Recently, a post was made about undervolting and what people ran and such.
A few people suggested that there's no need to undervolt as factory settings seem adequate. That answer is a yes... and a no.
Firstly, CPUs are binned. I'll use the 13th gen i9 HX chips as a better example.
There's 3 tiers of that i9:
13900HX,
13950HX
13980HX
Performance varies from each CPU, but the main differences are boost bins, Chances are they all have the exact same Voltage curve, only the 80HX version can squeeze 5.6ghz single/dual core boost over the 00HX model.
In each bin there will be a silicon tolerance and voltage requirement to meet the advertised frequencies if they can at all. Silicon that doesn't make the cut will likely become an i7 with trimmed cores or just crapped altogether (yields and all that). The rest will vary in what they can do. So from factory Intel sets a one size fits all voltage frequency curve. Even if your CPU barely makes the grade, it will still do what it needs to with the voltage supplied.
What if you get a really good example of silicon though? Here comes undervolting.
A quick and very rough explanation of power draw, Voltage x Amps = Watts.
In a laptop, you have a very clear ceiling on wattage for your components.
For my 14900HX for example it's 185w, I can push to 190w or some other trickery to raise it further, but I won't do that. Your amp limit is specified via your OEM and locked in the BIOS. Again, there are ways to skirt this at your own risk. Raising the wattage cap allows the CPU to use higher points in the V/F curve to get higher frequencies since it isn't hitting the power limit. Take a look at 350w 14900K CPUs for example, hitting 5.8ghz all core and such.
Back to the point, you have yourself a great example of a i9 in your laptop. The average of scores on STOCK machines is around 30k in CBR23
The average is of stock machines, the max is through undervolting.
What undervolting does is take advantage of the fact the chip you have may be better than the stock V/F curve. This allows you to ask the CPU to hit the SAME frequency with LESS voltage. Remember the little Watts = Volts x Amps? You just reduced the wattage being used for target frequencies, all of a sudden the CPU has access to to a higher point on the V/F curve in that wattage limit. Meaning at the same load level, or ceiling you can push higher clocks... higher clocks means more performance!
Here's my 14900HX in tuned form with CBR23. Bare in mind I also have background apps running like Edge with discord and this community open, HWinfo to watch whats going on while tweaking things.
Single core is inline with the 13900HX because I lowered it to 5.4ghz to balance my undervolt. Most games now use as many cores as they can so the single core max for gaming doesn't matter.
Yes, there is an argument to be made if you're talking about some productivity tasks that lean on single core stuff, that docking 400mhz for better over all performance may impact other things slightly. But that is not the point. This right here shows why in a power limited scenario when you can't even achieve those lofty clocks under full load via hitting the cap, or cooling not being able to tame all that power, undervolting can give you a huge increase in over all performance, better battery life and lower temperature in some scenarios.
Conclusion?
If you can undervolt your CPU and adjust the V/F curve, it can be massively beneficial in many ways and is always worth doing. Free performance is free perfomance.
DISCLAIMER.
Not all chips are equal, so your milage may vary, never try a one size fits all approach or copy someone else's settings. Chances are you may just crash out because your chip isn't good enough then you'll be sat with your bottom lip out saying it doesn't work for you. There is a lottery involved and there is a science in extracting YOUR CPU's performance.
BONUS ROUND.
Jaycosm Here's a Benchmate record for the 7945HX I mentioned.
Legion Pro 7.
Core offset (AMD undervolt) -22
Conductonaut extreme on the CPU, DriftIce thermal pads on everything else and fresh PTM on the GPU.
32gb Fury Impacts manually tweaked to run at 5600mhz with 5200mhz timings. (AMD PnP is 5200mhz) FCLK upped to 2033mhz.
Sat on an IETS GT500.