[heydabop]

> you often could get better performance UNDERCLOCKING

> often to the amount of 1% less performance

That doesn't sound like better performance to me. Better performance per watt maybe, but then if I'm buying an i9 chip I'm probably not chasing performance per watt.

[techrat]

You miss the whole issue with Intel's CPUs.

How much power they draw.

They hit thermal throttle quite often. Especially the high end chips where Intel is maximizing the clock to bin them as i9s.

1% overall decrease in performance to ensure a lower power draw overall to prevent reaching thermal throttling thresholds absolutely does equate to better performance.

[throaway46546]

I could be wrong, but I guess that would depend on how efficient your cooling is, no?

[techrat]

Intel has been misrepresenting the TDP requirements of their CPUs for some time.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/319402-intels-desktop-...

Something they list as 65W can draw over 200 Watts at full load.

Consider that even with the most high end CPUs, they include the copper slug stock coolers than can make even a 45W rated CPU thermal throttle.

> For most of the 2010s, Intel kept its typical desktop CPU power consumption at or below the CPU’s rated TDP, even at peak power draw. Once AMD launched Ryzen and Intel had to start adding more CPU cores to its desktop parts, that changed. The Core i9-10850K draws up to 265W but claims a 125W TDP. The Core i7-10700 claims 65W, but draws up to 214W under load, at motherboard defaults.

In effect, Intel is brute forcing performance by cranking the power draw way up in order to compensate for what AMD has been able to bring to the table. They're bulldozering their way out of this mess, basically. The end result is that Intel is already pushing their chips to near maximum performance, power efficiency be damned, leaving zero room for overclocking... as the reason for this article exists.

[heydabop]

> Consider that even with the most high end CPUs, they include the copper slug stock coolers than can make even a 45W rated CPU thermal throttle.

While isn't true for either the i9-10850K or the i7-10700K, but one is included for the i7-10700. However overclocking is mostly irrelevant on the 10700 since it requires changing your motherboards clock and most people won't bother.

Honestly I love what they're doing. With AIO coolers in abundance getting liquid cooling no longer requires researching and building a custom loop, and is nearly as easy as installing air cooling. If my PSU's 12V rail can deliver 250W, and my cooler can easily displace 250W, why not let my processor consume that much?

> The end result is that Intel is already pushing their chips to near maximum performance, power efficiency be damned, leaving zero room for overclocking

Isn't this what silicon lottery was doing before? Intel saw that market space and is now filling it directly. Overclocking has never been about power efficiency anyway (undervolting of course is), it's always been decreasing gains as you increase the voltage and clock rate. Also, as an owner of a i9-10850K, I can confirm that there is room for overclocking (tho not much or else it would be an i9-10900K), and you can find many instances of people overclocking their i9-10900Ks as well.

Intel has figured out what their high-performance non-business users want and are delivering on it perfectly. This is even one/two of the reasons that siliconlottery is listing as to why they're closing.

[joncrane]

>If my PSU's 12V rail can deliver 250W, and my cooler can easily displace 250W, why not let my processor consume that much?

1) Because electricity costs money 2) In the summer, your AC also has to get rid of that heat from your conditioned space, using even MORE electricity.

[leetcrew]

> 1) Because electricity costs money

not to an extent that really matters to a home user. let's say you actually let your cpu draw 250W 24/7. average US consumer electricity rate is ~$0.13/kWh. that would add ~$23 to your monthly electricity bill. certainly a lot for a single component, but not likely to matter to the sort of person who would buy a high end cpu in the first place. if you could get the same performance using 100W, you would only save about $14 each month. and of course most people don't max out their cpu 24/7, so the actual savings would be even less.

[bayindirh]

> Consider that even with the most high end CPUs, they include the copper slug stock coolers than can make even a 45W rated CPU thermal throttle.

In one of the thermal design documents of their processors (It's either Core2Quad family or i7 3rd generation, I don't remember), it clearly states that:

"The included processor cooling solution is neither guaranteed nor designed to keep CPU within acceptable thermal envelope when the CPU is 100% utilized".

So they basically say that they include a complementary HSF assembly to smoke test your CPU until your proper HSF arrives.

[techrat]

The date on this post is around that time.

It was considered something that would void your warranty to use a third party cooler.

https://community.intel.com/t5/Processors/Does-the-use-of-an...

> Yes, the usage of third party fan&heatsink void the Intel warranty on your processor. The Intel fan is made to keep the Intel processor working correctly. When we run the processor without the original fan means we are running the system out of the specifications and it may damage the processor.

Intel did everything they could with scare tactics to deny warranties. They basically implied that they would consider your RMA an overclocking case if you used a cooler with capabilities that exceeded the slug cooler included with your CPU.

[heydabop]

Definitely. I think the growing TDP would be more concerning if AIO liquid coolers weren't so common these days. Setting up a water cooling loop used to be expensive and time consuming. Now it takes about $80 and 15 minutes, and Intel is catering to this.

[philjohn]

Undervolting can lead to higher performance as well - for example, my 3080 Ti

Out of the box, it hits power limits and doesn't boost much past 1800/1850Mhz on the core, even in a water block.

Undervolting leads to a rock solid 1920Mhz for hours on end - less power, less heat, more performance.

[bayindirh]

I did a similar thing in the golden days with my AMD Athlon (Thoroughbred/B) processor.

It was 1400MHz out of the box, I clocked it to 2200MHz (200x11). None of the AMDs offerings ran at 2200MHz with 200x11 configuration, so it was blowing everything out of the water, with less heat and noise nonetheless.

Since x11 wasn't an extreme multiplier for it, I was running it slightly undervolted. That system is still running rock-solid even today, somewhere.