted their papers. The deadline was less than “24 hours”! Seriously, even Google gave Microsoft a deadline of 90 days for the vulnerability of Microsoft Edge. Now, instead of AMD, everyone is criticizing CTS Labs for such a short deadline. According to the official statement, CTS Labs didn’t think that AMD would fix them in years, so they decided to disclose them publicly.

Although this incident looks suspicious, the vulnerabilities in AMD processors are real. After CTS Labs disclosed papers about the flaws, another security company – Trail of Bits – came forward to verify the truth. The CEO of Trail of Bits – Dan Guido – confirmed that those flaws are real. Here’re the tweets that Dan Guido published.

So this https://t.co/vYktqat10K business… CTS Labs asked us to review their research last week, and sent us a full technical report with PoC exploit code for each set of bugs.

— Dan Guido (@dguido) March 13, 2018

Alex Ionescu, a highly reputed security researcher, also confirmed those vulnerabilities to be true.

On the #AMDflaws — I have seen the technical details and there are legit design & implementation issues worth discussing as part of a coordinated disclosure effort. The media storm and handling around that is sadly distracting from a real conversation around security boundaries.

— Alex Ionescu (@aionescu) March 14, 2018

How the flaws work

• MasterKey

When booting up the system, the machine follows “secure boot” with the help of the processor that ensures that only the TRUSTED programs are launched. Using MasterKey vulnerability, this can be bypassed to launch malicious codes. However, the malicious code must be installed in BIOS. Only then, MasterKey allows the intruder to install all the malware on the boot process.

This vulnerability can also allow disabling all the other security features of the processor.

• RyzenFall

From the name, it’s really easy to assume that Ryzen chips are infected by this flaw. This flaw can hand over the control of the processor to the hacker, exposing sensitive data to the attacker.

If an attacker can bypass the Windows Defender Credential Guard, the stolen data will help spread throughout the network. Credential Guard is a feature of Windows 10 that stores the sensitive information in a protected section of the operating system.

• Fallout

Like RyzenFall, this attack can also allow a hacker to steal information from the protected area. This flaw exists in the EPYC processors. An important note – Microsoft announced a partnership with AMD that told that Microsoft would use EPYC processors in their Azure Cloud servers.

Fallout breaks down the barrier between virtual machines. A virtual machine is a part of a computer along with memory and processor power that’s completely separated than others. With this flaw, a virtual machine can get access to the host or other virtual machines.

• Chimera

This vulnerability comes in 2 different flavors – hardware and firmware.

The Ryzen chipset allows running programs and malware in it, as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and other network traffic go through the chipset and an attack can depend on it. In the proof-of-concept demo, the researchers said that they were able to install a keylogger in the system to see every keystroke on the computer.

What to do now

The internet is now in the debate of CTS Lab’s attitude and action. Debate aside, the vulnerabilities are real. But it’s not time to panic yet.

All the flaws require admin access to the system. For example, MasterKey must be present in the BIOS at the first place, meaning that the user in the computer must flush a special-crafted BIOS update. Dan Guido confirmed that all other flaws require admin access. Unless you’re a careless user, it’s highly unlikely that these bugs will affect you.

Now onto the “vulnerabilities”:

1) MASTERKEY: if you allow unauthorised BIOS updates you are screwed.
Threat level: No shat, Sherlock!

2) RYZENFALL: again, loading unauthorised code on the Secure Processor as admin.
Threat level: No shat, Sherlock!

— Arrigo Triulzi (@cynicalsecurity) March 13, 2018

However, you have to stay sharp for not making any mistake. The proof-of-concept codes and technical details aren’t public just yet, making it a harder path for hackers to re-invent them all on their own. Make sure to use a good antivirus engine, not to install apps from unauthorized sources and password-protect your system.

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