Downclock your GPU

trentlad · 28 Apr 2010 at 23:53

Underclock your 4870

Yeah I know *GASP* *SHOCK* *HORROR* someone is doing the polar opposite to overclocking. \

As most of you know the GDDR5's are the biggest idle power hogs and my 4870 has half a gig of em. I found a pretty cool application called ATI Tray Tools by a guy called Ray Adams. It brought the temps right down on my GPU and it's saving a ton of power, which is obviously prolonging the life of the card too.

Just wanted to know what everyone else is using to underclocking their card and what core and memory speeds they are using? Especially if you have a 4870.

I'm trying to get my clock speeds as low as possible with stable video playback.

Any help or alternate underclocking apps would be appreciated.

dante6491 · 29 Apr 2010 at 00:10

You can downclock in Catalyst Control Centre anyway... I used to use Tray Tools back when I had a x1900xt but I just don't see the point of it now.

cmndr_andi · 29 Apr 2010 at 00:14

To be honest if you just want a card with low power consumption to play videos - you may want to consider selling the 4870 (£50-60) and buying a new passive 5450 (~£45).

The 5450 draws 8W when decoding a Blu-Ray and reaches a maximum temperature of 58 degrees C when running Furmark.

trentlad · 29 Apr 2010 at 00:32

cmndr_andi said:
To be honest if you just want a card with low power consumption to play videos - you may want to consider selling the 4870 (£50-60) and buying a new passive 5450 (~£45).

The 5450 draws 8W when decoding a Blu-Ray and reaches a maximum temperature of 58 degrees C when running Furmark.

HAHA! I know it's a strange concept to swallow but I'm a pretty hardcore gamer with a conscience for budget.

I think it's funny how people seem to dismiss downclocking. It's not like I'm gaming from the very second I switch on my rig to the second I turn it off. So I don't need to go into how wasteful it is to have your GPU heating up the room when you're eating a bowl of cornflakes watching Doctor Who.

I have a fanless 7300 GT with DVI O/P (runs on power from the PCIe socket alone!). If I could have my way that bugger would be a on switch so I could switch to it when not gaming and switch back to the 4870 when gaming.

trentlad · 29 Apr 2010 at 00:38

dante6491 said:
You can downclock in Catalyst Control Centre anyway... I used to use Tray Tools back when I had a x1900xt but I just don't see the point of it now.

Yeah that would honestly be great but the Catalyst Control Centre only allows me to lower the core clock to 500 MHz and the lowest memory is 810 MHz (so that's a minimum at 500/810). I'm running 160/220 with ATI Tray Tools and I'm able to lower the voltage!

Is there a way to take off this restriction? There is a similar restriction in ATI Tray Tools but they allow you to remove the limiter. Does Catalyst Control Centre?

drunkenmaster · 29 Apr 2010 at 00:49

Its fine to do, the reason cards often don't downclock memory since gddr5(and some before) is that when you set a new lower clock, the screen will flicker as it sets new clocks, why thats a big deal I don't know, but people would complain about the flicker. It is kind of a bigger deal as the 2d/3d speed switching could cause it to flicker far to often, and that is a problem, but if you set a 2d only and a 3d only speed in separate profiles then you can do it all with a right click of your ATI logo in the system tray.

I would set lower mem/clock speeds for my 4890 and 4870x2, largely as I find most game stability to be a problem of constantly changing 2d/3d speeds, and theres little to no reason for 3d speeds at the desktop so the constant changing of speeds is also pointless.

The 5xxx series cards have less issue with flickering as the memory speeds change, though they do have a problem with the speeds getting to low in dual/triple.../six screen setups, again fixable by setting your own clocks in profiles and changing profiles as you want.

Meaker · 29 Apr 2010 at 00:51

The problem is that the 4850 wont lower the memory voltage and the screen will flicker everytime the clocks change.

If you go between idle and load clocks a lot then the screen will flicker lots.

trentlad · 29 Apr 2010 at 00:56

Meaker said:
The problem is that the 4850 wont lower the memory voltage and the screen will flicker everytime the clocks change.

If you go between idle and load clocks a lot then the screen will flicker lots.

