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did you know that you can increase your CPU's speed while also decreasing the

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energy it uses this is a common tactic

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called undervolting that's used by people who want to squeeze the most

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performance out of their system including while overclocking but how the

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heck is that possible and is it even a good idea to give your expensive CPU

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less power to find out and to get a better

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understanding of how CPU voltages work in general we spoke with Dan Ragland

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who's been the PC overclocking lead over at Intel for over five years and we'd

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like to thank him and Ben Benson for their contributions to this video and

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don't worry what we discuss in this video is relevant regardless of whether

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you have a team blue CPU or if you're more of an AMD person so let's get right

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to it the common wisdom is that if you really start pushing your CPU's clock

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speeds you'll probably need to increase voltages not decrease it but increasing

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the voltage carries some risks like you probably

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already know that it can increase your processor's temperature and shorten its

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lifespan but excessive voltages can also do this on their own even if you could

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somehow magically keep your CPU Cooler Than a popsicle you see both Intel and

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AMD processors have a reliability curve for their chips meaning there's a

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certain lifespan that they're expected to have at stock voltages and once you

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start raising that voltage you can start to expect a decrease in the lifespan

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exponentially a few tenths of a volt can cut years off of your CPU's life

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if you're constantly running at that higher voltage and another few tenths

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can reduce it down to Mere weeks or even days the exact curves themselves are

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trade secrets so they're generally not available to the public but given what

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we just said it's clearly better not to run your CPU at high voltages for too

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long hence the interest in undervalding which will save power and as put you as

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far on the safe side of the curve as you can be but how do you even do this

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properly well first you should figure out how much voltage your CPU is

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actually using right now under load at stock voltage settings download the free

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CPU-z utility open it up and run a program like cinebench or blender find

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the highest voltage value next to your cores on CPU-z and make a note of it

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afterwards head into your BIOS and find your CPU's core voltage and look for a

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setting labeled offset try moving that downwards make sure that you're using a

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negative offset in increments of 5 or 10 millivolts at a time

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save restart your PC and run your stress tests for a while to make sure your

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undervolt is stable at the frequency you're using if it is you can try to go

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lower and lower until you find that sweet spot where it's just basically

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about to get down to that crash point but you know maybe a notch or two above

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for maximum performance with minimal power and Heat

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oh it's cool but

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if you can get away with undervolting why do people set their voltages higher

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in the first place and how do they do it safely we'll tell you right after we

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really trying to push your clock speeds High you still might have to overvolt

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instead of undervolt and some users pushing for Max clocks also give their

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CPUs A Little More Voltage still just in case they hit a heavier workload than

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they expected as a general rule staying safe means you probably won't want to

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push your offset up by more than one tenth of a volt over what your stock

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value was from CPU-z and even then you might still be shortening your

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processor's lifespan if you're putting a load on it frequently of course using an

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offset or using adaptive mode will only push your CPU up to that maximum voltage

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anytime you enter a load however make sure you stay away from the override

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setting unless you know what you're doing because that will run your CPU at

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whatever voltage you set all the time that's there for folks who are into

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competitive overclocking or chasing some kind of Records so uh yeah probably

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don't use that for daily driving unless you really don't care what happens to

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your processor or the rest of your system oh and if you're curious adaptive mode

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is just an alternative to offset that allows you to define a new maximum boost

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frequency to go with your voltage Target but uh speaking of the rest of your

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system what about all those other voltage settings you see like vccsa or pmic

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those actually affect your memory and if you have an auto memory overclocking

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scheme like XMP or Expo turned on you

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really don't need to touch these this XMP and similar features optimize these

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voltages for you automatically now I know that you're watching this video

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because you love fiddling with the dials but sometimes

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that can be a really bad idea just try it in flight simulator if you don't

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believe me thanks for watching guys uh like dislike

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