Overclockers: Why You Should Undervolt Your Graphics Card.

[VirusAM]

1 hour ago, Hiob said:

Yeah, the idea is, to keep the card from switching modes during gameplay, which may (or may not) introduce fluctuations in fps. And I certainly don't want to speak for VR as a special case. But the reality is, with the current drivers, once you are in game, the card is under full load and won't reduce power anyway. It is easy to monitor this with the usual tools. It simply doesn't make ANY difference.

But the downside is, instaead of idling between 20-30 Watts on the desktop (values are from my 3080, maybe slightly higher or lower for other cards), it is idling between 80-90 Watts on the desktop. And I don't know about you, but my system certainly spends a lot of time in idle. Do you feel comfortable blowing 60 Watts of energy out for nothing? I certainly don't.

I thing that putting maximum performance only for DCS profile solves what you say. Am I wrong?

[Hiob]

14 minutes ago, VirusAM said:

I thing that putting maximum performance only for DCS profile solves what you say.

Possibly. I don't know. I never messed with different profiles. But it makes sense.

But as mentioned. Just use a monitoring software like GPU-Z and observe what the card is doing. Then you know for sure!

Edit: I used to have my settings on "prefer maximum performance" for the longest time. Because that was, what everybody suggested (e.g. Jayztwocents). Until I noticed the ridiculous effect on the power consumption (idle). Then I changed it to default and nothing bad happened - at all. I guess that is thing, that is outdated by now. The drivers advance.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Hiob

[FR4GGL3]

1 hour ago, VirusAM said:

I thing that putting maximum performance only for DCS profile solves what you say. Am I wrong?

exactly. That is the reason for having profiles

But max. performance isn't needed for DCS (maybe for VR - I don't have a VR setup so I can't be sure). What may help on stuttering DCS is disabling VSYNC and maybe raising the fps limit of DCS (maxfps = 300 in autoexec.cfg).

Max performance setting can help on games that are so low demanding that it might send your GPU to idle. That could be really old stuff.

 

[Lurker]

I don't have an MSI RTX3090, I have installed Afterburner but for some reason the GUI looks very different on my PC compared to what's available in the online tutorials. The "hotkey" combinations that would allow me to adjust the entire "temperature/power" curve do not seem to be working either. Is there any way to adjust an .ini file or its like, since the graphical representation does not work for me? I'd like to try to undervolt my card a little bit but so far no cigar. 

[Lange_666]

In Afterburner you can to change the skin which makes it look (depending on the chosen skin) totally different then default. Select that matches the tutorial, makes it easier to follow.
It's in the User Interface tab under settings. Some hotkey combo's can be set under the On Screen Display tab.
I also found that some hotkey's mentioned in the tutorials don't exactly work goes described, same goes for some mouse actions. Maybe depended on the AB software version used in the tutorials?

[AngleOff66]

Click the gear/cog

Arrow right to user interface(arrows at top right of msi menu)

Skip to 40 seconds

 

[Hiob]

As others already mentioned. Afterburner is a Software from MSI, but it is open to any GPU without a penalty.

The only hotkeys I use are  for starting and ending a benchmark (you also need RivaStatistics installed, that comes bundled with Afterburner but is a different piece of software.)

For any settings, including the curve editor I just use the GUI.

[Burt]

Hey Hiob, I agree that using 60w when its not need is a waste. But when using High Performance mode/ Texture Filtering ect. for gaming and even Photoshop or whatever is demanding should always be done NCP Program Settings and keeping Global setting in Default or to the very minimum settings. I think I may revisit gpu undervolting again this weekend. 

[BitMaster]

Those 60w wasted for nothing in idle is more than many laptops, Apple foremost,  need for all their work, they have a 65w AC plug.

Nvidia, god damn wake up !

Edited September 14, 2022 by BitMaster

[edmuss]

I run maximum performance on the DCS:Blackshark profile but not normally on the global tab.

As a test I've just enabled it on global and the GPU is sitting idle at 39°C (ambient is 28°C) and the board power draw according to GPUz is 24W, fans are all completely stopped by the fan profile.  If I fire up WMRP the draw jumps to between 60 and 90W, switching between normal/high performance in NVCPL doesn't seem to affect the power draw whilst idling.

Edited September 14, 2022 by edmuss

[Burt]

On 9/14/2022 at 6:33 PM, edmuss said:

I run maximum performance on the DCS:Blackshark profile but not normally on the global tab.

As a test I've just enabled it on global and the GPU is sitting idle at 39°C (ambient is 28°C) and the board power draw according to GPUz is 24W, fans are all completely stopped by the fan profile.  If I fire up WMRP the draw jumps to between 60 and 90W, switching between normal/high performance in NVCPL doesn't seem to affect the power draw whilst idling.

 

Exactly how my rig works too. Everything normal when idle but when I start DCS all profiles kick in to high performance mode across the board. 

[Thinder]

Home All Articles Why You Should Undervolt Your Graphics Card Why You Should Undervolt Your Graphics Card Ruth Rowley

Exactly what I'm going to do when my GPU is delivered in a few mn...

 

[Voyager]

The thing I worry about is how do you ensure stability? 

There's nothing quite like doing a 1h long recon mission in a campaign only to have the GPU crash on landing. 

Ask me how I know... 

[Steel Jaw]

Interesting for those of us stuck with a 2070 in VR.

[EightyDuce]

Lots of success stories here. Undervolting has been a thing for several generations now that they milk them before the cards even leave the factory. 

Edited January 9, 2023 by EightyDuce

[Steel Jaw]

On 9/16/2022 at 6:33 PM, Burt said:

Exactly how my rig works too. Everything normal when idle but when I start DCS all profiles kick in to high performance mode across the board. 

