In this very short article I will describe how to boost your Raspberry Pi’s performance.
This guide applies only to the Raspberry Pi 3 and 4 with a 3A power supply.
On the Raspberry Pi 3, where the CPU runs at 1.4 GHz by default, you can change it to:
- 1.5 GHz (safe without any cooling)
- 1.7 GHz (safe with at least passive cooling)
- 1.9 GHz (safe with active cooling)
On the Raspberry Pi 4, where the CPU runs at 1.5 GHz by default, you can set it to:
- 1.6 GHz (safe without any cooling)
- 1.8 GHz (safe with at least passive cooling)
- 2.0 GHz (safe with active cooling)
With that said, to boost your Raspberry Pi’s performance, edit the config.txt file in the /boot folder with the following command:
sudo nano /boot/config.txt
once the nano text editor has opened, go to the last line and add:
arm_freq=1500 #overclock to 1.5GHz for a Raspberry Pi 3over_voltage=2
Once you have pasted the text, close the file by pressing CTRL+X, then type Y (or S, depending on your system language) and finally press ENTER to confirm.
Personally, on my Raspberry Pi 4 with active cooling (heatsink + small fan), I added the following to the config.txt file:
arm_freq=1750
over_voltage=2
Enjoy!
