Gigabyte claims its AM5 motherboards with new bios betas won’t exceed AMD’s Vsoc limits of 1.3V. The manufacturer is responding to reports that its motherboards would do that.
Gigabyte writes in a statement that the Vsoc voltage stays below 1.3V with AMD EXPO enabled in its latest bios betas. According to the manufacturer, users can check this in software such as HWiNFO. The voltage value in question is referred to in that software as ‘CPU Vddcr_SOC Voltage (SVI3 TFN)’. That value comes from an internal sensor in the CPU.
Reports have recently been circulating suggesting that motherboards are still delivering Vsoc voltages above 1.3V, even when using bios updates that should limit this. Gamers Nexus said that ASUS motherboards exhibit that behavior. YouTube channel Hardware Busters noted the same this week on Gigabyte AM5 motherboards. For this, the channel used an external voltage meter that was connected to the motherboard and later also with the cpu socket.
Gigabyte claims in its statement that those external measurements were higher because the motherboard needs a higher voltage to supply sufficient power to the CPU. According to the manufacturer, this happens ‘due to various physical factors’. In a video, Gigabyte shows how the pwm value on the motherboard indicates a Vsoc of 1.35V, while that voltage in HWiNFO is 1.28V. Gigabyte says AMD endorses such measurements based on the internal CPU sensor.
Recently, problems with AMD’s Ryzen 7000 processors came to light, where a too high Vsoc voltage could cause these CPUs to burn out. That problem was linked to the use of AMD EXPO, which allows users to overclock their memory. AMD then introduced a new agesa version that limited the Vsoc voltage to a maximum of 1.3V, and advised users to update their bios.