Hi guys
In almost all the threads I read about the 15R3 and 17R4, regardless of CPU, I hear people suggesting to undervolt by .100 to .150 using XTU. The end result is people posting reduced temps across the board and what seems like higher sustained clock frequencies. My question is as follows:
Are there any cons? (I don't understand why Intel/Dell/AW wouldn't just set it this way from the factory...)
Are there any other pros than the ones mentioned above?
After 2 exchanges, my 3rd unit arrived with awesome temps (not much variation and maxing out in the high 70's rarely). I've got some minor light bleed, but seem to have ended up with a brighter, whiter panel with slightly better colours (both Sharp 4K's but one being produced nearly a year later than the other).
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The only con I can think of with an UV, is if you go too far the system will be less stable. You will get weird crashes doing certain tasks while it may run for days doing others.
As long as you don't go too far, there are no downsides. It's better for the CPU, less heat, more speed for you. It's basically that last fine tuning you are doing for Intel, as every chip is different and they run them all at a higher voltage to insure they all will run out of the box. It takes time and any mass manufacturer won't want to spend that time to fine tune it, which is why we have to.Last edited: Dec 19, 2016Vasudev, hmscott, MogRules and 1 other person like this. -
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Dell and all brands dont make undervolt at stock because each cpu is different ... if you want to know more search on google : silicon lottery hahahahahahah
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Actually I undervolted my 13R3 by -180, and it seems that was enough to avoid repasting. I've got to admit undervolt is awesome.
Cons are just crashes, so you've got to test how far you can go before getting BSODs. -
Fair enough but I'd say that another con is you can't overclock vs a properly repasted CPU which can then run at a higher voltage no?
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Too much UV is also a problem, you lose the performance for which you've paid. I would benchmark using XTU and if the difference in scores in <5 points, then you've a good UV with less performance hit.
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undervolt will improve score because it gives a bigger headroom for the turbo boost to do work when the cpu is heavily loadedSimplyJ3sse and Vasudev like this. -
Undervolting will in many cases increase performance, not reduce it. Reason: Lower temp allows cpu to maintain turbospeed at higher load. Many NBs has shared heatpipes between cpu and gpu, so UV on cpu reduces temp and hence increases tubo-output on gpu aswell I actually managed to undervolt my 6700HQ to -185 stable, and that did something dramatic with cpu-temps and a slight difference on gpu-temp. Only downside is BSOD, at -186 I got them now and then, at -185 I never get them, atleast none som far after 1 month
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I lost 10-20 points in XTU after UV'ing to -180mV that's why I chose -30mV(AC) and -75mV (battery mode) and also defaults when running benchmarks.
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So do you use the Bios overclocking page to undervolt or do you use XTU. And if not, can you use the Bios to set the performance settings?
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Also, are you guys overclocking the i7-6820HKup to 4.1 Ghz? -
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I am getting too many bugs with bios overclocking - just use throttlestop instead for o/c and xtu to unlock the power limit
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Ok but do the updated processor settings activate on powerup or once windows loads if I used Throttlestop or XTU?
Also, do the softwares have to run in the background?
And finally which is better? Throttlestop or XTU?
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xtu is only used to set power limit, everything else is done through ts -
I'm not a gamer, so I thought my -180mV undervolt was fine when it could run OCCT for five minutes at stable temps. I started a CCleaner run while compiling in Unity and doing Chrome stuff. Fifteen minutes later, I clicked on Chrome in the taskbar, a popup told me "reference not found," and the computer restarted to a black screen, meaning the OS was corrupted (I don't think CCleaner would have corrupted my computer if I hadn't undervolted because I'd been using CCleaner weekly for quite a few months). This incident happened near school final project deadlines, so I would have been completely screwed if not for a spare flash drive with Ubuntu which I used to pull personal files off of the corrupt partition and redownload Windows.
A couple weeks later, I tried undervolting 180mV again and decided to run OCCT until it crashed. It crashed after about fifteen minutes.
The takeaway from this is that although an undervolt crash normally won't corrupt your OS, I still recommend not to skimp out on your stability testing to avoid the potential of getting screwed in the future.Pete Light likes this.
Undervolting - Pros & Cons
Discussion in '2015+ Alienware 13 / 15 / 17' started by Colonel Panic, Dec 19, 2016.