If you’re looking to squeeze that last little bit of life out of a laptop or just reduce the strain on your desktop, undervolting the CPU could be the solution.
Those interested in computer modification may have heard the term « undervolting » thrown around from time to time, though you may not necessarily know what it means or how to go about doing it. Undervolting is when you deliberately lower the voltage of the electrical current that your computer’s processors receive from the power supply via the motherboard. It’s easy to see why something like this might intimidate some people, but it’s actually pretty easy and fairly safe if you know what you’re doing.
You can undervolt your computer’s GPU if you’re encountering overheating and visual glitches, freezing, or crashes when you’re using graphics-intensive software like video games, video editing programs, machine learning programs, or 3D modeling software. But there are a few reasons why you might want to undervolt your CPU as well.
To be clear, there is a small amount of risk that you might make your PC unstable, which could lead your system to freeze, crash, or show you what is known as the Blue Screen of Death if you undervolt your CPU too much all at once. That said, there are several different benefits to undervolting that can improve your performance and prolong the life of your computer -– particularly when it comes to laptops. Undervolt Intel CPUs with ThrottleStop
Most of the people who are going to want to undervolt their CPUs are Intel users. This is because AMD CPUs are already much more energy-efficient and rarely benefit as much from the process. One of the more popular applications for undervolting Intel CPUs is ThrottleStop. a program made by TechPowerUp. It was primarily designed to measure CPU throttling in laptops, but it can also be used to undervolt your CPU. Here’s how:
Congratulations, your CPU is now undervolted. You may wish to stress test it by running a CPU benchmark like the one offered in the CPU-Z software in order to verify that your PC isn’t experiencing any issues. Assuming it’s stable, you can try repeating the steps to undervolt your PC further. If not, simply revert the settings in ThrottleStop back to their previous values.Undervolt AMD CPUs with Ryzen Master
While it’s true that most AMD users won’t need to undervolt their CPUs, there are some who may wish to. ThrottleStop can be used to undervolt these CPUs as well, but AMD users would be much better off sticking with first-party software.
