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Undervolting Snakeoil Works

megatronium

Active Member
I ran this experiment using my SP3 by accident. I was using Handbrake to convert a .mkv file to .mp4 which uses 100% of the CPU. I was admiring how my SP3 was outperforming my i5 desktop workstation. The SP3 was encoding 10fps better than the desktop. Then the throttling kicked in which started dropping the fps and CPU frequency. I realized I didn't have XTU running. I opened XTU and loaded a profile that offsets the voltage by -52.something. Immediately the fps and processor frequency increased. 17 minutes in and it's still outperforming the desktop. Not that I really care about throttling enough to run this test - I'm just making my mom a dvd and wanted to speed up the process. :) It worked. YMMV.
 
I ran this experiment using my SP3 by accident. I was using Handbrake to convert a .mkv file to .mp4 which uses 100% of the CPU. I was admiring how my SP3 was outperforming my i5 desktop workstation. The SP3 was encoding 10fps better than the desktop. Then the throttling kicked in which started dropping the fps and CPU frequency. I realized I didn't have XTU running. I opened XTU and loaded a profile that offsets the voltage by -52.something. Immediately the fps and processor frequency increased. 17 minutes in and it's still outperforming the desktop. Not that I really care about throttling enough to run this test - I'm just making my mom a dvd and wanted to speed up the process. :) It worked. YMMV.
Could you post a screenshot of XTU configuration?
 
I ran this experiment using my SP3 by accident. I was using Handbrake to convert a .mkv file to .mp4 which uses 100% of the CPU. I was admiring how my SP3 was outperforming my i5 desktop workstation. The SP3 was encoding 10fps better than the desktop. Then the throttling kicked in which started dropping the fps and CPU frequency. I realized I didn't have XTU running. I opened XTU and loaded a profile that offsets the voltage by -52.something. Immediately the fps and processor frequency increased. 17 minutes in and it's still outperforming the desktop. Not that I really care about throttling enough to run this test - I'm just making my mom a dvd and wanted to speed up the process. :) It worked. YMMV.
Better than that, I think that XTU can export profiles. May be your can upload the profile here or in OneDrive for anyone to use it.
 
I think I tried -20mv or -30mv and my system rebooted unexpectedly about two hours later. YMMV
 
BTW, you can pair a profile to an App.

App-Profile Pairing
Feature Description
App-Profile Pairing lets you tune your system automatically based on which application you are using. This is accomplished by pairing any application on your system to a profile you define in the Intel ® Extreme Tuning Utility (Intel ® XTU). When that application is running, Intel ® XTU will automatically apply that profile to that application using the App-Profile Pairing feature.
 
Picture attached. Won't let me upload profile.
 

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Excuse me but I'm not familiar with XTU. Is -55 higher than your setting?
Yes, its a greater negative value.
Undervolting is decreasing the voltage to the CPU or other component depending on the setting used. so -55 millivolts is reducing the voltage by that amount. each individual processor will have a range within which it works and which it doesn't that varies.

I suspect when the system was idle it may have cut back on its own causing instability when combined with my setting. I'm not sure but it seems people may only enable this during a particular activity and not just leave it on all the time. To me, it's not worth it. .
 
Careful sharing. Every piece of silicon is slightly different. I can UV my Pro 2 by -65mv, the one at work, can easily go -85mv with no crashing but mine won't. UV the graphics is where I seem to get the biggest save. Find and test your number.
Do I NEED to do it on my Pro 2? no, but some of the work I do is cpu intensive and I can easily get it to throttle so every little bit helps.
 
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