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Could anyone suggest some in game stress tests to use, with ray tracing please? I seem to be stable but not wanting to run into problems when ray tracing is introduced.
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3090 Undervolting
- Thread starter Steve Hel
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Thanks. I’ve tried everything I can and you mentioned, and not had any issues (touch wood). I managed 1905/856. It’s saved a bit of heat and I’m performing slightly better FPS wise. The bloody afterburner voltage adjustment was a bit of a pain, it has a mind if it’s own.
Yeah you gotta flatten the curve really early otherwise it does weird things. 850mV is pretty good, IIRC that should save you about 80watt
Pretty sure there is a topic for 3000 series on undervoltaging.
I max my sliders not sure why I need to save some electricity, I get if a card will only do X Core and you can so same speed with lower voltage but I cannot run 2200mhz in any RTX games it drops down but in non RTX it holds.
FE is hindered by Bios limits esp Power.
I max my sliders not sure why I need to save some electricity, I get if a card will only do X Core and you can so same speed with lower voltage but I cannot run 2200mhz in any RTX games it drops down but in non RTX it holds.
FE is hindered by Bios limits esp Power.
Soldato
I’ve tested undervolting extensively on my 3090fe using the afterburner custom curve method (look on YouTube, a few good guides around).
basically, anything over 0.83 volts will not save you any power and heat in games that use full raytracing. The watts will still go up to 350. Control and quake ii rtx are best for testing this.
In non ray tracing games however, undervolting up to and under 0.9 will save you a ton of power and heat.
As I’m not happy with the memory junction temps on the FE I’ve decided to go the conservative route and set a modest fixed core speed of 1750 at only 0.80 volts.
This saves a ton of power and heat eg most non ray tracing games run at around only 250w max, and full raytracing games average at only 310 watts.
You might think I’m gimping my card, but The interesting thing is the performance difference is tiny at this conservative clock compared to cranking everything up to 1900+ speeds. About 2-4 FPS difference is all. I’d rather save the heat and power!
basically, anything over 0.83 volts will not save you any power and heat in games that use full raytracing. The watts will still go up to 350. Control and quake ii rtx are best for testing this.
In non ray tracing games however, undervolting up to and under 0.9 will save you a ton of power and heat.
As I’m not happy with the memory junction temps on the FE I’ve decided to go the conservative route and set a modest fixed core speed of 1750 at only 0.80 volts.
This saves a ton of power and heat eg most non ray tracing games run at around only 250w max, and full raytracing games average at only 310 watts.
You might think I’m gimping my card, but The interesting thing is the performance difference is tiny at this conservative clock compared to cranking everything up to 1900+ speeds. About 2-4 FPS difference is all. I’d rather save the heat and power!
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Interesting that you say it doesn’t affect performance by as little as 2-4 FPS. If this is the case then I’m going to do more testing. I was just pleased that I was getting higher FPS than stock, and better temps to be honest. I’m willing to drop lower and save more power/heat if this is the case though. Thanks.
What I noticed was that it’s better to reset and it works first time every time. After running a benchmark however when I set the voltage it would just move back down, or the whole curve would jump up. At stock I was dropping below 1800mhz at times due to the power limit. Someone on here recommended Undervolting, and it’s worked out well. I’m not one for overclocking as such, but if you can get similar performance for less heat and power, that’s great in my opinion. Same with my cpu, I can hit 5.2, but dropped down to 4.9 to get much better temps.
Soldato
Depends on the game, I've only really test thoroughly with Control and Quake 2 rtx as these are the most punishing for testing ray tracing and stability.
With Control for example, at max settings, 3440x1440 with full ray tracing (no DLSS!) standing in same spot and looking at same area:
- at 0.80 volts and 1750mhz core I get 57fps (310 Watts)
- at 0.91 volts and 1900mhz core I get 61fps (365 Watts - have to bump power limit up to 108% to maintain constant core clock)
I personally don't think 4 frames a second is worth the extra heat, power draw and noise!
And stick DLSS on (which you need to do really with Ray tracing anyway at higher resolutions) and even at my modest settings the frames shoot up and power draw and heat go down even more, as you'd expect.
There's just no point gunning your GPU at constant full watts and power when you can get very good results with undervolting and a curve clock (if temps and noise are important to you anyway!) Get a few good and stable undervolt presets saved in Afterburner and it's happy days.
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Yes I totally agree. And will definitely see what I can achieve in terms of temps and power, dropping the curve further.
Someone mentioned “why didn’t you just buy a 3080 if you are going to gimp your 3090?”. The way I see it, I would be doing the exact same thing with a 3080 so it’s missing the point.
Someone mentioned “why didn’t you just buy a 3080 if you are going to gimp your 3090?”. The way I see it, I would be doing the exact same thing with a 3080 so it’s missing the point.
I just started doing this also ichill 3090x3 gets so bloody loud temps hit 74c and that's with fps locked @ 85fps @ 3440x1440 i dropped it -200 and set it 1755mhz and it very quiet temps 56-64c and get same fps. Haven't tried and ray tracing yet this is pretty much what i did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOkAcr01ZTw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOkAcr01ZTw
Soldato
Funnily enough my super fast tests when I got my card back in November concluded that heavily undervolted ran it a few fps lower but shaved off 100w in draw. Glad it mirrors my initial testing, I never played any titles with RT though to notice the power would differ.
