Your undervolt?

[munkle]

So I was just messing around to see how fast I could get my x4 955 to go on the lowest voltage in the bios. So far 2.4ghz at 1.1v is the best I can do. I was going to use this as a media center pc in the future so that's why I was messing around. What about you all?

 

[Tsumi]

I can get my Phenom II 1090T to run at 3.6 ghz on all 6 cores at 1.3 v (which is a slight undervolt). Not sure about extreme undervolts though.

 

[repoman0]

I can get my Phenom II 1090T to run at 3.6 ghz on all 6 cores at 1.3 v (which is a slight undervolt). Not sure about extreme undervolts though.

This is exactly what my PII 955 runs at. Also 1.6GHz at 0.85V when idle.

I think it goes ~2.5Ghz with just a bit above 1V, and 800MHz with like 0.7

 

[venm11]

Seems like the goal is to reduce total wattage. I'd think this would vary linearly with clock speed, but there is a minimum voltage that the chip needs to run reliably. To go any lower, you'd need a binned low-power part (and those conversely don't run at high speeds).

I've also found that limiting the CPU % in the OS is an easy and effective way to quiet it down, since the fans are regulated by temperature and get more erratic as the peak wattage increases.

 

[Wylee]

why undervolt a quad? it seems like undervolting a dual would make more sense if you're trying to cut power consumption?

did you just have this lying around?

 

[munkle]

why undervolt a quad? it seems like undervolting a dual would make more sense if you're trying to cut power consumption?

did you just have this lying around?

No it's my current pc, that will be come my htpc in a couple months.

 

[venm11]

why undervolt a quad? it seems like undervolting a dual would make more sense if you're trying to cut power consumption?

did you just have this lying around?

Actually, that's a good point. A quad core cpu is probably going to have a much higher minimum wattage.

 

[BigYoSpeck]

At stock 3.4ghz it's happy down to 1.2v. I put it a notch higher just to play safe.

 

[Wylee]

that processor's much more power than is needed for an HTPC, and will just crank up the heat/wattage of the overall machine.

I'm just sayin'.

it's good to know that it can volt that low at stock clock though. I've got that in my gaming rig and I'm looking for ways to cut power consumption when I'm not gaming.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

I can get my Phenom II 1090T to run at 3.6 ghz on all 6 cores at 1.3 v (which is a slight undervolt). Not sure about extreme undervolts though.

thats not really an undervolt, thats just an undervolt of the bios default voltage. the real voltage for the 1090T is 1.27-1.28v.

So I was just messing around to see how fast I could get my x4 955 to go on the lowest voltage in the bios. So far 2.4ghz at 1.1v is the best I can do. I was going to use this as a media center pc in the future so that's why I was messing around. What about you all?

if you have an AM3 board or am2+, i'd say sell the processor while you still can, get a single core sempron AM3 processor or get a athlon II 240(undervolt it). if your board has onboard video use that or get your hands on a cheap GT 240 or low end radeon 5k series which both have pass through audio. that alone will save you more money on electricity then undervolting the 965 as low as it will go.

 

[munkle]

if you have an AM3 board or am2+, i'd say sell the processor while you still can, get a single core sempron AM3 processor or get a athlon II 240(undervolt it). if your board has onboard video use that or get your hands on a cheap GT 240 or low end radeon 5k series which both have pass through audio. that alone will save you more money on electricity then undervolting the 965 as low as it will go.

If I had a microcenter I would just sell the mobo and cpu and get a i3 2100/combo. But it really isn't worth the hassle for me right now to sell just the cpu since I will be using this as my main till I build a new pc and I don't want to use a athlon for that long (I'm waiting at least until bulldozer comes out).