Does Manually Setting CPU Voltage Eliminate Benefit of Speedstep?

[IamMark]

If I manually configure my cpu voltage to a fixed number instead of leaving it on auto, does that essentially remove the benefit(s) of Speedstep? Specifically, since you're locking in the voltage, doesn't heat output and power consumption remain the same even if Speedstep lowers the speed of your processor?

 

[jitpublisher]

I do not think you can manually set the voltage until you disable speed step. (At least on most boards)

 

[cjl]

Actually, it does still lower the power consumption (though not by as much). All boards that I've used have allowed you to keep speedstep on when manually configuring voltage.

 

[IamMark]

I tried two different settingson my i7 920 by using Power Management . One settting allowed Speedstep to slow my processor down to 1.8Ghz. The other setting involved disabling any power management and caused the CPU to run at it's full speed of 3Ghz. With my Vcore manually configured, I noticed no difference in temperatures between the two settings. I'm not sure how to measure power consumption, so I'm not sure if that was affected or not.

Based on my limited testing, it would seem that Speedstep's benefits are negated by a manual configuration of Vcore.