Undervolting my old AMD Phenom II 1090T...see NEXT thread instead
Undervolting my old AMD Phenom II 1090T...see NEXT thread instead
I removed the original content from this first message since I gained insights through testing undervolting on a Gigabyte motherboard's Award BIOS around 2012.
I will begin another discussion in the Hardware \ CPUs Forum, sharing my progress and asking more precise questions based on my growing but limited knowledge of undervolting.
It's unclear what exactly you aim to track. Temperature should not become an issue. For guidance, each CPU behaves slightly differently. You should test by adjusting CPU-related voltages one at a time. Most people concentrate on the CPU core voltage because that accounts for most of the power consumption.
Choose a consistent task for the CPU to perform while running at a reduced voltage—something like a Cinebench test. As you decrease the voltage, the CPU will consume less power and become more unstable. When this happens, increase the voltage back up to the last stable level under the conditions you’re testing (such as gaming). Continue running it for some time with your regular activities to check for crashes. If crashes occur, add another voltage increment and retest.
The most effective approach would be to upgrade to a newer model. Intel i3-12100 or Ryzen 5 5500 seem to offer the best performance per watt. The Ryzen 5 7600 appears to perform well, though it’s nearly three times more expensive when considering memory and motherboard costs. (The 5600X3D is also worth mentioning, but it’s limited to microcenter sizes.)