Undervolting an ivy bridge

Cheetah Designs · 2 Apr 2012 at 10:31

I need to keep the heat to a bare minimum and I have been told to look into undervolting the CPU.

I take it that it has the same effects as overvolting and causes the same sort of damage if done wrong?

Does it actually work at reducing the heat?

paradigm · 2 Apr 2012 at 10:41

Undervolting won't cause damage, but it might cause instability. Worst case scenario is failure to boot.

Much like increasing clockspeed without increasing voltage.

Tealc · 2 Apr 2012 at 11:04

Cheetah Designs said:
Does it actually work at reducing the heat?

Dropping the voltage will make a difference to both temperatures and also power draw.

For example: If you have 1.2 Volts and 60 Amps current you have a sum energy of 72 watts to dissipate. If you drop it down to 1.0 Volts and it still draws 60 Amps current you will now only have 60 Watts to dissipate.

It won't be as simple as above as CPUs obviously use energy to operate as well as just dump it as heat but the illustration is good enough.

Just like overclocking there will be a limit on how low you can go but you will find that underclocking as well as undervolting will allow you to go even lower.

Why do you need less heat?

Cheetah Designs · 2 Apr 2012 at 12:30

Essentially, I want the same speed but with a lower voltage. I assume the process is that I simply lower the voltage and prime test it to see if its stable. What increment would be a great place to start lowering at? 0.05V? or 0.1V? or more/less?

Tealc said:
Why do you need less heat?

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18388998

Tealc · 2 Apr 2012 at 13:45

I think you might struggle getting a cooler quite as small as that. After a quick search even the old intel stock cooler is already 50mm high.

Low profile coolers aren't something I've looked at though so maybe there are ideas in the small form factor section.