Why is my ROG STRIX X870-A dropping voltage in Ragnarok?
Whenever a giant Boss unleashed screen-filling effects, my frame rate would suddenly tank by 10-15 FPS, which is a nightmare for any hardcore player. Monitoring with RTSS revealed that the CPU Vcore was dipping from 1.32V down to 1.18V during peak loads, causing the clock speeds to bounce erratically between 5.2GHz and 4.4GHz. It was clear the default Load-Line Calibration was way too conservative. I first tried the 'Enhanced Performance' mode in BIOS, but that was a disaster—core temps shot up to 98℃ and triggered thermal throttling. I had to get surgical: I navigated to Advanced $\rightarrow$ Voltage and set Load-Line Calibration to Level 4, while simultaneously setting the PBO Curve Optimizer to -20 across all cores. After this, the Vcore stabilized between 1.28V and 1.34V, and frame times tightened from a messy 18-32ms to a smooth 12-16ms. I did hit a snag where the system randomly rebooted twice during idle after an initial aggressive voltage tweak, but pulling it back by 0.02V fixed everything. VRM temps stayed chill between 55-62℃. The stuttering is gone, and the 12-16ms frame time is consistent.
