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I've always had the Global profile set to Prefer Maximum Performance, even when I had my GTX 580, as it was annoying to see the card running at low clocks when playing older games such as Psychonauts with v-sync enabled for example.
Yes, these games still ran smoothly at 60 fps but I'd rather have the extra overhead available to guarantee that the game will run smooth. With Adaptive Performance I even saw my GTX 680 drop down to 700 MHz on the core while playing Skyrim... and that was at 1920x1200, Ultra settings and 8xAA/16xAF/FXAA with the HD texture pack installed!!!
Yes, these games still ran smoothly at 60 fps but I'd rather have the extra overhead available to guarantee that the game will run smooth. With Adaptive Performance I even saw my GTX 680 drop down to 700 MHz on the core while playing Skyrim... and that was at 1920x1200, Ultra settings and 8xAA/16xAF/FXAA with the HD texture pack installed!!!