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EDC: What It Is & How It Affects CPU Performance

Wondering what EDC is and how to optimize its effect on your CPU? We’ve got you covered!

EDC is often a confusing topic for anyone looking to get the most out of their PC’s performance. This guide will tell you everything you need to know about what EDC is, how it affects your system’s performance, and how to make sure it’s at the optimal range.

What is EDC?

EDC stands for Electrical Design Current. It is a value that the motherboard tells the CPU that is supposed to represent the peak current the VRMS are able to handle in the short term. In layman’s terms, it is the maximum amount of current at any time that can be delivered by the voltage regulators.

More voltage generally means more power is being used, which means higher quality performance. When you are using up a lot of EDC, you are pushing the limits of your system performance wise. A better CPU means you are able to get more EDC and therefore more performance.

The EDC is integrated into a ton of different systems that your PC will run too, so before altering it at all, let’s figure out just how much influence the EDC has on our PCs.

How EDC Affects PC Performance

Have you ever noticed your computer starting to get hot? Well, if you’ve noticed this phenomenon that generally happens during gaming or other performance heavy programs, you are witnessing the effect of a high EDC.

In terms of performance, that all depends on the program.

For example, a video game that has lesser graphics will most of the time only utilize a little bit of EDC. If you are running games that have incredible graphics and vast landscapes though, then the EDC will be sky-high most likely and therefore your system will run hotter, leaving it more vulnerable to stutters, glitches and other issues.

If you are running a benchmark to test your system’s performance, you will likely be able to see the actual EDC usage happening in real time. In some games, you can see the exact CPU usage at the bottom of the screen in the graphics settings.

When you change graphics settings or resolution, you will see this percentage increase and the higher it goes, the more power and the more EDC is required to get the image on screen that you’re going for.

Depending on your GPU, this will be putting an incredible load on your system and if it gets too high, that’s when you run the risk of things like game crashes as well as a host of other issues.

Ideal EDC Range

Generally, ideal EDC range is whatever setting it was defaulted to. A low EDC range is rarely a bottleneck for a PC, even though a higher EDC does have the potential to draw more power from a CPU. A high EDC setting is liable to put a PC under unnecessary amounts of stress and is usually ill-advised.

In the BIOS of your PC, you will likely be able to change the settings of your EDC. Your basic EDC setting will vary depending on the quality of your CPU, so there is no one setting for it to be on the first time you look at it.

If you’re trying to get more performance out of your system, you really shouldn’t be worrying about EDC, as Overclocking your GPU and CPU can offer far more of a noticeable upgrade. But, if curiosity gets the best of you, you can try tinkering with the EDC as well.

P.S. – If you’re trying to get the most out of your CPU, take a look at this guide to determining whether or not your CPU is overclockable.

One thing to note before changing the EDC is to set your computer to optimize performance over anything, because that is what will be needed to support the load your PC is about to undergo.

Some demanind gamers will push the EDC to the max limit available in order to fully test their systems. This isn’t advisable, but with some processors, they are built for this so the risk isn’t too large.

When raising the EDC, the risk comes from your Overclocking abilities being expanded. This means you can turn up the clocks of your CPU as well as the GPU past what they were previously capable of and the reason is they now have a larger power supply to draw from. With this expanded supply though, comes the problem of possibly overheating your system past its capabilities.

If you’re overclocking, you may also want to look through our guide to CPU Cache Speed & How to Set It Correctly.

What Affects EDC

The EDC of your system can be affected by a number of things, but usually your systems power plan is the one with a significant effect on your EDC. The reason for this that your EDC is essentially your power pool that you are drawing from to run your system.

When you choose a balanced plan, you’re using about 50% of your power supply, when you go with high performance, then you are amping that level up and using about 20-30% more power than the previous mode.

If you are in battery saver mode, then the lowest possible amount of your EDC is being used.

Is My EDC Too High?

Let’s say you have a brand-new system and you’re digging into the specs of it and investigating the BIOS. When you get there, you see your EDC is at 100 percent and you immediately panic.

Is this too high? Is my system going to go up in flames? No need to worry- If this is the setting that your computer comes with, then this is the setting that your system was designed to handle.

If you’re running at that high a number, you are mostly likely running a pretty impressive CPU and that is the reason for the inflation. Lesser systems will have lesser EDC to draw from and therefore get lesser performance.

Should I Raise My EDC?

If you’re confident you know what you’re doing, then you can change the EDC at small intervals and see if it makes any real difference, though in our experience, it is barely noticeable and not worth the trouble.

If you’re determined to go this route, you can look at the specs of your PC and see if it was designed to have the EDC capped. If you have this capability, then you will be able to draw more power from your CPU and possibly get a bump in performance. By enabling more cores, you will increase your power consumption and this will likely raise your temperature too.

During Overclocking, you need to be wary of this because each value affects the other without being completely obvious as to which is affecting which. The best move here is to go easy on the Overclocking and check your temperatures, if you are hitting medium temperatures with high performance grades, then it is safe to increase the EDC to a higher level.

If you are already hitting higher temperatures with not much of a performance boost, we strongly suggest leaving the EDC alone, as it can affect your temperatures. Making anything on a PC run too hot at anytime is just a dangerous game with the potential to create catastrophic problems within your system.

If you absolutely must alter the EDC, get ready to make some alterations. For one, you want to have some good airflow ready. To go along with this, you need to consider getting a cooler to keep your PC from getting too hot.

Voltage is always something that is tricky to mess with and the EDC is no different. Some processors are built to increase the EDC and some are not, so you need to figure out if your equipment is up to the task or not.

Just know that you’re dealing with delicate forces here and it is worth looking at some detailed guides on exactly how to alter it before you go crazy changing values left-and-right.

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