Does undervolting makes cpu less powerful?

[Mahbub]

NOOB QUESTION. I have an i5 8600k and default voltage is 1.190v. at this voltage while playing flight simulator 2020 it clocks at a constamt 4.07ghz. now i noticed that if i lessen voltage to 1.140v it clocks to same 4.07ghz and no crashes in prime 95. So i wanna ask if i undervolt it to 1.140v, does the power of the cpu at 4.07ghz remain same as the 4.07ghz at 1.190v?

[LIGISTX]

Just now, Mahbub said:

NOOB QUESTION. I have an i5 8600k and default voltage is 1.190v. at this voltage while playing flight simulator 2020 it clocks at a constamt 4.07ghz. now i noticed that if i lessen voltage to 1.140v it clocks to same 4.07ghz and no crashes in prime 95. So i wanna ask if i undervolt it to 1.140v, does the power of the cpu at 4.07ghz remain same as the 4.07ghz at 1.190v?

Yes. 4.07 ghz is 4.07 ghz. But.... why undervolt it? Just let it do it’s thing. Why introduce possible stability issues for no performance gains?

[Haro]

depends, some chips can hold the same frequency with lower voltages and some will need an underclock for the undervolt to be stable. 

only way to check is to try.

edit: misread lol..

10 hours ago, Mahbub said:

does the power of the cpu at 4.07ghz remain same as the 4.07ghz at 1.190v?

Yes.

[Sorenson]

26 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

Yes. 4.07 ghz is 4.07 ghz. But.... why undervolt it? Just let it do it’s thing. Why introduce possible stability issues for no performance gains?

undercoating, especially on intel, can allow you to run higher clock speeds at lower temperature with limited cooling. I was able to run a 9700k at 4.8ghz all core with just a cheap corsair 120mm AIO with reasonable temps thanks to undervaluing. With ryzen 3000 it’s more hit or miss since the chips push themselves so far. 

[LIGISTX]

3 hours ago, Sorenson said:

undercoating, especially on intel, can allow you to run higher clock speeds at lower temperature with limited cooling. I was able to run a 9700k at 4.8ghz all core with just a cheap corsair 120mm AIO with reasonable temps thanks to undervaluing. With ryzen 3000 it’s more hit or miss since the chips push themselves so far. 

Dine... undervolting. Thats an OC for the 9700k, so you were doing this at UNDER the stock voltage for stock speed? Because that would be an undervolt. The only CPU I have ever had that did that was my i7 920 back in 2009.... Newer CPU's vary rarely run on less than stock voltage at faster than stock speed.

 

Do you mean it was less voltage than what auto or the mobo's built in OC profile provided? If so, that isn't an underclock, its just proper overclock tuning; you should really never use auto voltage when overclocking OR the build in mobo OC profiles. They will always throw more voltage than needed at the CPU.

[Sorenson]

1 hour ago, LIGISTX said:

Dine... undervolting. Thats an OC for the 9700k, so you were doing this at UNDER the stock voltage for stock speed? Because that would be an undervolt. The only CPU I have ever had that did that was my i7 920 back in 2009.... Newer CPU's vary rarely run on less than stock voltage at faster than stock speed.

 

Do you mean it was less voltage than what auto or the mobo's built in OC profile provided? If so, that isn't an underclock, its just proper overclock tuning; you should really never use auto voltage when overclocking OR the build in mobo OC profiles. They will always throw more voltage than needed at the CPU.

Yes, technically it is overclocking with the proper voltage. But, since pretty much every motherboard manufacturer runs the intel chips at higher than standard voltage by default I still count it as undervolting for the standard user. It’s easier for most people to understand just doing a negative voltage offset from stock motherboard settings then it is to undo all the motherboard settings to get intel’s spec. 

[LIGISTX]

Just now, Sorenson said:

Yes, technically it is overclocking with the proper voltage. But, since pretty much every motherboard manufacturer runs the intel chips at higher than standard voltage by default I still count it as undervolting for the standard user. It’s easier for most people to understand just doing a negative voltage offset from stock motherboard settings then it is to undo all the motherboard settings to get intel’s spec. 

I guess I am confused, again. Your comment was "allow higher clocks" via "under volting to reduce temps". If your overclocking, your adjusting your voltage... So your just properly overclocking and running the absolute minimum stable voltage for that speed.

