Hardware Help with underclocking pc

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Hey I've wanted to underclock my pc to help temp's mainly because I have the crap stock amd heatsink to go with my a8-5600k.
I have a msi a58m-e35 as my motherboard.
help would be greatly appreciated!
 
Before underclocking you can try to just lower the voltage of the CPU. Those CPUs use a typical voltage of about 1.4v, up to 1.475v, a fairly high voltage... You can probably (with some luck added) shave 50 to 100mV.

I find the AMD APUs to be notoriously hot, even with an AIO watercooler my A6-5400 would easily hit low 70s, same with my A10-7860k. Both at stock settings.

Do you know your way around a BIOS? Try lowering the voltage little by little then run some stress tests for a few minutes to check its stability. If you still can't get decent enough temps then you can go further by reducing the multiplier of the CPU to get a lower clock speed.
 
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Before underclocking you can try to just lower the voltage of the CPU. Those CPUs use a typical voltage of about 1.4v, up to 1.475v, a fairly high voltage... You can probably (with some luck added) shave 50 to 100mV.

I find the AMD APUs to be notoriously hot, even with an AIO watercooler my A6-5400 would easily hit low 70s, same with my A10-7860k. Both at stock settings.

Do you know your way around a BIOS? Try lowering the voltage little by little then run some stress tests for a few minutes to check its stability. If you still can't get decent enough temps then you can go further by reducing the multiplier of the CPU to get a lower clock speed.
I've never overclocked but yea both my motherboard and cpu can under/overclock or should I just save my money and buy a new cpu heatsink? if so whats the best bang for the buck one?
 
I've never overclocked but yea both my motherboard and cpu can under/overclock or should I just save my money and buy a new cpu heatsink? if so whats the best bang for the buck one?


Overclocking/underclocking isn't awfully hard, just for a quick and simple boost in performance you just need to crank up the multiplier on the CPU (If it's unlocked, like in your case) and some voltage and then test for stability using an application like Prime95 or similar CPU stress test. If it succeeds without the computer hard locking itself or errors, or bluescreens, etc you can either keep bumping up the multiplier or lower the voltage if you're already at a comfortable clock speed. Now if you want to squeeze every last bit of performance, there are many other factors that I won't get into as it can get exponentially complex.

In your case, given that you're tight with CPU temps it's exactly the same but in reverse, but in this case you want to prioritize voltage, you want to lower the voltage as much as you can without compromising stability. In your case, taking that the CPU runs at a 1.475v, you can try 1.425v then stress test for about half an hour or so, if succeeds keep lowering the voltage until it fails. If your temps are still too high, then lower the multiplier. Basically rinse and repeat the process.

From experience these APUs will basically make the computer go black screen if unstable (at least on my particular system), I tried to undervolt mine.

Keep in mind that any application that is designed to fully stress your CPU will put an unrealistic load on it, thus temps will be higher than during normal load.


A great cpu heatsink that I've installed in a couple systems that is also quite cheap is the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo.
 
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Overclocking/underclocking isn't awfully hard, just for a quick and simple boost in performance you just need to crank up the multiplier on the CPU (If it's unlocked, like in your case) and some voltage and then test for stability using an application like Prime95 or similar CPU stress test. If it succeeds without the computer hard locking itself or errors, or bluescreens, etc you can either keep bumping up the multiplier or lower the voltage if you're already at a comfortable clock speed. Now if you want to squeeze every last bit of performance, there are many other factors that I won't get into as it can get exponentially complex.

In your case, given that you're tight with CPU temps it's exactly the same but in reverse, but in this case you want to prioritize voltage, you want to lower the voltage as much as you can without compromising stability. In your case, taking that the CPU runs at a 1.475v, you can try 1.425v then stress test for about half an hour or so, if succeeds keep lowering the voltage until it fails. If your temps are still too high, then lower the multiplier. Basically rinse and repeat the process.

From experience these APUs will basically make the computer go black screen if unstable (at least on my particular system), I tried to undervolt mine.

Keep in mind that any application that is designed to fully stress your CPU will put an unrealistic load on it, thus temps will be higher than during normal load.


A great cpu heatsink that I've installed in a couple systems that is also quite cheap is the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo.

Yea my friend has a hyper 212 Evo, might end up getting one.
 
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Yea my friend has a hyper 212 Evo, might end up getting one.

Nice, I'm pretty sure you'll be satisfied with it. But as I said, don't expect temps to become low. Before using a AIO watercooler (Corsair H100i) I had a Noctua NH-C12P and the temps barely dropped. Those chips are hot!
 

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