Just curious to know if folks are planning to or have done already, dial back graphics card clock speeds, voltages, power limits etc in an effort to reduce total system power draw with the price of energy now increasing significantly and set to rise even further from next April.
Although this is not something I have done yet (I need my GPU overclocked to run Far Cry 6 at 4K60+ max settings) it is something I am planning to do from February 2022 onwards as that’s when I get moved off my fixed deal with Shell Energy.
Working from home and having multiple systems, monitors etc powered on for a minimum of 12 hours a day, I will be looking for anyway possible to reduce the power draw of my various components.
For example, I will reduce my GPU overclock from 2750Mhz, 1.2v and power draw of 325-375W, down to 2400Mhz, 1.000v, down to 225-250W.
I will enable 65W ECO mode for Ryzen 5950X instead of using PBO and seeing power draw up to 200W+ while playing Football Manager.
I will dial back memory frequency, voltage and timings from 3800CL14 @1.55v to 3600CL16 @1.35v.
This will save hundreds of watts from monitoring power draw at the wall, which could help mitigate some of the increases in energy bills that are coming.
I will have two different profiles saved in the BIOS and Radeon software for whether I want maximum performance or good energy savings, whilst still retaining a good amount of performance.
With all that said and done, if a game needs the extra grunt I will switch profiles, but on the whole I plan to leave my system in a more energy friendly state next year, unless things get back to normality - which seems unlikely anytime soon.