Downclock your GPU

[trentlad]

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.

 

[trentlad]

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]

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?

 

[trentlad]

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.

 

[trentlad]

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.

 

[trentlad]

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]

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.

 

[trentlad]

Hahaha! That was pretty funny.

 

[trentlad]

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.