Undervolting Revisited

[joell85]

A few months ago there was a lot of talk about undervolting and the potential it had to reduce throttling. I was wondering if anyone here has been running an undervolted SP3 as their primary machine and if so how much of an increase in performance are you seeing?

 

[young blade]

I'm also interested in hearing people their results..

 

[kozak79]

Me too. The other day I saw this video and thought about undervolting again:

 

[GreyFox7]

Tagged.

 

[DaSchnee]

I would love to undervolt mine aswell but sadly with even the lightest undervolt my SP3 immediately crashes when it tries to enter (connected) standby...

 

[wertzius]

That has nothing to do with the undervolting, it is a failure of Intel XTU.

 

[kevinlevrone]

Undervolting is interesting as an experiment, but it generally means less stability and higher chance of data loss.

 

[goodintentions]

I used to do all sorts of experiments with my devices. In the end, my conclusion was just be happy with the official stuff.

 

[hughlle]

I long ago gave up on all this kind of stuff. Just tends to create more headaches than benefits a lot of the time. Now i just look at this kind of practice as well, just take it back and buy the device you actually need.

 

[Haldi]

That has nothing to do with the undervolting, it is a failure of Intel XTU.

Oh ? i'd love to hear more about that! Or just the practical testing from this thread? http://www.surfaceforums.net/thread...mance-by-20-reduce-heat-and-noise.9664/page-3

 

[TheJokker]

Like a snowflake all cpu's are slightly different. Some will run just fine at less voltage while others will need every bit of the rated voltage. Over-clockers like to increase the voltage and run the cpu at higher clock cycles for increased performance but need extra cooling as the higher voltages and clock speeds result in higher temperatures. Hence the need for massive heatsinks or watercooling solutions.

Undervolting should reduce heat "if" your cpu can handle running at less than rated voltage. Some cpu's will be able to run stably if you also underclock the cpu.

If the programs you are running are taxing the cpu enough to cause frequent throttling I would suggest modifying a laptop cooler to use with the Surface or find another device for those programs that has better cooling.