Undervolting CPU’s

[I Josh I]

Hi all!

 

I came across a  thing called undervolting. Which I read that decreasing the voltage of your CPU can help reduce temps. I was curious is there any specific reason why you shouldn’t do it or should? The reason that I am asking is because I have been having some issues with CPU temps and was wondering if this would help. FYI I know next to none about undervolting, so any info or advice would be great.

 

My CPU: I7-8700 

[badreg]

Undervolting is done to optimize temperatures and power draw. Think of it as overclocking, but instead of optimizing for performance, the goal is optimizing for efficiency.

 

It is most effective for laptops where thermal throttling is more common and in mining operations where reduced power draw increases profits. In a desktop platform with a locked CPU, there really isn't a good reason to undervolt, since you are not likely to run into thermal issues, and you would be introducing potential instability with no real tangible benefits.

[I Josh I]

2 minutes ago, badreg said:

Undervolting is done to optimize temperatures and power draw. Think of it as overclocking, but instead of optimizing for performance, the goal is optimizing for efficiency.

Is there any harm in doing It? Also, how hard is it to do?

 

[I Josh I]

10 minutes ago, badreg said:

Undervolting is done to optimize temperatures and power draw. Think of it as overclocking, but instead of optimizing for performance, the goal is optimizing for efficiency.

 

It is most effective for laptops where thermal throttling is more common and in mining operations where reduced power draw increases profits. In a desktop platform with a locked CPU, there really isn't a good reason to undervolt, since you are not likely to run into thermal issues, and you would be introducing potential instability with no real tangible benefits.

Thank you for the information and help!

[Jurrunio]

only 3 reasons not to do it

1. Laziness

2. Very low power draw CPU (200GE for example) in the first place

3. Looking to overclock.

because the only people who don't want lower heat output and higher efficiency are overclockers. If overclocking is squeezing performance out from the safety (by safety I mean the system passing stress test) margins put in by the motherboard makers, undervolting is squeezing efficiency out from the same thing.

 

11 minutes ago, I Josh I said:

Also, how hard is it to do?

On a desktop it's easy because you don't hit power limits. On laptops that's much more difficult because the CPU behaves differently when it runs in full turbo boost and limited turbo boost (PL2 and PL1).

[X_X]

Be aware that if temperature or power throttling then undervolting may just end up increasing the clock speed while still consuming the same power, resulting in the same high temps.

 

As for locked chips the Haswell Xeons can reach higher all core turbo by undervolting so the results can vary.

 

Tip: When using a negative offset test for both low/idle clocks and high clocks as it may be possible there's enough voltage for the high end but not the low end.