is undervolting dangerous?

[plonk420]

this is part "help win an internet argument" but part curiosity as i undervolt, myself. i ASSume not.

the context was a Vega GPU. as for me, i ran a Ryzen APU -0.1v at 100% (no overclocking) since April mainly to save on heat til i got my ubercooler, but saving power was a good side effect, also.

my only negative (sorta?) experience was on a G3258 on a crap board that i was able to undervolt by 0.09v because i had Intel's also crap cooler. after a while (but also after some OCing experimentation), i had stability issues unless i raised the voltage to stock or near stock voltages (at stock speeds). but this could also be board to blame, too.

do any of you undervolt? if so, ever suspected a failure was due to that rather than general component wear and tear?

 

[StefanR5R]

I for one don't undervolt. The largest part of my CPU hosts have server-grade CPUs, RAM, and mainboard (and partially disks), and I really like their high dependability and efficiency. For cost reasons, my GPU hosts are merely consumer grade (with reference-design GPUs which are watercooled and at stock BIOS and settings).

If I had modern AMD GPUs (I don't), I would probably have looked into undervolting them by now. From what I heard, there are considerable efficiency gains to be expected from undervolting.

I am not an electrical engineer. From my layman's perspective, I cannot see how undervolting by itself could cause components to degrade quicker than at stock voltage.

However: The CPU or GPU running cooler may cause fans being run slower, which in turn may be detrimental to the cooling (and thus longevity) of other components.

(In all of my DC computers I took care that there is good case ventilation, and in several of these I added some smaller fans which directly blow onto the mainboard, e.g. onto the borderline useless metal lumps that mainboard designers prop onto the VRM sections. I did this especially in all of my watercooled PCs, as they have no fans on CPU and GPUs.)

And another thought: If you need to run an undervolted CPU or GPU error-free, you need above average power delivery stability. As components degrade over time even if normally cooled, power delivery may have been sufficient initially but not from some point in time anymore, forcing you back to stock voltage to avoid computational errors.

Again, this is only my speculation; I am not professionally educated in this field.

 

[ao_ika_red]

It's almost a year since I undervolted my RX560 and nothing bad happens ever since. The good thing is, I can run most of GPU apps @1300MHz with less than 50% of fan and less than 65°C (it depends on ambient temperature).

 

[Assimilator1]

Hey ao_ika
I've got an RX 580 now (retired the HD 7970 ~1mth ago), will I be able to under-volt that significantly? If so, know a good guide/article on it?

plonk420
Again, I'm not an electrical engineer (had wanted to be at school!), but if anything, lowering voltage will increase component life, due to less electromigration. This is assuming that similar temperatures are maintained.
Obviously you would need to do stability testing with any non default voltage (etc) setting to ensure no data errors from too low a voltage.

 

[ao_ika_red]

Hey ao_ika
I've got an RX 580 now (retired the HD 7970 ~1mth ago), will I be able to under-volt that significantly? If so, know a good guide/article on it?

Yes, it has better process than 480 so you have better chance of undervolting it. But I don't think Big Polaris can be undervolter under 1000mV to reach 1300 MHz. Some members here have better shot at 1050mV.
Here's the thread:
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/rx-series-undervolt-how-much-have-you-undervolted-it.2541872/
edit: added picture
Here's my 560's Wattman voltage profile.

 

[Assimilator1]

Ok thanks 🙂.
Btw the 580 is on the same 14nm process as the 480, but being later on I guess it's more mature, maybe that's what you meant by 'better' 😉

 

[ao_ika_red]

Exactly. IIRC, 5xx Polaris are on 14LPP+ and all original 4xx Polaris are on 14LPP. Only 590 has 12LP taste on it.

 

[Assimilator1]

Ta 🙂

plonk 420
To you're original question, from AMDs website regarding overclocking & warranty

1 Overclocking any AMD processor, including without limitation, altering clock frequencies / multipliers or memory timing / voltage, to operate beyond their stock specifications will void any applicable AMD product warranty, even when such overclocking is enabled via AMD hardware and/or software.

Quote from here https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/dh-020

So as long as you don't go below stock voltages (not likely seeing as that would include the lowest working state at the least!), theirs no warranty issue & therefore no harm is being caused by it.

 

[IEC]

Not dangerous at all. Even when overclocking I try to undervolt whenever possible.

I've undervolted for years going back to at least the Radeon 7950 days with no issue. Less power consumption (and therefore, less waste heat) is great when you've got many PCs with many GPUs.