[Verizon LG G3] bpyazel:
The only one you need to play with is thermal-engine-8974.conf. Two of the others are sym links (one broken) and the other seems to hold values for shutting the phone down due to high cpu temps (115 Celsius), although these values are also in thermal-engine-8974.conf with slightly different values. It seems there is a lot of different types of throttling involved on this phone by looking at this file.

Although I don't know all the details, it seems threshold is the temp in Celsius (multiplied by 10000 under batt_therm_monitor, multiplied by 1000 in all other places) that the throttling takes place. Thresholds_clr seems to be where that throttling stops when the temp cools. Some categories have multiple levels of throttling. CPU_LCD_management has 6.

Changing these two values does work. You have to reboot after any changes you make for them to take effect. I have increased the memory speed throttle and the individual cpu throttle temps by 5 degrees (5000) on both the thresholds and thresholds_clr. I have increased all other thresholds and thresholds_clr by 10 degrees. I did not mess with the shutdown temps.

I should also note that I did try disabling thermal throttling entirely via the hidden menu and the phone would shutdown due to overheat during any benchmarks (thank goodness!). So this is why I decided to tweak these settings, since disabling it entirely seems to be a bad idea. Benchmarks are slightly higher and no shutdowns. Phone does get noticeably hotter.

This is what my thermal-engine-8974.conf looks like after modifying:

sampling 5000

c_mode 3

[CPU_LCD_management]

algo_type monitor

sensor xo_therm_pu2

sampling 10000

thresholds 55000 57000 59000 61000 63000 65000

thresholds_clr 54000 55500 57500 59500 61500 63500

actions cpu+lcd cpu+lcd cpu+lcd cpu+lcd cpu+lcd cpu+lcd

action_info FFFFFFF+255 1958400+255 1574400+245 1497600+235 1497600+225 1267200+225

action_type 25000

[GPU_management]

algo_type monitor

sensor xo_therm_pu2

sampling 10000

thresholds 59000

thresholds_clr 53000

actions gpu

action_info 330000000

action_type 25000

[battery_monitor]

algo_type monitor

sensor xo_batt

sampling 10000

thresholds 57000 58000 59000 60000 61000

thresholds_clr 56000 57000 58000 59000 60000

actions battery battery battery battery battery

action_info 1024 768 512 410 307

[iusb_monitor]

algo_type monitor

sensor xo_batt

sampling 10000

thresholds 57000 60000

thresholds_clr 55000 57500

actions iusb iusb

action_info 1500 1000

[wlchg_monitor]

algo_type monitor

sensor xo_therm_pu2

sampling 10000

thresholds 62000

thresholds_clr 60000

actions wlchg

action_info 512

[batt_therm_monitor]

algo_type monitor

sensor batt_therm

sampling 10000

thresholds 660000

thresholds_clr 620000

actions lcd

action_info 93

[CPU0_MONITOR]

algo_type monitor

sensor cpu0

sampling 65

thresholds 120000

thresholds_clr 115000

actions shutdown

action_info 0

[CPU1_MONITOR]

algo_type monitor

sensor cpu1

sampling 65

thresholds 120000

thresholds_clr 115000

actions shutdown

action_info 0

[CPU2_MONITOR]

algo_type monitor

sensor cpu2

sampling 65

thresholds 120000

thresholds_clr 115000

actions shutdown

action_info 0

[CPU3_MONITOR]

algo_type monitor

sensor cpu3

sampling 65

thresholds 120000

thresholds_clr 115000

actions shutdown

action_info 0

[SS-CPU0]

algo_type ss

sampling 65

sensor cpu0

device cpu

set_point 90000

set_point_clr 60000

action_type 10000

[SS-CPU1]

algo_type ss

sampling 65

sensor cpu1

device cpu

set_point 90000

set_point_clr 60000

action_type 10000

[SS-CPU2]

algo_type ss

sampling 65

sensor cpu2

device cpu

set_point 90000

set_point_clr 60000

action_type 10000

[SS-CPU3]

algo_type ss

sampling 65

sensor cpu3

device cpu

set_point 90000

set_point_clr 60000

action_type 10000

[SS-POPMEM]

algo_type ss

sampling 65

sensor pop_mem

device cpu

set_point 85000

set_point_clr 60000

time_constant 16

action_type 20000