Soldato
Good to hear it's similar. And yes, I think that when full on ray tracing is in effect the card will still draw what it 'needs' in terms of wattage, up to a certain point. Even when you're undervolting. Like I said (I'm not 100% on this) but anything over around 0.83 volts and the card will try and use the full 350 watts, on the FE anyway. This is why you need to run stability tests using heavy ray tracing games as to try and run 350w at a really low voltage won't get very far...
Some people don't mind hot and loud do they. Weird, I can't stand it. I try to run my system as quiet as possible. Keep at it!
Yep exactly. Don't know if you're on the FE version but if so you'd be doing it even more as the cooler on the 3080FE is way less substantial than on the 3090FE.
Thing is - I like knowing I have some extra juice and power waiting there on tap in case there are games that do actually need it too! Most don't though, and as mentioned at stock settings the 3090 will chug along at a full 350 watts at really high volts for games that just do not need it! I'm certainly no Greta lover but what a waste - think of the planet man
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On the stock curve for my 3090FE the card sits at 1830/1860 and given enough time the fans hit 1600rpm which is over my starting to get annoying noise threshold.
At 0.9 it sits at 1950/1965 and the fans get up to about 1350 which is inaudible over my case fans which are set at about 1200. My case is pretty but crap for moving air.
I'm gaming at 4k, doing VR stuff at >4k and rendering using optix so I'll take every frame I can get as long as the temps and noise are under control.
At 0.9 it sits at 1950/1965 and the fans get up to about 1350 which is inaudible over my case fans which are set at about 1200. My case is pretty but crap for moving air.
I'm gaming at 4k, doing VR stuff at >4k and rendering using optix so I'll take every frame I can get as long as the temps and noise are under control.
Soldato
But the 3080 is only 3fps slower!
But it costs more...
Anyway, what will I tell my grandkids when they ask what I did during the great covid GPU wars.
'It was only 3 fps an yer granny wanted a new wireless and some drawers without holes in.'
Soldato
Interested in how the 3080Ti boys end up when they are released next month. 
Good to hear it's similar. And yes, I think that when full on ray tracing is in effect the card will still draw what it 'needs' in terms of wattage, up to a certain point. Even when you're undervolting. Like I said (I'm not 100% on this) but anything over around 0.83 volts and the card will try and use the full 350 watts, on the FE anyway. This is why you need to run stability tests using heavy ray tracing games as to try and run 350w at a really low voltage won't get very far...
Some people don't mind hot and loud do they. Weird, I can't stand it. I try to run my system as quiet as possible. Keep at it!
Yep exactly. Don't know if you're on the FE version but if so you'd be doing it even more as the cooler on the 3080FE is way less substantial than on the 3090FE.
Thing is - I like knowing I have some extra juice and power waiting there on tap in case there are games that do actually need it too! Most don't though, and as mentioned at stock settings the 3090 will chug along at a full 350 watts at really high volts for games that just do not need it! I'm certainly no Greta lover but what a waste - think of the planet man
1800-800 is where I’ve managed to bring the curve down to tonight. You were spot on about the fps, I’ve only noticed a small decrease. I could go further, and might at some point, but I’m done for now. Every time I blink I’m seeing that bloody graph. Back to gaming tomorrow.
I bought the 3090 ftw3 Ultra. I tried to get the FE but couldn’t get one sadly. I think the cooler is great from what I’ve seen, it’s usually not that good on FE cards.
Soldato
^ Nice one.
I can't get fully stable at a nice round '1:1' curve like that. At 1800 I have to set 0.83 on my FE. Don't think mine is a golden sample for getting away with really low volts. it's still great though.
Word of caution - you might not be totally stable at those settings with full ray tracing games. I've found Quake II RTX (free on Steam) is the ultimate test for stability but not really the norm as it uses full path tracing (super fidelity ray tracing). The Sign it's not stable is the game just freezing up by the way, with sound still going in the background. Control as mentioned with full RT on is a good test too...
Non ray tracing games are fine with a ‘1:1’ setting like 1800, 0.8v though.
I can't get fully stable at a nice round '1:1' curve like that. At 1800 I have to set 0.83 on my FE. Don't think mine is a golden sample for getting away with really low volts. it's still great though.
Word of caution - you might not be totally stable at those settings with full ray tracing games. I've found Quake II RTX (free on Steam) is the ultimate test for stability but not really the norm as it uses full path tracing (super fidelity ray tracing). The Sign it's not stable is the game just freezing up by the way, with sound still going in the background. Control as mentioned with full RT on is a good test too...
Non ray tracing games are fine with a ‘1:1’ setting like 1800, 0.8v though.
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I’ll give Quake II a go today. Ive checked with Control, Cyberpunk, Metro Exodus with no dlss with high ultra raytracing. I find that I can pass benchmarks but as soon as I try the games with raytracing it was crashing with lower voltages, but with this it’s fine. I mean I’m never going to play these games without dlss anyway but I’d rather be fully stable.
I’ve seen some people achieve over 2000mhz. I couldn’t get anywhere near that as I hit the power limit straight away, even in benchmarks. Not that I would go that high, but in terms of golden chips, I have seen some crazy numbers claimed.
it is the same with overclocking my cpu. I can pass Linpack extreme, prime 95, real bench etc for hours, but I get whea errors after ten minutes of Apex Legends or Cod on certain modes. Not that I play those games, but I use them for testing stability. They are much better than any benchmark in my opinion. Real world testing has shown much more effective with any stability for me.
What settings are you using for Quake II, if you don’t mind?