What The Raspberry Pi 2’s Overclock Settings Mean

The Raspberry Pi 2 is a lot faster than its predecessors, but you still might want to overclock it for the best possible performance. Blogger Hayden James breaks down what each overclock setting does and shares some configurations for better performance.

In the /boot/config.txt you’ll find all kinds of overclock options, as well as ways to customise the GPU memory allocations (which is helpful if you’re running Kodi or RetroPie). Here’s the breakdown of each of the overclock options:

• arm_freq– Frequency of ARM in MHz.
• core_freq -Frequency of GPU processor core in MHz. It has an impact on ARM performance since it drives L2 cache.sdram_freq -Frequency of SDRAM in MHz.
• over_voltage — ARM/GPU core voltage adjust. Values above 6 are only allowed when force_turbo or current_limit_override are specified (which set the warranty bit).
• force_turbo — Disables dynamic cpufreq driver and minimum settings below. Voids Warranty.
• initial_turbo -Enables turbo mode from boot for the given value in seconds (up to 60) or until cpufreq sets a frequency. Default 0
• arm_freq_min — Minimum value of arm_freq used for dynamic clocking.
• core_freq_min — Minimum value of core_freq used for dynamic clocking.
• sdram_freq_min — Minimum value of sdram_freq used for dynamic clocking.
• temp_limit — Overheat protection. Sets clocks and voltages to default when the SoC reaches this Celsius value. Setting this higher than default voids warranty. Default 85
• disable_splash — If set to 1, avoids the rainbow splash screen on boot.
• boot_delay – Wait for x number of seconds in start.elf before loading kernel. Default 1
• gpu_mem – GPU memory in megabyte. Sets the memory split between the ARM and GPU. ARM gets the remaining memory.

What you change depends on what you’ll use your Raspberry Pi for. For example, if you’re running Kodi or RetroPie, you should up gpu_mem to 320 to give you better performance. Likewise, if you overclock, you’ll want to bump up the voltage to help with stability. James has a breakdown of different scenarios and suggests over on his blog.

Raspberry Pi 2 Overclock [Hayden James]