Lenovo Legion Pro7i 13900HX RTX 4080 - ThrottleStop worth a try?

[HiDrag]

I saw this excerpt in response to someone looking at ThrottleStop for this unit but with a 4090 GPU:

A laptop that has a 13900HX processor and a 4090 GPU is going to run very hot and the fans will make a lot of noise. Undervolting will only help a little bit. If you want a cooler laptop you have to reduce its performance. Is that what you want?

I'm running into CPU throttling in several games and benchmarks - this comment makes me wonder if there is any logic in trying to undervolt my CPU?

 

[Lewzke]

Not all modern laptops can be undervolted, several manufacturers locked this in the BIOS because of security concerns. You can try Throttlestop and see it yourself. How to verify? Higher score in benchmarks and HWInfo64: IA Voltage Offset should be the negative value you set in Throttlestop. Usually around -0.1V is stable, but it depends on the silicon lottery.
That 13900HX + 4090 mobile is loud because there is no other way to cool down that TDP, the only option to mitigate noise is to replace it with a gaming PC.
You can try also to stop the CPU boost with 99% power setting, but you loose performance. That works with locked BIOS notebooks too.

 

[unclewebb]

this comment makes me wonder if there is any logic in trying to undervolt my CPU

Undervolting a 13900HX will always help the cause. For some users, an undervolt allows them to run the CPU faster. CPU performance will be better but power consumption and temperatures might end up being exactly the same.

Some users become disappointed when an undervolt does not solve the problem of an inadequate heatsink and fan. CPUs that can push upwards of 200W are difficult to cool in something the size of a laptop. Only a few years ago a 45W CPU was the typical power rating. Power consumption has gone way up but no one has figured out how to make a heatsink that can dissipate that much heat from a laptop. The Lenovo Legion series seems to be doing better than some of their competition.

How to verify?

The ThrottleStop FIVR monitoring table will show if an undervolt is being applied or not. The top middle of the FIVR window will show Not Available on 12th Gen and newer H series CPUs that no longer support undervolting. On CPUs that do support undervolting like the HX, ThrottleStop will show Locked at the top of the FIVR window if a manufacturer decided to set the lock bit in the CPU which locks out voltage control.