 

The reason I am playing the semantics police here is because there are times when actual undervolting is a valuable tool; laptops. A lot of laptops thermal throttle at stock settings, and in this situation to just get them to run at intel spec speeds, undervolting is useful. That is a totally different concept then what we are talking about here. Undervolting a GPU can help in the same way, but this is basically only used for laptops as their thermal solutions are so much less robust.

 

Just trying to make things as clear as possible for those who are new to this world and are trying to google things and get all sorts of confused with search terms not really showing them what they want. Desktops almost never need to be undervolted. If your stock desktop CPU can't run at stock speeds and stock volts, there are serious issues and undervolting will not solve them. Just trying to make that distinction more clear

[Mister Woof]

Only reason to undervolt an Intel cpu at stock frequency/boost is to reduce cooling requirement

 

If you are already adequately cooled and/or don't mind the cooler volume, there's no benefit

[Sorenson]

48 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

I guess I am confused, again. Your comment was "allow higher clocks" via "under volting to reduce temps". If your overclocking, your adjusting your voltage... So your just properly overclocking and running the absolute minimum stable voltage for that speed.

 

The reason I am playing the semantics police here is because there are times when actual undervolting is a valuable tool; laptops. A lot of laptops thermal throttle at stock settings, and in this situation to just get them to run at intel spec speeds, undervolting is useful. That is a totally different concept then what we are talking about here. Undervolting a GPU can help in the same way, but this is basically only used for laptops as their thermal solutions are so much less robust.

 

Just trying to make things as clear as possible for those who are new to this world and are trying to google things and get all sorts of confused with search terms not really showing them what they want. Desktops almost never need to be undervolted. If your stock desktop CPU can't run at stock speeds and stock volts, there are serious issues and undervolting will not solve them. Just trying to make that distinction more clear

I don’t mean to argue, but I feel like you’re making a distinction without a difference. If you reduce the voltage that the CPU gets from stock you’re effectively undervolting. Also overclocking is completely separate thing from undervolting.
 

What I recommend people do is a negative voltage offset from the stock voltage the motherboard supplies. From my perspective, you’re saying that’s not “undervolting” since the motherboards all pretty much run the CPU’s at higher voltages than intel’s spec. From my perspective, if no one follows intel’s spec, then the spec is meaningless. 

[LIGISTX]

47 minutes ago, Sorenson said:

I don’t mean to argue, but I feel like you’re making a distinction without a difference. If you reduce the voltage that the CPU gets from stock you’re effectively undervolting. Also overclocking is completely separate thing from undervolting.
 

What I recommend people do is a negative voltage offset from the stock voltage the motherboard supplies. From my perspective, you’re saying that’s not “undervolting” since the motherboards all pretty much run the CPU’s at higher voltages than intel’s spec. From my perspective, if no one follows intel’s spec, then the spec is meaningless. 

The way you describe it I do agree with in this quote. They are totally separate. But, there is really no reason to do this on a stock CPU in a desktop; your induce a potential instability for no reason. Also, I definitely wouldn't say most mobo's provide incorrect volts, they provide the volts the CPU is asking. Can *most* CPU's run on less voltage, yes, the voltage they run at is sufficient for all chips, and when you design a spec to cover 100% of samples, your going to way overshoot most. But, that doesn't mean its wrong, thats what Intel defined as the spec, why mess with that.

 

Anyways, the reason I responded was due to:

6 hours ago, Sorenson said:

undercoating, especially on intel, can allow you to run higher clock speeds at lower temperature with limited cooling. I was able to run a 9700k at 4.8ghz all core with just a cheap corsair 120mm AIO with reasonable temps thanks to undervaluing. With ryzen 3000 it’s more hit or miss since the chips push themselves so far. 

"can allow you to run higher clock speeds at lower temperature", that is overclocking, and that is not undervolting. I was merely trying to separate the two concepts. 

[Sorenson]

1 hour ago, LIGISTX said:

Anyways, the reason I responded was due to:

"can allow you to run higher clock speeds at lower temperature", that is overclocking, and that is not undervolting. I was merely trying to separate the two concepts. 

Ahhh I see, I was overly generalizing. My use case is a little different since I build SFF PCs and undervolting  is required in some builds to get the max performance when thermal headroom is limited