So, undervolting makes no difference for VR or DCS in general?

[freehand]

4 hours ago, Voyager said:

The thing I worry about is how do you ensure stability? 

There's nothing quite like doing a 1h long recon mission in a campaign only to have the GPU crash on landing. 

Ask me how I know... 

You soon know when you go too far the building in dcs go whiter than a white thing lol.

Edited January 9, 2023 by freehand

[SkateZilla]

Undervolting in 2020+ is different than undervolting in 2015.

To Clarify, Previous Generations before RTX and rDNA, Overclocking was 100% Manual, Nowadays, you can let the card manually overclock itself.

We'd Start by increasing clock in increments, test for stability, increase mv, test for stability.

Sure, GCN1.0->GCN5 had Set boost clocks, but they were within spec provided by AMD and not that same as what we have now w/ rDNA/RTX
Same with Pascal, Maxwell and Fermi, and Fermi retained the de-coupled clocks from the Tesla architecture (Gefore 8, 9, 100, 200, 300). 

So Decoupled clocks aren't new.

Undervolting 10 years ago, was to save power, mainly in media server rigs, that used the GPU cards to transcode 24/7.

Undervolting today is to lower thermal and power limit load to allow the card to auto overclock/boost higher.

with rDNA / RTX, both nVidia and AMD have programed their cards firmware with Dynamic Clock control.

Meaning, the clocks will increase, as long as it has the power and thermal headroom to do so.

Thermal is controlled by GPU Junction temp, Power is controlled by Power limit.

So with these cards, instead of opening MSI Afterburner and cranking mv and clock speeds.

Let the firmware algorithms do their job.

Open the AMD or nVidia App, lower mv from MFG default, drop it 50mv, test for stability, repeat the process until you reach an unstable mv, then put it up a few notches and test again.
Once you find the lowest stable mV, you'll notice the thermal output and power draw has dropped, for the same speed you were running prior, allowing the card to clock itself a little bit higher.

now, increase the power limit to it's max, allowing the card to pull 30-60w more power.

So You lower the mv, decreasing thermal load and power load, and you increase your power limit, so the card will overclock itself to it's max allowed limits for power most of the time at this point.

Edited January 9, 2023 by SkateZilla

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

I dropped by core voltage from 955mV down to 870mV, my curve looks like this:

4 hours ago, SkateZilla said:

now, increase the power limit to it's max, allowing the card to pull 30-60w more power.

I saved in a profile and applied to Windows already.

I notice there is only the fan power limit and find nothing else. What should I do next?

[EightyDuce]

3 hours ago, VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants said:

I dropped by core voltage from 955mV down to 870mV, my curve looks like this:

I saved in a profile and applied to Windows already.

I notice there is only the fan power limit and find nothing else. What should I do next?

Show a screenshot of what you're talking about. There is no fan powerlimit in Afternurner that I'm aware of. There's the fan curve and there's the power limit, two completely different things. 

Undervolting won't increase the power limit, it's still going to top out at 100%, 105%, 112% or whatever limit was from the factory. What undervolting allows is what was explained earlier, it lowers your thermals which lets the boost algorithm go "hey, I still have room to breathe on the Temps, lets bump up the power to see if we can get higher clocks". Also, it doesn't guarantee that if you were for example, topped out boost at 2500mhz without undervolting, you would now be able to hit 2700 Mhz or whatever (exaggeration). What it does is that it will allow you to stay at max boost longer (indefinitely) before throttling down. 

Also on a somewhat related and sad note....Afternurner may be going away. Hopefully someone pick up the mantle. 

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/303298/msi-afterburner-developer-hasnt-been-paid-for-a-year-product-development-in-limbo

Edited January 9, 2023 by EightyDuce
Spelling, hard.

[Burt]

10 hours ago, Steel Jaw said:

So, undervolting makes no difference for VR or DCS in general?

Well I think it’s mostly for temps and frequency/ throttling. I have been running an undervolt the last few months now that lowered my gpu temps and vram temps and also frequency numbers are higher and stays put. My gpu temps came down from normal 72-73c to 63-65c and vram from 90c to 75-80c. It’s winter time here and the heater is on quit often. But I’m starting to like the undervolting process it’s more of a gain then lose. As far as for vr gain not really a difference. But if your gpu gets hot and throttles down I guess it will pull down VR performance with it. 

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

Here is my setting now:

Thanks.

[SkateZilla]

Be careful, MSI AB is also one of the top 5 Crypto-Miner Malware spreading tools.

Some "Overclocker" websites are claiming to have a "newer" version, you download the same AB that MSI is hosting, but when you run the installer it Crypo-Jacks your machine.

 

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

Question: so I have undervolt the GPU like the above, what should I do next?

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

On 1/9/2023 at 7:57 PM, VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants said:

Question: so I have undervolt the GPU like the above, what should I do next?

Looks like I have the answer to my own question, I guess this is how things work on the 'net...nevermind.

This is by far the best undervolting tutorial video I find, lowering the voltage and power consumption, but still allowing the GPU to go boost mode.

Here are the results of my card at factory default:

And undervolting my card to this:

With curve:

Results:

Sorry for being image-heavy. I find anywhere under 900mV, the card becomes unstable. I can try and make the boosted GPU clock up to 2745Mhz but I suspect it may not worth it, in terms of both performance and power draw. Because I take only the max values, it may not sound much improvement in the temperature department. Can do more tests on this.

Supplement: GPU-Z Average -- Default on the left, undervolted on the right.

Edited January 13, 2023 by VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants