Now that I am done overclocking...

[The Sauce]

...and am basking in the afterglow (literally) of a successful overclock and settling in on my final settings, it occurred to me that I should maybe start thinking about turning back on some of the power-saving features I turned off when I embarked. I have no idea which of these are important and which I should give priority to turning back on. Since I plan to do this one at a time, testing after each one, it would be good to know which are the more important ones that I should start with. I claim complete ignorance. Someone guide me please.

 

[Kenmitch]

I do it the other way myself. Whats the highest stable overclock I can get with them on.

Not all chips like the features tho I guess but sometimes you get lucky

Q9550 @4.02ghz
E5200 @4.16ghz

2 of my lucky ones....But then again it's 1/1 on the quad and 1/2 on the e5200

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Enable Speedstep and if you have Vista go to Control panel > Power Options > .. and try the Power Saver plan to bring your clock speed down.

When I game, I set it to 'High Performance' and my chip goes from 1.6Ghz to 2.8Ghz (turbo enabled)

Other options may be:

Enhanced Halt State
CPU Thermal Throttling - will downclock if chip gets too hot
Speed step - will lower the multi

 

[MrK6]

Be careful, overclocks that are stable with the power saving features off sometimes won't be stable with them on. If you wanted them on in the first place, you should find your maximum overclock with them on.

 

[soccerballtux]

Be careful, overclocks that are stable with the power saving features off sometimes won't be stable with them on. If you wanted them on in the first place, you should find your maximum overclock with them on.

I've NEVER seen this play itself out in real life. For what it's worth.

 

[MrK6]

I've NEVER seen this play itself out in real life. For what it's worth.

Grab an i5 750 and have fun.

 

[Cattykit]

Good idea and that's what I did.

After finding out my i7 860 can do 3.7ghz with 1.30v, I turned on every power saving features: EIST, C1E, C6, and offset vCore.
Out of all, offset Vcore is the one I favor the most. With it, while I'm doing non-cpu intensive stuff like web-browsing, my cpu runs at 1.7ghz @ 1.06v.
So, in short, it's like having smart turbo mode on. There's just no point of having CPU running at full speed while you're doing something minor as web browing.

 

[toyota]

I dont see the point in power saving features for a high performance desktop. with my cpu at idling 2.0 it only uses about 8 watts less and the temp is only 1C lower then having it idling at 3.8.

 

[MrK6]

I dont see the point in power saving features for a high performance desktop. with my cpu at idling 2.0 it only uses about 8 watts less and the temp is only 1C lower then having it idling at 3.8.

Power consumption scales linearly with frequency, buy quadratically with voltage. You'll see the most power saving also reducing voltage to the chip, not just frequency. That said, the savings are much more extensive on newer chips as they have much more aggressive power saving modes. For example, my computer idles at 123W right now. If I lower my overclock enough to enable all the power saving features of the chip (so that core speed, voltage, and activity are all reduced when not in use), I can get the whole system's power consumption down to 77W at idle, which is substantial. Unfortunately, if I were to enable these features at 4.0GHz, I need more voltage (closer to 1.4V) to stabilize the overclock, which is counterproductive. Hence, my earlier warning.