Is giving additional voltage to components a good thing?

27-bit · February 13, 2013

I was messing around with my voltages and then benchmarking after being stable @ 4.02. I found out that my i7 920 with 1.3625v which I tested and found to be stable, scored less in cinebench than when I increased the core voltage to 1.3725.

Am not seeing any temp differences. So does giving a cpu just a bit more than it needs, provide a better OC thus more performance?

And if true does this apply to other components?

I know that cracking the voltages to high can lead to instability...

Wats · February 13, 2013

Sometimes but not always. Always test for stability some how.

Also Cine doesn't care what score it gives, you can run anything without a problem while Cine is running, your score will just be lower. Just run Cine like 10 times to get yourself a nice average. I found that about the 4th-5th time I get the highest score (after a reboot).

Art Vandelay · February 13, 2013

You want the lowest voltage possible to attain stability. If it is giving a lower score, that means that it is unstable. Margin of error will also play into this.

mgsstar · February 14, 2013

If it is stable, meaning that running prime95 in blend mode for 24 hours and no crashing or BSOD, then you are fine. Increasing the voltage in your cpu will create more heat and thus the lifespan of your cpu will be decreased.