Viewing the actual CPU voltage

ssjaronx4 · 2 Feb 2008 at 13:40

Hi All,

What is the best way to see what your actual cupu voltage is running at? I know that with some mbs the voltage shown in the bios is different to what is shown in window but I'm looking at CPU-Z, and my Core Voltage is shown as 1.280v but in the bios its set to 1.4v is there usually such a big difference in voltage? Also, any way to see what the Mem voltage is in windows?

Pneumonic · 2 Feb 2008 at 14:59

basically that is correct.. you can enable voltage dampening or might be called load line callibration to reduce the vdrop/vdroop should you wish on that board..

more info can be found here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17825087

Jokester · 2 Feb 2008 at 15:01

CPU-Z is normally as good as it gets, but even it has some bugs that can lead to odd results. The only true method is to physically measure it with a voltmeter.

ssjaronx4 · 2 Feb 2008 at 15:20

Thanks for the repies guys. I actually already have the load line enabled and it still shows such a big gap.

WJA96 · 2 Feb 2008 at 21:30

As far as I know, the CPU voltage read by any of the programs comes from the CPU voltage monitoring chip on the motherboard. And that doesn't actually read out a voltage - it gives out a number between 0 and 256.

The software eg. CPUz then applies a factor depending on the motherboard and displays a theoretical voltage. eg. Say CPUz thinks the lowest voltage your motherboard chipset can do is 1.1V then 0 will be 1.1V and if it thinks the maximum voltage is 1.8V then 256 will be 1.8V, so each of the 256 steps on the voltage monitor will represent 0.0028v. Some programs do allow the user to adjust these figures so you can match up the windows with the BIOS settings eg. Speedfan.

What you are really interested in is the differential - if you start off at 1.25V and CPUz shows 1.15V, is CPUz showing 1.25V when you set the BIOS to 1.35V ie. does a increase in the BIOS voltage show up as the same size voltage in CPUz? If it does then the chip is reading fine, but the baseline is off. This is the situation in 99.9% of cases.

I use PC Wizard for voltage monitoring as you can force it to update in real-time which is brilliant for displaying vDroop.