AMD confirms that the Adrenaline GPU drivers are overlocking Ryzen CPUs without user consent

AMD has confirmed to Tom’s Hardware that the reports of AMD GPU drivers automatically overclocking AMD Ryzen CPUs are correct and that the company is looking into the issue. The problem was first investigated by Igor’s Lab which speculated that Adrenaline GPU drivers changing AMD CPU BIOS settings without user input had to do with AMD combining Ryzen Master SDK into the Adrenaline drivers.

Reportedly, the issue only surfaces when both the CPU and the GPU are from AMD.

Automatic engagement of overclocking with the Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature on Ryzen processors poses quite a few problems. For starters, if your PC isn’t equipped to handle the increased chip temperatures that overclocking brings, it can cause serious damage to the components. Furthermore, overclocking can also cause stability issues, resulting in system crashes.

Finally, overclocking of any sort voids the warranty of Ryzen processors.

Although AMD has yet to fix the problem of auto-overclocking, users have devised a way to keep their chips safe by deleting the Ryzen Master SDK from the Adrenaline drivers using a utility known as the “Radeon Software Slimmer.” Since Radeon Software Slimmer is not developed or endorsed by AMD, use it at your peril.

Buy AMD Ryzen 5 5600X on Amazon