Overclocking Intel's New 45nm QX9650: The Rules Have Changed

Intel Processor Power Delivery Guidelines (Cont'd)

In this next case we eliminate Vdroop altogether and examine the chaos that ensues. As illustrated by our model, removing Vdroop does nothing to reduce the magnitude of the idle to full-load transient but does increase the settling time as the VRM must recover to a higher final regulation voltage. As in the case of no Voffset, it is possible to exceed the maximum allowable CPU voltage (VID). Clearly, removing Vdroop gains us nothing and only serves to create problems that are more serious.

No Vdroop means the VRM circuit must work harder at maintaining a constant voltage

So what happens when we remove both Voffset and Vdroop? The answer is simple - bad things. Although the difference between the maximum positive and negative peak overshoot are the same, severe violations to the CPU VID limit occur. If you're asking yourself what's the problem with this, consider the case of a CPU VID of 1.60000V - because the user feels this is the absolute maximum CPU voltage that they will allow. Just how high do you think CPU voltage will go after leaving a heavy load condition? We can't be sure without knowing more of the details, but we can certainly conclude that it will be well in excess of 1.6V. If you've ever run a benchmark only to have your system crash right as it finishes then you have experienced the consequences of this poor setup.

The user gives up all control over the CPU supply voltage with no Voffset or Vdroop

Finally, let's take one last real-world look at the consequences of removing Vdroop. ASUS' implementation of this feature, labeled as Load Line Calibration and included with their latest line of motherboards, is particularly worthy of our attention for a number of reasons. The first is that setting lower voltages with this option enabled actually results in a condition in which the CPU voltage under load is higher than the idle voltage. Imagine our confusion as we desperately struggle to understand why our system is Prime95 stable for days yet continues to crash under absolutely no load. What's more, in spite of the absence of droop and for reasons unknown, enabling this feature artificially raises our CPU's minimum stable core voltage at 4.0GHz from 1.28V to about 1.33V. As a result, our system uses more power under load than is otherwise necessary. Our efforts to reduce our processor's supply voltage backfired - instead of lowering the system's total power consumption we managed to affect a 20W increase.

Suffice it to say, we found it better to leave Load Line Calibration disabled

With Load Line Calibration disabled in BIOS, setting a CPU Voltage VID of 1.38750 resulted in a no-load voltage of about 1.34V and a full-load value of 1.28V. Enabling this feature and lowering the VID to 1.35000V produced a constant CPU supply voltage, regardless of load (or so it seemed), of 1.33V. Setting a lower VID resulted in a blue screen during Windows boot. Idle voltage was relatively unchanged at about 1.33-1.34V but the full-load voltage required increased by 50mV with no benefit. As you might guess, we recommend you leave this option disabled.

Hopefully we've shown you enough to understand exactly why Voffset and Vdroop are important. Please give second thought to your actions if you're in the habit of defeating these essential system safeguards.