I see what you mean, so even if I find a stable ratio there could be a GPU intense operation that forces the card to switch clocks and cause the flicker. Yeah I've had that happen very rarely, thankfully not enough times for it to be annoying.

drunkenmaster · 29 Apr 2010 at 10:17

Thats why rather than changing one clock speed, you change them all, and simply set the 2d and 3d speeds yourself. In desktop set a pre-made 2d profile with all the clocks, voltages and so on the same, it will flicker ONCE when you enable, then set a 3d profile with all the speeds as 3d, it will flicker once when you set it, before you game, and jobs done. If you need a 3rd profile for some kid of odd incredibly intensive video playback, have one or just use the 3d profile for a while.

wolvers · 29 Apr 2010 at 10:33

It's a nice gesture, and if every PC did the same then it would be great. In reality though, you're probably saving around £5 a year.

Liampope · 29 Apr 2010 at 11:01

wolvers69 said:
It's a nice gesture, and if every PC did the same then it would be great. In reality though, you're probably saving around £5 a year.

My thoughts exactly. You'll make a bigger saving with much less effort by addressing other areas of your lifestyle. I hope you've fitted energy saving light bulbs everywhere before even considering underclocking a PC component

doozer · 29 Apr 2010 at 12:34

I used do the underclocking on my asus p5q pro board using their six engine software.

It used to make my pc lovely and quiet when I wasn't gaming.

I've now switched to a gigabyte motherboard as it's been rma'd and it doesn't allow me to alter my case fan speeds at all.

Think I'll have to get a fan controller as the noise off my case fans and graphics drives me nuts.

trentlad · 29 Apr 2010 at 13:51

Liampope said:
My thoughts exactly. You'll make a bigger saving with much less effort by addressing other areas of your lifestyle. I hope you've fitted energy saving light bulbs everywhere before even considering underclocking a PC component

The 4870 runs at 80oC when idle!!

It's not just about saving power, it's about lowering temps on the card and hence the other components around it. It's common sense that lower temps give you better performance and increase the life of your devices as well as saving power.

wolvers · 29 Apr 2010 at 13:54

I'm not knocking what you're doing bud.

Far from it actually. I always look at the power consumption as a deciding factor on components. Heat output, as you say, is also important for lots of reasons.

trentlad · 29 Apr 2010 at 15:03

Thanks mate.

It just surprises me how tough it is to find underclocking info... saying that, I've built my rig for overclocking (when it starts to get grey hairs) and haven't tried to find overclocking info yet!

trentlad · 29 Apr 2010 at 17:14

Come ooonn.

I know there's a ton of 4870 users out there, don't tell me you're just turning the fan up when its in idle.

DBT85 · 29 Apr 2010 at 19:16

extending the life of these kind of components has never made sense to me, most people here will replace the mobo, memory, chip and gpu at least every 3 years and this stuff will last far longer as standard that its a really no problem.

Liampope · 29 Apr 2010 at 19:22

Fair enough - you have your reasons. Didn't mean to sound like I was having a dig (well not a big one anyway

). Again, dont take it personally, but this phrase just makes me ROFLOL...

trentlad said:
It just surprises me how tough it is to find underclocking info...

How on earth can you be surpised there isn't a wealth of info regarding spending time and effort reducing the performance of PC hardware :confused:

. Lol - I'm imagining a world where 'Underclockers.com' is a thriving community...

"Hey guys check these underclocking benches!! I've finally achieved Voodoo 2 speeds with my 5850!!! Yeah!!"...

"Awesome! I've just installed my Superconductivity mods and got my Q6600 down to SUB 1W!!"...

"Read this and weep, guys... I achieved windows boot in over 2 hours... that's Windows 3.11... On an i7... with an SSD. I... am... God."

Hee hee

Sorry

trentlad · 29 Apr 2010 at 19:54

Hahaha! That was pretty funny.

trentlad · 29 Apr 2010 at 20:08

Todge said:
extending the life of these kind of components has never made sense to me, most people here will replace the mobo, memory, chip and gpu at least every 3 years and this stuff will last far longer as standard that its a really no problem.

I'm not planning on binning all my components when I do upgrade, there's nothing to say I can't have a spare PC or hand it down to someone worthy.