Question Undervolting to Run Games Better?

[Mai72]

I play SkyrimSe with about 215 mods. I ave a few graphical mods which can put strain my cpu. I also have a gaming laptop (Acer Helios 3000) which is great, but runs very hot. So, I decided to undervolt using Intel Extreme Tuning Utility. I went as far back as -115volts and WOW. I was suprised to see such great performance. With everything cranked on high at 1920 I average anywhere from 50-60 FPS, and most importantly the game/laptop is stable. Hardly any crashing, and my laptop runs much much cooler. Using core temp my cpu temp is about 65-72C with the game running. Without it's about 47C.

Does anyone here undervolt?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Absolutely.

I've done it in circumstances like you're describing, with a game that is too often in "run as fast as possible" mode instead of "run at a reasonable framerate and back off" mode. (Kerbal Space Program and the HBS Battletech game do that a lot, particularly at loading screens. You'll have static graphics onscreen, but FRAPS is reporting 1000+ fps and your GPU sounds like it wants to take off into orbit.)

If you're CPU-limited, underclocking your GPU (the -115w setting probably refers to your GPU more than your CPU, or maybe both together) is going to give your CPU a lot more thermal headroom in an SFF system or gaming laptop. (Which have shared cooling systems, and tend to be thermally limited.)