Poor BIOSes flexibility annoys me

Recently I have upgraded my machine and replaced my 4 years old A64 with an AIIX4 620, an ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO, and a pair of GSkill Ripjaws 1333 MHz. While I have to say that ASUS BIOSes improved on mainstream Motherboards from an enthusiast standpoint, looking around I found that most manufacturers stills lack flexibility in many options.
For example, I have found that switching from a Single Core K8 at 1.8 GHz to a Quad Core K10 at 2.6 GHz, I simply have much more performance than I'm capable to use. Actually, that was also what happened when I had the A64, so most of the time it was underclocked to 1 GHz and/or undervolted to 1.1V (This always, as it was capable of the nominal 1.8 GHz at 1.1V, so it was pointless having it higher). Right now, I'm doing the same with this K10, and underclocked it to 1 GHz @ 0.8V using K10stat. This is where what annoys me begins.
Compared to the others ASUS Motherboards that I had from previous generations, this one doesn't stink from an overclocker standpoint, because it got a wide range of options. However, what annoys me is that with the exception of the Multipliers, everything Voltage related goes just upwars, not downwards. This means that I can't undervolt from BIOS and I have always to use a Windows based utility to lower power consumption.
It is THAT costly to improve BIOS options flexility so users without heavy power needs may reduce power consumption by undervolting from BIOS, as pretty much most modern Processors are overkill for basic computer usage? I was annoyed to find that pretty much no one cares that while now overclocking seems to be supported by pretty much all mainstream Motherboards, they still lack when people wants power efficiency, and there is no reason for them if they are supporting forcing components to go faster than the factory values, to go slower when you are actually relaxing components.
Most people will say that I should turn Cool'n Quiet on, but as an enthusiast, I prefer to manually manage that instead of letting something else do it for me, and if it wasn't due to K10stat I wouldn't be able to do it.

I think the problem lies in the hardware....seeing as AMD chips perform well on cold at high volts they offer the voltage.....the higher voltage options can possibly make or break a sale even though most users will probably never use the max voltage....

The problem with this lies in hardware used to control voltage....it has a range.

So if they cater to the lower range of voltage they will lose the higher range due to hardware and voltage controller limitations.

I hope this makes sense to you. Namely it's not something that can be just changed in bios becasue it's a limitation of components used..

If it was like you say, then Cool'n Quiet would be innefective or would cause issues. On the least, the BIOS should be able to let me manually choose the lowest Voltage from a supported Power State, something that the components MUST be capable of because is a standard feature. Only exeption if is there is a minimum Voltage for the component to start working even you can lower it after it had entered working conditions.
Extreme Voltage ranges aren't really useful for the majority of regular users and moderate overclockers that don't want to risk too much and overclock on default Voltage, yet still, due to the fact than from a Processor standpoint, we are pretty overpowered, it does make sense go backwards in terms of Voltage to improve efficiency by lowering power consumption. Yet still most of them doesn't seems to have that.

I thought this was the purpose of using C and Q.

That is your low power state...

However on the contrary you may think you have enough power for your applications.....other don't and it's not what they think it's what they know for a fact....I have a buddy that does modeling with AMD solutions....what does he want? More power. WHy? more power = more productivity, more productivity = more work done.

Read my first Post again, I'm aware of Cool'n Quiet, yet I want to manually control it. There is no hardware limitation or anything more than the sole lack of options in the BIOS to do what I want, as I can do it finely within Windows but I want to do it from BIOS, so I don't have to run K10stat everytime that I reset.

If there is something that Intel Atoms have proven, is that for Joe Average that plays :banana::banana::banana::banana: videos on Youtube and spam Facebook with worthless photos, a Processor with a 1 GHz K8 like performance is competitive even in 2010, and most of time it will sit Idle anyways. I have a Quad Core yet still I barely use it for anything than the 4 years old K8 was more than adequate for, so why would I need MORE POWER? I'm not your modeling buddy. And there is no reason for the fact that if BIOSes supports overclocking, more power at the expense of more consumption and higher temperatures, it doesn't support things the other way around for the people that doesn't need going higher, that is exactly what Atoms proven.

