Undervolting the AGP voltage

Geographer · Post by **Geographer** » Fri Sep 09, 2005 5:19 pm

Just wondering if undervolting the AGP voltage would have the same effect as undervolting the CPU? Has anyone out there tried this and does it lower temps? It seems to me that nowadays graphics cards are beginning to surpass CPUs as the hottest component in your computer. They certainly run hotter.

BenW · Post by **BenW** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 2:48 pm

I'd like to know this too please

Ben

StarfishChris · Post by **StarfishChris** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 4:41 pm

I would say it has the same effect as undervolting the CPU and would lower temps, however because it is difficult to do (a resistor somewhere, perhaps?) and most people wanting low power simply buy a basic card, there probably isn't much information on it. Just underclocking in 2D is good enough for me and won't affect 3D performance.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 5:10 pm

I would guess that 0.2 volts lowering wouldnt hurt performance but instead, make it cooler.

I have never heard of this being done though

so that's not a good sign.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 5:17 pm

I've heard of people here overvolting by flashng the BIOS of a 6600 card to that of a 6600gt, or something along those lines.

Elixer · Post by **Elixer** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 6:22 pm

I think that it depends on the card. Changing my agp voltage makes no difference in how far I can overclock my 9800 pro. I think this happens because it gets most of its power straight from the 12V on the power supply from a molex connector so I'm not really overvolting the processor. I think this may work on cards which don't require molex connectors to run though.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 7:09 pm

Elixer, you seem to be refering to the AGP VDDQ voltage in bios menu. That is not the GPU vcore. You cannot over/undervolt a video card as easily as a CPU.

Geographer · Post by **Geographer** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 9:33 pm

Yeah I guess what I was asking, Is lowering the AGP bus voltage going to lower the GPU vcore voltage? I don't think it does, but can someone confirm this. If that's true I guess the only way to lower the GPU vcore voltage is to change the BIOS? The reason why you wouldn't just buy a lower performance card is because like undervolting CPUs you can keep the same clock rate with lower voltage so that it runs at regular speeds but does not dissipate as much heat, but yeah StarfishChris, it is much easier to buy a lower performace card that.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 10:00 pm

Flashing the bios isn't the only way, you can also "volt mod" through hardware. But that usually involves soldering things to your video card. Someone did it to a gf4 though, it's in an article on the main site. IIRC that allowed the card to run passively and cool with a CPU heatsink.