CPU Performance/Power Trade-offs
CPU Performance/Power Trade-offs
Hey everyone, around the year’s start with all those new CPUs hitting the market, they’re really power-hungry. I was looking for solid info on undervolting and limiting power to see how it would impact performance across different models. Sadly, I didn’t find a comprehensive database. So I put together some data from what I could gather and created a small site that lets you compare various CPU models at different power settings or price points interactively. I know the information is now a bit old—missing some recent releases like Intel 13th gen and certain Ryzen models—but it’s more of a prototype I’d like to share. Hope someone finds it useful, or at least interesting! Check it out here: https://cpupowerscaling.info. If you have the hardware and want to help update it, let me know—I’m open to adding your data. Feel free to reach out if you’re interested. Cheers, lumip
What kind of processors are you interested in? You’ve got a solid i5-13600K with heavy overclocking, but it’s drawing a lot of power—about three times more than usual. It’s running well on Cinebench R23 at 23.5K–27K and between 110W and 325W. If that helps, I also used an MSI Z690 PRO-A.
Unless you're running a mini-ITX or similar setup with heat limits, undervolting and its related stability challenges aren't worth your effort. In most cases, CPUs rarely hit full capacity during normal tasks, and most of the energy is used when idle—making it largely irrelevant. For peak performance, it still works efficiently, so power savings are noticeable compared to older lighting solutions.
@Mister Woof and @OddOod provided helpful guidance and warnings. I probably won’t wait much longer before my next build and will choose a more reliable option, so this is mainly out of curiosity at the moment. @Bob__, thanks for sending over the data. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to link Cinebench scores with the PassMark results yet, but I’ll try to do that later.