Well tbh then based on your analogy and not needing power you should have opted for a laptop.....

i know that u said no cool n quiet but why not use cool n quiet then set the maximum cpu speed to a low percent that will get u 800mhz at 1V-1.04V. but changing the voltage wont change the power consumption, most chips use the same power at 1V or 1.3V though they just adjust the voltage to match the clock speed to not degrade the chip.

in your case though i would recommend to get a kill a watt, then u could see that its futile to try and beat the system that companies spent billions of dollars to get the lowest power state that they could without degrading the chips.

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Originally Posted by zanzabar

i know that u said no cool n quiet but why not use cool n quiet then set the maximum cpu speed to a low percent that will get u 800mhz at 1V-1.04V. but changing the voltage wont change the power consumption, most chips use the same power at 1V or 1.3V though they just adjust the voltage to match the clock speed to not degrade the chip.

in your case though i would recommend to get a kill a watt, then u could see that its futile to try and beat the system that companies spent billions of dollars to get the lowest power state that they could without degrading the chips.

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There is someone else that already did an analysis of this.
How is that Voltage does not lower power consumption? The formula was Watts = Amperage * Voltage. Amperage seems to be fixed at a determinated Frequency, and Voltage is... What you set it. This means that the lower the Voltage, the lower the power consumption. The idea is archieve a target Frequency fully stable at the lowest posible Voltage because is pointless anything above that.

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Originally Posted by zir_blazer

There is someone else that already did an analysis of this.
How is that Voltage does not lower power consumption? The formula was Watts = Amperage * Voltage. Amperage seems to be fixed at a determinated Frequency, and Voltage is... What you set it. This means that the lower the Voltage, the lower the power consumption. The idea is archieve a target Frequency fully stable at the lowest posible Voltage because is pointless anything above that.

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there is a slight problem with that, its only a difference of 10W from your default clock, and it stops scaling under 1.2-1.15V @ 2ghz so u should just use cool and quiet and set it to 60% max that will do what u want but also let u have more power available from in windows or linux by unlocking it to 100% if u need to decode HD video or something else

I know that there exist something that is called Cool'n Quiet, but I have stated in my first Post...

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Originally Posted by zir_blazer

Most people will say that I should turn Cool'n Quiet on, but as an enthusiast, I prefer to manually manage that instead of letting something else do it for me, and if it wasn't due to K10stat I wouldn't be able to do it.

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The point is, there is ABSOLUTELY NO REAL REASON for BIOSes to not have a range of Voltage options that includes values under the nominal ones, not just above these. This is what I am complaining about, and while there are workarounds and all that about this matter, BIOS options are always preferable, yet no one seems to care about the idea. Or do you prefer to overclock using Clockgen or other Windows based utilities?
Besides, considering the Post that I linked, the nominal 2.6 GHz should be reachable with only 1.15V instead of the default 1.35V, and it would be better if the machine booted using that Voltage instead of having to wait to Cool'n Quiet kick in or manually doing it using K10stat. Also, there are some experiments that would be much less risky if the machine booted at more conservative power settings to begin with, like not connecting the Fan to just use passive heat dissipation, and for that purpose, booting at 0.8V would be much safer than 1.35V, don't you think so?
Finally, this Forum is supposed to be called XtremeSystems because people here does a lot of crazy things and spends tons of money for ever-dimishing returns just to brag about minimal and untangible performance increases. So I suppose that 10 Watts saved on power consumption (Actually, around 15% of what the Processor consumes) isn't extreme enough for you?

Guess your only option is to get another board then :shrug:
And make sure it got the settings you need before you pull out the CC ;)

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Originally Posted by wez

Guess your only option is to get another board then :shrug:
And make sure it got the settings you need before you pull out the CC ;)

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There are no mainstream Motherboards that got these settings that I am aware of (I asked elsewhere and no one had idea), when they SHOULD, because no one here still gives any solid technical reason about why it can't be done within BIOS when its logical than if you got plenty of settings to stress components further with the risks involved, you can do the otherwise and relax them with NO risk involved. And even I doubt that high end Motherboards got these settings for the sole reason that no one pays attention to it.
Seems that I asked in the wrong place though, as most people here seems to not care about anything else more than just overclocking for the bragging rights sake and 3DMark scores. I see no one here caring for efficiency or platform flexibility (Are you going to pay more for low power variants in your HTPC if you can undervolt/underclock and get the same results?).

