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Jun 24, 2023

What Is the CPU Ring Ratio and How Does It Affect Overclocking?

When you overclock, you want to make sure you're tuning everything just right.

When you overclock, you want to make sure you're tuning everything just right.

When you change the CPU core ratio in your BIOS settings to overclock your processor, you may spot another setting you can alter: CPU ring ratio. It's in the same overclocking settings, which might make you wonder if changing this ratio could offer better overclocking performance.

But what is the CPU ring ratio, and can it help deliver better performance while overclocking?

Before getting into CPU ring ratios and what they do, it is essential to understand what happens to your CPU when you overclock it.

As the name suggests, overclocking increases the clock frequency of the CPU, but what is this clock frequency, and why is it needed?

Well, the CPU runs applications like word processors and gaming applications. Although running these applications might look like a complex state of affairs, in the background, the CPU is performing simple tasks of adding, subtracting, and moving numbers to run these applications.

To perform these tasks, the CPU needs to switch millions of switches known as transistors. Not only this, but these switches also need to work in a synchronized manner to perform these operations, and the clock frequency is responsible for this synchronization.

So, if you look at it, the clock frequency defines the rate at which your CPU performs tasks, and overclocking increases the rate at which your CPU crunches numbers. Therefore, overclocking increases the rate at which your CPU works, offering better performance.

We now know what the CPU's clock frequency signifies and how overclocking increases the rate at which tasks are performed. That said, another thing we need to understand is how data reaches the CPU.

Knowing the flow of data is important because you might increase the rate at which the CPU processes data, but if the system can't send data to the CPU at that rate, you won't get any performance improvement. This is because the CPU will be sitting idle, waiting for the data to be delivered.

The data in your computer is stored in the hard drive, but the CPU can't access this data directly. The main reason why this can't be done is that the hard drive is not fast enough for the CPU.

Therefore, to solve this problem, computer systems have a memory hierarchy that enables high-speed data delivery to the CPU.

Here is how data moves through the memory systems in a modern computer.

Therefore, any data which needs to be processed by the CPU moves from the hard drive to the RAM and then to the cache.

But how does the data move from all these mediums to the CPU?

Each memory system on your computer is connected using data buses. The main goal of these buses is to transfer data from one system to another.

The RAM, for example, is connected to the CPU using a data bus which is part of the motherboard. This data bus is managed by the memory controller, which is part of the CPU. The main goal of the memory controller is to fetch data the CPU needs from the RAM. To do this, the memory controller issues read/write commands to the RAM. The RAM, in turn, sends data over the data bus to the memory controller.

Once the data has reached the memory controller, it has to move to the CPU. To perform this task, the ring interconnect is used, which connects the CPU cores and the L3 cache to the memory controller. Therefore, if you look at it, the ring interconnect is a data highway that moves data between all the cores, the L3 cache, and the memory controller.

The ring interconnect transfers data between the CPU cores, L3 cache, and the memory controller. Like the CPU, the ring interconnect functions at a clock frequency, and the transfers happen at a given frequency.

Due to this, the data only travels on the ring bus at particular timeframes, which are defined by the clock frequency of the ring interconnect bus. Increasing the bus frequency increases the rate at which data moves from the L3 cache to the CPU cores.

Therefore, if you look at it, increasing the CPU ring ratio increases the rate at which data moves from the L3 cache to the CPU cores offering better performance.

When you increase the clock frequency of the CPU manually by overclocking, the speed at which the cores can process data increases. However, the speed of the ring bus, which is responsible for delivering data to cores, remains the same if the CPU ring ratio is not increased, creating a performance bottleneck. Therefore, increasing the CPU ring ratio offers better performance when overclocking.

When Intel released its newest Raptor Lake 13th Gen processors, it increased the ring frequency, offering up to five percent higher frame rates.

However, it's important to understand that increasing the CPU ring ratio increases the heat the CPU die generates as the ring operates at a higher frequency as the transistors switch faster. Also, as the ring bus performs data transfers between all the cores, a mismatch in synchronization could lead to more blue screens of death.

Therefore, if you look at it, increasing the ring ratio can offer better performance, but it could lead to system stability issues.

When the core speed of a processor increases automatically using turbo boost technologies, the ring speed is also increased. In the case of manual overclocking, the ring ratio needs to be increased manually.

Overclocking the ring ratio on your system can offer better performance. However, getting the right CPU ratio can be difficult given the complex nature of transferring data between all the cores.

Therefore, if you plan to push your system to the limit, try finding the perfect CPU ratio, and if you have a stable overclock, you can adjust the CPU ring ratio to get even better performance.

Nischay is an Electronics and Communication engineering graduate with a knack for simplifying everyday technology. He has been making tech easy to understand since 2020, working with publications like Candid.Technology, Technobyte, Digibaum, and Inkxpert.In addition, Nischay loves automotive technology and has been working as an Engineer with Stellantis for the last two years. He has adept knowledge about the features that makes today's cars safer and easier to drive.