Underclocking?

I have a q6600 at 3.0 stock voltages and it occurred to me a few minutes ago that well, I don't need my cpu clocked that high, and infact maybe stock is "too high." I mean I only do 1 thing on my comp which is surf the internet (no games im interested to play right now) so its not like I need my cpu running very high. What I am most concerned about is power bill however. Although it isn't very high, there was a jump from when i wasn't at home (was at college, had comp there) and when I got back. That "jump" was not needed as I am not using my comp intensively anyway. However I do dl things so I leave my comp on all day.

What im asking is, if I lower my fsb and multiplier, will I lower pc power consumption (I already have it at lowest voltage)? More importantly, how low can I clock, if lowering clock does result in lower power consumption, so I have just enough power to use the internet? I'm not exactly worried about temps if that is a factor, i live in sf where the hottest it will be this week is 69 degrees including wind.

i underclocked my e2200 to 1.2ghz, i saw almost no performance hit in everyday tasks (web browsing etc)

go ahead if you want, i dont really see a need to go below stock. the energy you conserve by underclocking wont be substantial in my opinion

make sure you have speed step enabled too.

Speed step wont work while oc/uc'ing a chip.

But you can underclock just fine.

My Asus MB came with an interesting app called "six engine" which enables you to very simply overclock (a bit) and underclock your CPU. I set the extreme power saving mode down to 1.7GHz using a simple slider in the app. You can over do it and your system will blue screen if you arn't carefull.

known12345 said:

What im asking is, if I lower my fsb and multiplier, will I lower pc power consumption (I already have it at lowest voltage)? More importantly, how low can I clock, if lowering clock does result in lower power consumption, so I have just enough power to use the internet? I'm not exactly worried about temps if that is a factor, i live in sf where the hottest it will be this week is 69 degrees including wind.

Click to expand...

You can't make a blanket statement such as lowering the clock will result in less power consumption. This is becuase at a lower clock, the task will take longer to complete and thus the CPU will remain in a "non idle" state longer.

Ah hell, change your desk lamp to compact florescent and run your CPU full tilt. Net net its a wash!

I ran my Q6600 at 6x400 using 1.100v BIOS (Lowest possible) and it was stable.
Since the vcore couldn't possibly go any lower, there was no reason to lower the clock anymore. If you're interested in reducing heat or power consumption, you might just find the highest stable clock for your mobo's lowest vcore and run there. I'm not saying your quad will be stable at 2.4 ghz using 1.100v, but you get the idea.

No reason to run it at a lower clock speed if the vcore just stays the same...

Underclocking....

Please turn in your [H] card before leaving.

msabo said:

You can't make a blanket statement such as lowering the clock will result in less power consumption. This is becuase at a lower clock, the task will take longer to complete and thus the CPU will remain in a "non idle" state longer.

Ah hell, change your desk lamp to compact florescent and run your CPU full tilt. Net net its a wash!

Click to expand...

Not true, for the majority of the time a PC is on, it is in idle status. In addition, as the OP is using the PC for surfing and word processing work, those applications would not be impacted if he underclocked the CPU.

To the OP, before trying underclocking I'd would check to see if C1E or EIST is enabled in BIOS. If your OS supports them, your system will underclock automatically when your PC is running at idle.

I have the intel power saving malarky, so when I browse the internet, or play some very old games my Q6600 is at 1.6 GHz (multiplyer is at 6x). Then under load is goes back to 2.4GHz (9x multiplyer) - when I'm playing my games. Atleast I think thats how it works. I might be wrong.

Incidently, I got everything to prepare for an overclock, a DFI board, and Xigmatek S1283, but never really the need.

known12345 said:

I have a q6600 at 3.0 stock voltages and it occurred to me a few minutes ago that well, I don't need my cpu clocked that high, and infact maybe stock is "too high."

Click to expand...

I used to downclock my old 3800+ amd X2 to 400mhz (4x multiplier, 100mhz bus). To be honest, I really didnt notice anything... Sometimes I had even forgotten, and upon loading oblivion or HL2 "What the hell is taking so long... oh... *facepalm*..". It was enough to browse the internet without noticing, but anything with heavy flash animations would bring it to a crawl.

My Q9300 is downclocked to 2.05Ghz, much lower and my gigajunk motherboard locks up. So far, while playing oblivion, mafia or GTA san andreas, I havent noticed. The voltage is lowered a bit, ram is down to 500mhz, PCI-E bus is down to I think 90mhz, though I cant remember for sure. Everything downclocked, makes the overall system easier to cool with slow running fans. But when it comes time for video-encoding, underclocking be damned... raise the sails, batten down the ramsinks!

known12345 said:

I mean I only do 1 thing on my comp which is surf the internet (no games im interested to play right now) so its not like I need my cpu running very high. What I am most concerned about is power bill however. Although it isn't very high, there was a jump from when i wasn't at home (was at college, had comp there) and when I got back. That "jump" was not needed as I am not using my comp intensively anyway. However I do dl things so I leave my comp on all day.

Click to expand...

Before I put an 8600GT in my box, I was using an old PCI ATI Rage II+. One hard drive, one cdrom drive, 4GB ram, and the Q9300. Idle power consumption seemd to stay at about 60-65W, while underclocked/undervolted at 2.05Ghz. Stock speed, at 2.5Ghz, it really didnt change much, up to about 65-70W idling. I dont have exact numbers, but to me it was more of a "wow, what a complete waste of 5 minutes". Also keep in mind I cant underclock much, since by board wont let me, so im really not doing much of anything from stock setup.

Yup, I have C1E enabled in BIOS. This is what my day looks like. Wake up, surf the internet (mostly [H] forums and check up on daily world/science news) for about an hour, go to library for 5-8 hours (depending if going to gym later) or longer and study, go to the gym (about every other day), go home, surf the internet for an hour or two, read a few pages/chapters in my book, go to sleep and repeat.

The only reason why I have my comp on is because I am dling something and I simply leave my comp on for the dling. The most intensive level task ive used this entire summer is web surfing. This summer i'm mostly just reading up to be prepared for next college year and so not really using my comp. But since I have to keep my comp on, I want to minimize power consumption to lower power bill. Granted underclocking isn't a significant decrease in power usage but I mean compared to college where I had my q6600 at 3.0, sometimes 3.6 when playing crysis and power was free, any electric bill is a hit.

So I understand underclocking only results in probably a very minimal decrease in idle power usage but I mean hundreds of hours later (over a month) it does add up when the power bill comes up.

Thanks for all the tips/suggestions, it is well appreciated and helpful.