If your A64 was overpowered, why on earth would you even consider buying a quad? And then bash everything and anything for not being able to under clock it to ridiculous levels? Dude...

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Originally Posted by wez

If your A64 was overpowered, why on earth would you even consider buying a quad? And then bash everything and anything for not being able to under clock it to ridiculous levels? Dude...

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Because as a Hardware enthusiast, a 4 years old computer was a more than justificable enough upgrade target, and I had the money for a Quad Core, so why would I have choose anything less than that? That is not the issue.
There ARE some things that I do once a while that fully stressed it (Running multiple Processor intensive applications at the same time rendered my A64 useless, this one basically shrines even when underclocked), but I rarely do it, I just wanted that it was capable when I want to do so. The machine is on 24/7 and most of the time it is either Idle, or runs effortlessly at 1 GHz or even lower, so I don't have any reason to run it faster than that and I could save a whole bunch on power consumption, plus potentially attemping to run it Fanless.

The point is, if you want to overclock the computer, unlock Cores or Cache L3, whatever means you use to make it run FASTER, you've got plenty of BIOS options to do so. If you want to save power because you actually are confortable enough with something slower (And that doesn't mean buying low power parts or a slower Processor. Why don't you buy a faster machine to begin with instead of overclocking everything? Is basically the same concept, but applied the other way around) and want to do it the same way than you overclock, you have 0 support to do so. Why? Hardware support is there, just that options aren't available in BIOS, and I'm still waiting to hear a valid reason about why they don't support it.
And using Cool'n Quiet for this purpose isn't fine-tune enough for me, in the same way that most people here wouldn't touch the AI Overclocking Profile options that many mainstream Motherboards brings.

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Originally Posted by zir_blazer

...Why? Hardware support is there, just that options aren't available in BIOS, and I'm still waiting to hear a valid reason about why they don't support it.
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Actually, hardware support needs to be there for proper voltage controls for undervolting or overvolting, does not matter. The PWM and buck controllers plus associated logic chips need to be designed properly for either situation. To some degree, undervolting is more difficult to design into a system than providing overvolt controls. ;) But yes, while your current hardware design might/does support undervolting, the reason it is not in the BIOS is due to validation testing and potential concerns with proper power delivery.

In regards to ASUS, the current 890GX EVO and the upcoming 8xx EVO boards fully support undervolting on Core VID and NB VID settings. One of the many reasons we are using 8+2/8+3 setups compared to similar boards with 4+1 setups.

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Originally Posted by bingo13

Actually, hardware support needs to be there for proper voltage controls for undervolting or overvolting, does not matter. The PWM and buck controllers plus associated logic chips need to be designed properly for either situation. To some degree, undervolting is more difficult to design into a system than providing overvolt controls. ;) But yes, while your current hardware design might/does support undervolting, the reason it is not in the BIOS is due to validation testing and potential concerns with proper power delivery.

In regards to ASUS, the current 890GX EVO and the upcoming 8xx EVO boards fully support undervolting on Core VID and NB VID settings. One of the many reasons we are using 8+2/8+3 setups compared to similar boards with 4+1 setups.

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FINALLY an answer according to what I was expecting.
I'm still confident than the Hardware support is there because otherwise Cool'n Quiet wouldn't work as intended (As it lower Processor Voltage, so on the least, there should be full Hardware support to the lowest default Power State that according to K10stat is 1.05V @ 800 MHz on my Processor). I would still want to see those 1.05V as an option in the BIOS, at the conservative very least.

Too bad that I already purchased this ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO 4 days ago, but I couldn't wait another month to build this machine, had the money at hand, and the matter than as any new product with the latest Chipset would be more expensive, would put even more pressure on my wallet should I had decided to wait for that Chipset.

It's simply a setting not many manufacturers cater for. The 1% of guys who'd use it don't matter enough to the mobo makers yet. When everyone screams for it, they may change things.....but atm you're on your own......almost.

I have to agree with the poster above though. You insist on the A64 you had being so adequate for your needs I can't understand why you'd insist on upgrading to something you must have known was massively more powerful than you required. You then proceed to slate it for being TOO powerful and moan there are no mobos with which to run it at rediculously low speeds/power levels :down:

Besides which, your new quad at stock speed on 1.1v-1.2v probably consumes less power than your old A64 at stock :yepp:

which then begs the question, why is this thread even here?