Question Advice on undervolting an Alder Lake/12th Gen CPU ?

[N1njaDestr0yer]

As the title suggests I am just curious on how to effectively undervolt an i7-12700k and i9-12900k, I know there are guides/Youtube videos but I feel like those are very out of date or not as "helpful" as I'd like, since I've never undervolted any CPU before. Also I am just conserned if I do "attempt" an undervolt that I would just fry the CPU itself... not good

 

[geofelt]

What would be your purpose by gimping performance by undervolting?

Do you have both I7-12700K as well as I9-12900K?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

As the title suggests I am just curious on how to effectively undervolt an i7-12700k and i9-12900k, I know there are guides/Youtube videos but I feel like those are very out of date or not as "helpful" as I'd like, since I've never undervolted any CPU before. Also I am just conserned if I do "attempt" an undervolt that I would just fry the CPU itself... not good

Hey there,

Some good questions. I would also ask why there is a need to undervolt? With that said, in general terms, and woth both Intel/AMD's current chips and last gen (12th Gen Intel/4th Gen Ryzen) an undervolt can help reduce vcore, and thus heat. Often as a result the CPU may be able to boost to higher clocks and for longer periods.

However, both Intel and AMD use algorithms that determines the best clockspeed, temps, voltage and adjust performance on the fly. So, undervolting or overclocking are nearly a moot point now. They extract every bit of max performance of the CPU, to give best performance depending on the load.

If you do want to trick around in the bios, the easiest way to undervolt is by setting a vcore offset. You do this in the bios, and simple choose the offset option, and choose maybe -0.025 drop in voltage. When you PC next boots, it will use that offset to underovlt the CPU. Then you need to test the results. I'd recommend Cinebench R23 and HWInfo to monitor it all. If it doesn't crash after you test it, and/or try some games, then you can reduce the vcore offset further, until it does crash. It's then all about finding a happy medium, between increased clockspeed, lower thermals. lower voltage and testing once again.

I think you get the idea?

 

[N1njaDestr0yer]

What would be your purpose by gimping performance by undervolting?

Do you have both I7-12700K as well as I9-12900K?

No, but plan on building both a 12900k (Main Rig) and 12700k (Backup Rig) since it would be nice to not be running "ancient" 2013 era & 2011/2012 hardware that really not good (In my opinon 4 cores + 8 threads? really) I've made previous posts about upgrading

Plus I've heard about how undervolting can increase FPS and overall life span of the CPU but I could be wrong