Asus X550LN Core i5 4210u undervolt question

I gotta tell you I'm kind new to undervolt procedures. Heck I've just undervolt an old IBM Thinkpad X31 Pentium M 1.5 Ghz with RMClock these days xD

So yeah, I decided to use Intel XTU because it has a simpler interface and at first I was like wow what are all those options in ThrottleStop! But now, after reading a guide I'm inclined to use ThrottleStop, since I heard Intel XTU save changes to bios and is not as good as ThrottleStop.

Anyway, for CPU offset I used -100mv and tested it with Aida64 CPU test only (No FPU test) for an hour and I got no crash nor blue screen. I decided to use -80mv for a safety margin and tested some games... Tomb Raider (2013), Dying Light and Counter Strike Global Offensive. Ran each for about an hour or so. I've a Geforce 840M by the way. Everything went well!

Before undervolting it, the maximum temperature was 66ºC. Now it's 61º plus some performance improvement. Now I can run Tomb Raider in 1920x1080, before it could only achieve 1600x900. Also, the fan speed went down quite a lot, 4500 RPM to 3800 RPM.

My doubt is, I've seen you guys undervolting Cache and IGPU too, but I can't find any info about it for 4th generation processors, only for 6th and 7th gen. Is it safe to undervolt these values as well for this particular generation?

I ask this because I noticed something odd when I decided to use Processor offset -90mv, Cache offset -80mv and IGPU offset -50mv... My temps actually rose to 66º, I believe it happened because my computer is not limiting itself as it used to. Still, I found it weird.

Thank you! =D

 

Hard to do any scientific temperature testing on a laptop if the fan speed or performance is varying based on your voltage settings. Turning on the ThrottleStop Log File option will create a record of your CPU's performance. Go play a game while the log is rolling and then when you are done, you can see what speed and temperature your CPU was running at.

You can under volt whatever you like. If under volting something does not give you any benefit in terms of CPU speed or cooler temperatures, then there is no point in under volting. The CPU Core and Cache seem to be the most beneficial so most users concentrate on those two. The 4th Gen CPUs do not need to have the core and cache under volt set to the same value. Newer processors should set these two offset voltages equally. It sounds like you are on the right track.

 

Stay away from the iGPU as undervolting that is annoying and breaks more stuff than it fixes (artifacting, blackouts and glitches) even if you have a dGPU and a fairly recent laptop w/ Optimus the iGPU is always the graphics renderer while acting as a buffer. (It is buffer only on Optimus enabled notebooks only)

On Skylake 6gen and Kaby Lake 7th gen, the cache/core undervolt the exact same so try that.

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On 4th gen processors, I undervolt cache by the same value I undervolt the core voltage and never had any problems (or gains quite frankly).

 

@unclewebb I forgot to say, I monitored temps with Aida64 and HWMonitor, not at the same time of course (To confirm I have legit readings). Playing Dying Light and Counter Strike Global Offensive for more than 2 hours straight, I noticed a performance increase, I can use a higher resolution in game, but temperatures remained the same as before the undervolt procedure, 66ºC for the CPU and about 65~66ºC for the dedicated geforce 840M, they share the same heatsink. Cooler speed remained about the same in 3900RPM.

What this means? The processor is not throttling anymore so now it's able to mantain a higher clock speed which translates to a small performance increase and a small heat increase as a consequence?

Thank you for your help, it's a pleasure to meet the developer of ThrottleStop and GPU-Z! =D

@michealscott Thank you, after reading your comment I decided to use -25mv on the IGPU, since I noticed no temp drop with -50mv and honestly I don't want to experience glitches and such, better safe than sorry!

@MahmoudDewy What processor do you have? What values do you use? I decided to use -75mv processor offset, -65mv cache offset and -25mv on the IGPU. -100mv on the processor gave me no trouble in AIDA64 CPU test, ran it for an hour only, no game test. The limit is -110mv, it gave me a blue screen in Intel XTU test! xD

Thanks again everyone!

 

4710, 4810 and 4910 ... They were successfully undervolted by values ranging from -50mV to -100mV

 

@MahmoudDewy I see, did you undervolt IGPU and system agent?

I noticed no temperature drop by undervolting cpu, cache and igpu values, but performance increased!

 

I don't own machines that use any sort of switchable graphics ... I hate the concept.

To me Cache more or less does nothing but CPU undervolts definitely reduce temps. Check your voltages before and after and make sure the undervolts are actually applied.

As for the performance increase, this is ofc to be expected as with less voltage it is harder to hit the chip power consumption ceiling.

 

Thanks but I only wrote ThrottleStop. The W1zzard at TechPowerUp wrote GPU-Z. TechPowerUp just does me a favor and hosts ThrottleStop. That saves me some hassles and sends lots of people to their site looking for the good stuff.

The U series are low power CPUs. They are generally limited by power consumption. Under volting will allow the CPU to run faster but it will likely still be limited by the exact same 15 Watt TDP power limit. If power consumption is the same then it makes sense that your core temperatures are also going to be the same. There may be some slight differences because of a shared heat pipe but nothing major. Increased performance without an increase in temperatures sounds like a win win situation to me.