I don’t understand boost clocks properly

[robfosters]

GPU-Z reports my out of the box 3080 boost as 1800Mhz. I nudged it up by 100Mhz in AB and it now reads 1900.

I thought the boost is the max the card will boost to, but in games, it regularly jumps up to 2025Mhz. This confuses me.

anyone fancy explaining why this happens and how boost clocks work please?

 

[Besty]

GPU-Z reports my out of the box 3080 boost as 1800Mhz. I nudged it up by 100Mhz in AB and it now reads 1900.

I thought the boost is the max the card will boost to, but in games, it regularly jumps up to 2025Mhz. This confuses me.

anyone fancy explaining why this happens and how boost clocks work please?

I dont have time to type in a full response but the way I do it is to load furmark into a window and then set the boost clock. You then need to read the clock-speed off the afterburner On-screen-display or, the GPU-Z sensor tab.

The boost clock should then read correctly in the afterburner OSD, a mistake many make is to set the boost clock, run something that does not trigger maximum boost and do not read the boost clock using the sensor tab in GPU-Z or the Afterburner OSD.

 

[JohnG7]

Furmark has not been supported for generations now, both AMD and Nvidia will detect it and throttle down.

GPU Boost | Technology | GeForce (nvidia.com)

https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/5g9jo9/gpu_boost_30_how_it_works/

 

[robfosters]

Furmark has not been supported for generations now, both AMDF and Nvidia will detect it and throttle down.

Ive benched it through Port Royal and AB OSD shows 2025Mhz, despite GPU-Z reporting 1900Mhz

 

[JohnG7]

I find Heaven and Valley good as both stress card in different ways, if you can hold a certain Core speed in Heaven it will probably hold in any non RTX game at same speed or higher.

 

[Lightnix]

I get a similar thing with my 3060 even before overclocking and had the same question - turns out the boost clock is actually not the highest clock, there's an unwritten "theoretical max clockspeed" that has existed since Pascal that can be reached when the right thermal/power conditions are met, and is sort of capped by some percentage over your boost clock. I'm not sure exactly sure how you determine settings to realised clockspeed, I think it's just a matter of tweaking to see what you can get.

 

[CuriousTomCat]

Welcome to the silcone lottery where some clock higher than others

 

[JohnG7]

If you had the card Maxed Voltage wise and Temp Limited wise and Power Limit wise and opened a window and the room became really cold as the core cooled it would raise the clock even more.

Same if you loaded up a game that not as stressful on the GPU it may run 100+mhz higher than the game you set the previous Core speed to.

 

[varkanoid]

GPU-Z reports my out of the box 3080 boost as 1800Mhz. I nudged it up by 100Mhz in AB and it now reads 1900.

I thought the boost is the max the card will boost to, but in games, it regularly jumps up to 2025Mhz. This confuses me.

anyone fancy explaining why this happens and how boost clocks work please?

The figures you are seeing in GPU-Z on stock are the manufacturers minimum guaranteed boost clocks. The Nvidia boost tech will up the clock to whatever the card is capable of taking into consideration cooling, power etc etc etc so you often get more than what is stated. This has been known ever since the tech was rolled out its not hard to find the answer to your question in a quick search.

 

[Gerard]

Never liked the concept of boost clocks since it was introduced, just seems to be a way to flog more chips that operate at a frequency range rather than ones that operated at a specific 3d clock.

 

[varkanoid]

Never liked the concept of boost clocks since it was introduced, just seems to be a way to flog more chips that operate at a frequency range rather than ones that operated at a specific 3d clock.

It did take some getting used to when it came out when you knew your card previously would run at say 750mhz and not a mhz more unless you manually did it. These youngsters today dont know they were born !

 

[JohnG7]

The figures you are seeing in GPU-Z on stock are the manufacturers minimum guaranteed boost clocks. The Nvidia boost tech will up the clock to whatever the card is capable of taking into consideration cooling, power etc etc etc so you often get more than what is stated. This has been known ever since the tech was rolled out its not hard to find the answer to your question in a quick search.

Correct the only difference with each new iteration is there are more variables so your going to get more varied clocks on various games at same Slider settings.

You are not going to have say a 2100mhz Clock setting for all your games, it will run 1900mhz in some and try to go beyond 2100mhz in others (may crash).

 

[Gerard]

It did take some getting used to when it came out when you knew your card previously would run at say 750mhz and not a mhz more unless you manually did it. These youngsters today dont know they were born !

I remember there was a big of annoyance when they were first introduced due to concerns about cards boosting higher than others, that's in the past now. No such thing as a stable clock in game these days as the frequency bounces about to some degree.

 

[Kaapstad]

Ive benched it through Port Royal and AB OSD shows 2025Mhz, despite GPU-Z reporting 1900Mhz

In Port Royal it will give you two figures

Clock frequency - the highest your card boosted to.

Average clock frequency - the average your card boosted to.

 

[JohnG7]

Heaven and Valley read low also, I use RTTS.

 

[Grim5]

Welcome to the silcone lottery where some clock higher than others

yes, but that has nothing to do with OP's question

 

[Grim5]

GPU-Z reports my out of the box 3080 boost as 1800Mhz. I nudged it up by 100Mhz in AB and it now reads 1900.

I thought the boost is the max the card will boost to, but in games, it regularly jumps up to 2025Mhz. This confuses me.

anyone fancy explaining why this happens and how boost clocks work please?

Simply put, Nvdia GPU's have a software feature which you cannot disabled called GPU Boost. This software automatically overclocks the GPU while you are gaming, that's why you see higher clocks than you expect. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/technologies/gpu-boost/technology/

As an example with a 3080, the 3080 FE card has a advertised clock speed of 1710mhz. If GPU Boost was disabled your card would run at exactly 1710mhz, but you cannot disable GPU Boost so it will run higher https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-rtx-3080.c3621

Starting with our GTX 600 series and later, every application and game runs at a guaranteed, minimum Base Clock speed. If there’s extra power available, a Boost Clock is enabled increasing clock speeds until the graphics card hits its predetermined Power Target. This dynamic clock speed adjustment is controlled by GPU Boost, which monitors a raft of data and makes real-time changes to speeds and voltages several times per second, maximizing performance in each and every application.

 

[oguzsoso]

Simply put, Nvdia GPU's have a software feature which you cannot disabled called GPU Boost. This software automatically overclocks the GPU while you are gaming, that's why you see higher clocks than you expect. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/technologies/gpu-boost/technology/

As an example with a 3080, the 3080 FE card has a advertised clock speed of 1710mhz. If GPU Boost was disabled your card would run at exactly 1710mhz, but you cannot disable GPU Boost so it will run higher https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-rtx-3080.c3621

you can actually, in some way, kinda, disable it with Afterburner



by adjusting the voltage/freq curve like this, you limit the card not being able to go above 1785 mhz and 918 mv

of course it's not like some kind of switch , but it effectively does the same job