What is thermal throttling and what is it for?

The world of computing has terms that, sometimes, for people who do not develop all the time between them, can become complicated, and even, sometimes, they are also complicated for the computer scientists themselves. Therefore, it is good to know what these terms are about and to know what throttling is and what it is for, to avoid, in this way, making any mistake.

Index of contents

Throttling What is it?

Now what is Throttling ? Throtling is, in the hardware realm, when a component is intentionally slowed down to protect it from damage (usually caused by over-temperature).

The same term may also apply to slowing down an internet connection, or to a program that is hogging too many machine resources and should be limited.

What is it for?

Now that we are clear about what throttling is in the world of computing, it is important to consider what it is for. Throttling can have several functions, depending on the electronic device in which it lives.

Among its most outstanding functions or the most common uses, we can find:

The balance of the consumption of electronic devices, to prevent them from consuming more energy than necessary. Regulation of device applications to conserve the battery and keep it in good condition. Prevent a very hot component of your computer, see processor or graphics card, from suffering at "a certain temperature", lowering performance.

How does it work?

However, we know what throttling is, what it is for, but how does it work? Throttling is found as a security measure in almost all components of a computer that can become hot. Those that most commonly suffer it, due to the high amounts of heat they generate, are the processor, the motherboard and the graphics card. The less speed the electronic device has, the less heat it will generate and therefore, it will require less energy to operate, leaving time for it to cool down to safe values. This is what is done when a component reaches a limit temperature, see 90ºC in the case of many graphs. As a safety measure, it does lower the frequency to generate less heat and preserve the chip … That is, in this way the component goes to "half gas".

It is not always a protection for the component that is lowered in frequency, sometimes the throttling is a consequence of another component that is heating up . An example of this is when we pair high power processors (> 95W, like many of AMD's FX) with motherboards that are not ready to handle these power levels. In this case the processor will go down to a minimum frequency (800-1200mhz), despite being at the correct temperatures (40-60º maximum), because what is heating up to almost 100ºC is the power supply phases of the board. This translates into big game and performance FPS dips until the phases cool down, and it's a tricky problem to identify. There are quite a few cases in forums of affected people…

How can we prevent our component from having throttling?

In the case of throttling by the phases of the plate, there are three possible solutions

Increase the cooling of the phases, adding a heatsink over the MOSFETS (the small square and flat components that are near the socket).It may also be advisable to add a fan if the heatsink of our processor does not generate air flow in that area. In less severe cases, even the fan without a heatsink is usually sufficient. This is the cheapest way to at least alleviate phased throttling. Deactivate turbo mode and lower the processor voltage to the minimum where it is still stable. This should never be done, because while we can fix the throttling problem, we also lose some performance. Also, finding the minimum voltage can be time consuming. But if changing the motherboard is not an option, it is the only thing we can do once the first step is done Change the motherboard. It is the most drastic but also the simplest, if we eliminate the root of the problem we also eliminate the problem. When buying a motherboard, you should try to check that it has good cooling in the phases, and if possible that it supports processors with more TDP than what we plan to put. Be careful, it is not a problem that the board is defective, a new model will give us the same problem, it is a design flaw when supporting processors that are too powerful for the low capacity of some boards.

Practical advice for your PC

In the case of throtling by the component itself, processor or graphics card, we should follow the following tips:

Have a clean, well-ventilated box. Check the thermal paste of your graphics card and / or processor with a frequency of 6 to 12 months. Check that other components do not expel hot air to the other parts. If the problem continues, changing the heatsink for a higher model is an option recommendable. Lowering the component voltage and / or frequency with throttling also works here as a temporary solution.