{"id":1023933,"date":"2026-01-13T11:35:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T11:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/EkfCxpDEmPSZmwxd8iUGT8"},"modified":"2026-01-13T11:35:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T11:35:33","slug":"ive-tested-asus-new-turbo-game-mode-for-amd-cpus-and-my-verdict-is-simple-dont-use-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/ive-tested-asus-new-turbo-game-mode-for-amd-cpus-and-my-verdict-is-simple-dont-use-it\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ve tested Asus’ new Turbo Game Mode for AMD CPUs and my verdict is simple: Don’t use it"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We live in some strange times. Let’s say you’ve splashed the cash and bought yourself a brand new Ryzen 9 9950X<\/a> processor. It’s got 16 cores, 32 threads and it’s a seriously capable CPU, though not the absolute best for gaming. Well, Asus reckons it has a fix for the latter in the form of a new Turbo Game Mode, that halves the number of cores and quarters the number of threads.<\/p>\n

Specifically, what Turbo Game Mode (TGM) does is disable one of the CCDs (Core Complex Dies) and SMT (Simultaneous Multithreading). In short, it turns the likes of the 9950X into an 8-core, 8-thread processor. The idea is that some games just don’t like to have threads scattered across separate dies or sharing any cores.<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: Asus)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To see if this is the case for any of the games in our CPU benchmarking suite, I ran them afresh with the beta 2505 BIOS<\/a> for the Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero<\/a> motherboard. The test setup used a Ryzen 9 9950X, 32 GB of DDR5-6000 CL28, a GeForce RTX 4070<\/a>, and Windows 23H2.<\/p>\n

You can see the results for yourself below but as a quick summary, Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3 ran worse with TGM enabled, Metro Exodus and Total War: Warhammer 3 ran exactly the same as without it, and Homeworld 3 and Factorio ran better with it on.<\/p>\n

A mixed bag but when Homeworld 3 only ran 2% better on average, and Factorio 5% quicker, it raises a simple question: Is it worth using it at all?<\/p>\n

One thing worth considering is that this is a BIOS option and not something that you can flick on and off while in Windows. TGM absolutely ruins the CPU’s content creation capabilities so it’s not a setting that you’d ever use in that situation.<\/p>\n