How to reduce computer's HEAT LEVELS and POWER CONSUMPTION by under volting / voltage

[Sethioz]

There's a really good trick called "under volting" that can significantly reduce heat levels / temperatures and power consumption.
for example my CPU used to go to be between 60-70c with hot weather and while under load and i'm using liquid cooling.
but after proper undervolting, i rarely see it hit 55c even with hot weather and while under load. so as you can see, it can significantly reduce heat levels, while not affecting performance. Same thing can be done to RAM and GPU.

How to under-volt your hardware
while some systems allow you doing it while system is running, like those gaming motherboards that have special usb connector so you can tweak BIOS settings directly from other computer while main PC is on, in most cases you have to reboot into BIOS and set them there.

best way of finding the "sweet spot", is by lowering voltage by a good 10% and see if PC boots. keep lowering voltage til PC no longer boots (gives overclock error). don't worry, all motherboards are made in way that you can't brick them with wrong settings, they will revert back if system fails to boot even into BIOS.
once you find the spot where it boots, then i suggest raise the voltage just slightly from that point, maybe by 1-2% and leave it there.
stress test the component you was under-volting, let's say you did that to CPU, then stress test it with something like AIDA64 or some free stress test tool. 5 minutes is more than enough, if it won't crash after 5 mins, it's good to go.

you will notice significant temperature drops and most likely power consumption will be slightly lower aswell, while performance won't be affected.
if you start experiencing random crashes, even tho stress test worked fine, then most likely voltage is too low, just crank it up by "one step" and try again.

it requires lot of testing and patience, but it's worth it. you can do same for RAM and GPU.
for GPU, you don't have to go into BIOS, you can do that directly via MSI afterburner or some manufacturer tool.
it's risky, but if you find good settings, you can use special tool to permanently add those changes into your GPU firmware, but as i said, it's risky. if it fails to boot, then your GPU will most likely be bricked.
you might be able to un-brick it by having 2 graphics cards, booting via one and then using that same tool to undo whatever you did, so it's best if you use software only to under-volt your GPU, in case of errors, it will revert back.



Benefits of under-volting
+ significantly lower temperatures
+ lower power consumption
+ lower wear and tear (hardware lasts longer)

when done right, there are no downsides.
you might think/ask "WHY isn't gaming hardware pre-adjusted already?" reason is simple, because micro-processors are extremely tiny and therefore unstable, they're not all same.
for example you can fit MILLIONS of CPU's circuits on size of tip of a needle! that's right, MILLIONS! this is how tiny micro-processors are.
intel CPU's aren't purposly made slower, like i3 i5 and i7 for example, it's because of defects. since those circuits are so tiny and they are printed onto light sensitive material by using light, even a tiny dust particle can cause damage to circuitry. they make all CPUs as higher level, but during the process, some circuits just fail and then those CPUs will be marked as i3 or i5 instead of something higher.

this means, every piece of hardware that uses micro-processors, is different on sub-atomic levels, which is why they can't always operate at lower / higher voltages, some CPUs overclock really well, while some don't overclock at all or might even have issues at default clock levels.
same goes for under voltage, some CPUs might be very stable and run smooth, while some CPUs might not.

this is why factory sets a default value where processors will work flawlessly. they would have to optimize each CPU individually in order to find the "sweet spot", which is why they're not doing it.

that's also why using default options is rather bad idea and why you should always optimize your system. if you care about heat levels, power consumption and wear/tear, then you should definently under-volt your hardware. it doesn't even have to be on lowest level, you can leave it somewhere between minimum and default, it's still worth it.