Like other Raspberry Pi single-board computers, the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W can be overclocked to boost its performance. Find out how to overclock your Pi Zero 2 W’s CPU and GPU to make it run faster.
Why Overclock Your Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W?
The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is a huge upgrade on the original Pi Zero models, boasting the same Broadcom BCM2710A1 SoC as on the full-size Pi 3. This enables it to run some workloads at up to five times faster than a Pi Zero.
In combination with its pocket-size form factor and $15 price tag, this makes the Pi Zero 2 W ideal for use in portable projects. Typically it will be run headless, without a monitor or keyboard, and you’llaccess the Raspberry Pi remotely via SSH.
If you want to use the Pi Zero 2 W as a desktop system with a GUI, however, it may seem a little laggy compared to a Pi 4 or Pi 5. By overclocking its CPU (and GPU), you may give it a bit of extra zip. This should also prove useful for emulating retro games systems.
The downside to overclocking is that it could reduce the lifespan of your Pi Zero 2 W. It may also void your warranty if you use theforce_turbo=1setting in the config.txt file to enable higher overvoltage levels (over 6). So overclock at your own risk—especially if pushing it to higher speeds.
Keep Your Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Cool
Running your Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W at a higher speed results in it producing more heat. Once it reaches 80°C (176°F), the SoC will automatically start throttling back the CPU cores, reducing their speed until the temperature drops. If the temperature gets up to 85°C (185°F), maximum throttling will be triggered, including for the GPU.
While we managed to achieve an overclock of 1.2GHz with just a bare Pi Zero 2 W board, you may find that adding some cooling will help to keep the temperature down, especially if running heavy loads for any length of time. This cooling could be in the form of a heatsink or a fan—or even both, such as with The Pi Hut’sDual-Fan Heatsink.
How to Overclock a Raspberry Pi 2 W
Just like on otherRaspberry Pi modelsrunning the standard operating system, Raspberry Pi OS (previously known as Raspbian), you can alter the clock speed of the Pi Zero 2 W’s system-on-chip (SoC) by modifying theconfig.txtsettings file.
It’s a good idea to start by updating and upgrading all the system packages. If you’re using the desktop GUI, open a terminal window by clicking its icon in the top menu bar, or viaMenu > Accessories > Terminal, and enter:
This may well take a few minutes to check for the latest software packages and then update the system.
Install Monitoring Tools
Before overclocking the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, we’ll install a couple of useful tools to compare before-and-after performance and temperature. First, install the Neofetch system info tool:
To see the current system info, run:
It should show the Pi Zero 2 W’s default CPU speed of 1GHz. Next, install the “stress” workload-generating tool:
If you’re using the “Bullseye” version or earlier of Raspberry Pi OS (or Raspbian), you can install the Stressberry stress-testing tool with:
If using the latest “Bookworm” version of Raspberry Pi OS, however, you’ll need to install Stressberry in a Python virtual environment (we called ours “overclock”):
you’re able to now do an initial stress test at the Pi Zero 2 W’s default clock speed for comparison with the overclocked results later. Run this command (in the Python virtual environment on “Bookworm”) for a 100-second test using all four CPU cores:
Once the SoC has reached a stable baseline temperature, the stress test will begin and each line will show the current CPU temperature and frequency, which should get up to 1000MHz (i.e. 1GHz).
Edit the Config.txt File to Overclock
Now let’s do the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W overclock by changing the CPU and GPU speed settings, which will be activated when it reboots. Open theconfig.txtsettings file in the nano text editor:
Add the following lines:
Here, we’re usingarm_freqto set the CPU clock speed to 1200MHz (1.2GHz), while also usingcore_freqto bump up the GPU core speed (from the default 400MHz). See the official Raspberry Pioverclocking documentationfor all the possible options. The latest firmware automatically scales up the voltage if the system is overclocked, but you can manually override this if needed (we didn’t), such as with:
Exit nano and save the settings by pressingCtrl+X, thenYandEnter. To activate the overclock, reboot the Pi Zero 2 W:
Once it has rebooted, run theneofetchterminal command again; you should see the new CPU speed of 1.2GHz.
Stress-Test Your Overclocked Pi Zero 2 W
If using Raspberry Pi OS “Bookworm”, you’ll need to run Stressberry from within your Python virtual environment, so reactivate that:
Then run the same Stressberry test as before (with a different filename for the output):
This time you should see that the CPU reaches the overclocked speed of 1.2GHz. It will also have a higher temperature—in our tests, with no cooling added, it reached a maximum of 67.1°C (152.8°F), well below the 80°C level at which thermal throttling would start to be applied.
With additional cooling, such as a fan or heatsink, some users have managed to boost the CPU speed further, to 1.4GHz, and the GPU to 700MHz, but mileage may vary for different Pi Zero 2 W boards and the cooling method used.
If overclocking at a certain level causes system instability, you should try a more modest overclock. In some cases, the Pi Zero 2 W may not even boot up to the desktop, usually due to a lack of sufficient power.
What if the Pi Zero 2 W Won’t Boot?
If, after changing the overclocking settings inconfig.txt, you find that your Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W won’t boot up, don’t fret. The easiest workaround is to simply hold theShiftkey during bootup to temporarily disable the overclock; the Raspberry Pi should then boot normally.
If that doesn’t work, turn off the Pi Zero 2 W, then remove the microSD card and connect it (using a USB card reader) to another computer to edit theconfig.txtfile from there. You can then alter the overclocking settings, or comment them out by adding a # symbol at the start of each line.
Overclocking Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Is Easy
If you need a little extra processing power for your portable project or retro games system, it’s relatively straightforward to change the config settings to overclock a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. To help avoid thermal throttling of the SoC, it’ll work better with some form of cooling.
