What other stability test should I use on an undervolted steam deck?

[kitnoman]

So I a bit late to the party as I've only saw the reviews yesterday. Apparently you can now do it, so I did yesterday. Was able to set -50mv and confirm that I'm able to play the following games without issues: FF7 remake, FF15, AC Odyssey, Hogwarts, God of War, Tekken7. I was able to game for a few hours each. Would that be good enough stability test? I have other games that could be demanding to a steam deck like rdr2, resident evil 7,2,3,4, AC Valhalla, witcher 3, spider-man. But I don't want to install them if I don't have too.

So far, I barely notice if there's any battery life improvements, since I always setup my games to run at 13-18w total power. Nor did I notice any performance lost. If anything, what I've notice is that it's running cooler, as even when disabling tdp limit, depending on games it stayed at 70-75c. Where it used to go as high as 85-90c before. Using my regular gpu power limit on AAA titles (9-12w) and not so demanding games (4-7w). Some barely are even below 50c and other only at around 60c. Do I consider this a win already or are there anymore testing I should do?

[BrandonLatzig]

im confused of the point of this
Can you please explain why you are doing this?

[it_dont_work]

22 hours ago, kitnoman said:

Do I consider this a win already or are there anymore testing I should do?

A few mv will save a little power hard to say, but if its not running as hot, and you're happy with the performance then I'd call it a win. For stability, if you find it isn't stable in a few games over the next few weeks, then the worsted thing that happens is you change the offset a little. 

 

pretty good for downside realistically 

[kitnoman]

4 hours ago, BrandonLatzig said:

im confused of the point of this
Can you please explain why you are doing this?

basically the same reason why you should undervolt a pc and laptops. So in general in default settings, for stability, power is deliver to the gpu and cpu higher than it needs to. More power means power heat and the more heat the faster the chip degrades. So why undervolt? to keep your cpu/gpu cooler and longevity. This would also affect other parts like your fans(pumps for AIO in pc), they won't ramp up higher and would last longer. If you add overclocking as well, you would be able to balance close to stock or even better performance at a lower temp, as cpu/gpu are designed to push themselves as long as theirs a thermal headroom. As each one is really different, you need to find the right offset for each device. Meaning you can just copy the settings down on the video you watched.

In steam deck's case, undervolting added a bit of battery life. I've yet to confirm this myself, but reading and watching reviews a mix of -30mv or -40mv offset, provides 14-30mins at the same settings per game. It also runs cooler now(so longevity), like even when playing ff7 remake, hogwarts, I only get 60-70c temps on settings that I normally 75-85c. For overclocking it though, I haven't tried it read, I'm still reading and watching the smokeless(the app you can use to overclock the steam deck).

But yes, even just in pc, I always recommend to undervolt and overclock(if possible). Specially with the 12/13/14th gen intel cpus.

[Agall]

On 12/30/2023 at 7:05 PM, kitnoman said:

basically the same reason why you should undervolt a pc and laptops. So in general in default settings, for stability, power is deliver to the gpu and cpu higher than it needs to. More power means power heat and the more heat the faster the chip degrades. So why undervolt? to keep your cpu/gpu cooler and longevity. This would also affect other parts like your fans(pumps for AIO in pc), they won't ramp up higher and would last longer. If you add overclocking as well, you would be able to balance close to stock or even better performance at a lower temp, as cpu/gpu are designed to push themselves as long as theirs a thermal headroom. As each one is really different, you need to find the right offset for each device. Meaning you can just copy the settings down on the video you watched.

In steam deck's case, undervolting added a bit of battery life. I've yet to confirm this myself, but reading and watching reviews a mix of -30mv or -40mv offset, provides 14-30mins at the same settings per game. It also runs cooler now(so longevity), like even when playing ff7 remake, hogwarts, I only get 60-70c temps on settings that I normally 75-85c. For overclocking it though, I haven't tried it read, I'm still reading and watching the smokeless(the app you can use to overclock the steam deck).

But yes, even just in pc, I always recommend to undervolt and overclock(if possible). Specially with the 12/13/14th gen intel cpus.

I just learned that you can do this native in the UEFI today. I've set mine to -10mV on all 3 to see if I get any stability issues and/or increases in framerate. Diablo 4 at its current settings can be rough to run, so that'll be my main test, since Warframe runs like butter all the time.

On 12/30/2023 at 2:18 PM, BrandonLatzig said:

im confused of the point of this
Can you please explain why you are doing this?

AMD SoC's are usually overvolted for reliability. I see as similar to how military service rifles will usually be overgassed for reliability, but could easy tune it down within reason that doesn't compromise on its reliability but can dramatically increase its 'performance' (in this case, a lower recoil impulse comparable to an increase in FPS).

 

Usually the boosting curve is 'overvolted' in a way to maintain reliable performance across various levels of silicon quality, undervolting is a way to maximize performance while mitigating power consumption, and indirectly tests the silicon lottery.

[Lunar River]

Just play your games. That will always be the best test.

 

[HenrySalayne]

On 12/30/2023 at 2:43 AM, kitnoman said:

Would that be good enough stability test? I have other games that could be demanding to a steam deck like rdr2, resident evil 7,2,3,4, AC Valhalla, witcher 3, spider-man. But I don't want to install them if I don't have too.

In my experience undervolting a CPU is rather hard to nail down. You generally will not have issues under full load but while idling or doing light tasks. Load changes are especially tricky and you might experience extremely sporadic crashes.

 

Since we are talking about gaming, I personally wouldn't mind a crash once a week. Just dial it down to a point where crashes are obvious and annoying. Then proceed to dial it up to an acceptable crash niveau or slightly higher just to be sure.