I ditched overclocking for undervolting and my PC got faster, quieter, and more stable

One thing about owning a PC is that you’re always making tweaks and adjustments to squeeze more juice out of your build. For those who want to go even further, overclocking lets you push your hardware beyond its rated specifications to achieve roughly 5–15% better performance on average.

However, overclocking doesn't necessarily improve performance; in certain cases, it can degrade it. Instead, I recommend undervolting your hardware, which can surprisingly improve performance, reduce power draw, and make your PC quieter.

Overclocking was costing me way more than it gave

The limited performance gain wasn't worth the extra heat and noise

To begin with, overclocking really grinds my gears because nailing the perfect balance between stability and performance is notoriously difficult, and it requires hours of testing. Not to mention that overclocking largely depends on your hardware's silicon quality, because not every chip is built the same; some chips can hold higher clock speeds at lower voltages, while others can't.

Then there's the case of higher power draw — if you have a higher-end setup, the electricity bill will take a toll. That extra power draw raises temperatures and forces your PC to work harder to cool down by increasing fan speeds, making it noisier.

However, the worst part about overclocking is the risk of thermal throttling. For those not familiar, thermal throttling is when your hardware automatically reduces its clock speeds after reaching a certain temperature threshold that it deems harmful. Thermal throttling is a real risk when overclocking, since your hardware draws more power and runs hotter. Under thermal throttling, when your hardware slows down, it negatively impacts your system by reducing its performance below the default speed, which is the opposite of what you wanted.

Undervolting can actually increase performance and your hardware's lifespan

You get less voltage, lower temperatures, and consistently longer boost speeds

In a nutshell, undervolting limits the power draw of your hardware and, in doing so, reduces the heat generated per clock cycle, practically eliminating any potential concern about thermal throttling. When running cool, your hardware can maintain boost speeds longer, which is beneficial for performance. Most high-end GPUs, like the RTX 5090, ship with more voltage than they need, making them power-hungry.

Both your CPU and GPU can largely benefit from undervolting. However, for RAM, I don't recommend changing the default settings since EXPO/XMP already adjusts your memory's voltages and clock speeds to their optimal levels. Anyhow, the best way to undervolt your GPU/CPU is to adjust the voltage in increments of 10 mV and keep doing so until you find the sweet spot where your clock speeds remain at normal levels with minimal power draw. Generally, you can reduce the draw by up to 50W on your CPU and more on your GPU, depending on its TDP.

Overclocking was never the answer for me

Pushing your hardware in an already hot environment leads nowhere

Keeping my PC cool is one of my biggest concerns in the summer because the area where I live can get pretty hot — up to 47°C/116.6°F. With a power-hungry system that is nearly always pushed to its limit, my GPU reaches the 80°C range, and the CPU is at a similar temperature.

Fixes like adjusting the fan curve do help, but my setup becomes loud, and since I use external speakers, that noise is hard to ignore. Even then, my system ends up thermal-throttling in long gameplay sessions, which makes every fix pointless.

Overclocking is out of the equation for me, at least in the summer. Even in colder seasons, I hardly saw any significant performance gains — the reason was that I didn't want to push my hardware hard enough to risk degradation or component damage from running the volts too high.

This is why I chose to undervolt instead, and if done right, you can get performance close to stock settings, with the added benefit of your PC running more quietly and your hardware lasting longer.

The numbers after undervolting were hard to argue with

I saved up around 70W of power consumption across my CPU and my GPU

You can undervolt in different ways, and the most common is going through the BIOS for your CPU or using MSI Afterburner or AMD's Adrenalin Software for the GPU.

I opted for Intel's XTU, software that allows for real-time undervolting. Instead of wasting time rebooting and making manual adjustments each time I entered the BIOS menu, I was able to make changes directly on Windows. The best part is that even if you crash, your system will restart and restore the default settings, so you're not stuck with a change your system can't accept.

Testing on my secondary build (RX 5600 XT, Ryzen 5 5600) from scratch just for the sake of this article, I reduced voltage by 20mV for both my CPU and GPU and noticed no performance loss at all, saving about 70W combined across GPU and CPU by undervolting — tested during gameplay. I recommend doing so in 10 mV increments and finding the perfect spot with minimal performance trade-off. Undervolting, I noticed my GPU now averages around 70 °C, and my CPU doesn't exceed 75 °C (considering summers get as hot as 47°C here, these are decent temperatures) — all while the system runs quieter.

You can actually do both — if your silicon allows

Find out if you've hit the silicon lottery

By now, I've made it pretty clear that overclocking isn't always the solution — at least for most people, since cooling plays a big role in pushing your hardware to its limits. That said, you can still overclock your hardware despite keeping voltages low. How does that play out? Well, it isn't that simple, and doing so is dependent on your luck. For starters, the default voltage your CPU/GPU ships with is what the manufacturer thinks is safe for all units. However, not every chip is the same, and depending on which one hits the silicon lottery, it can run at higher clock speeds at a lower voltage.

If your silicon allows it, you can push your system while undervolting, but that's more of a bonus and not the intended goal of this article. Still, it's hard to overlook that overclocking while undervolting is difficult, and finding optimal settings can take hours of testing; even with stress tests to ensure everything is okay, video games can still crash under theconfigured settings. However, if done correctly, the payoff is great: you get a quieter, more efficient system that delivers higher performance at decent temperatures.

Why I'm never going back to overclocking

Overclocking isn't always wrong — you just have to know whether it works for you. For me, I can't risk shortening my hardware's lifespan when prices of newer components are exorbitantly high. Furthermore, thermal throttling is the biggest roadblock to overclocking my hardware. Instead, undervolting has proved more beneficial, and it's a no-brainer for pretty much everyone — especially those who own a gaming laptop, as it can also help save battery life.