Definitely upgrade that CPU if you can. My undervolted TimeSpy overall score is 37% higher with the same GPU. (5900x CPU)
-
Notice regarding image hosts and attachments. See here.
-
Competitor rules
Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.
Undervolting GPU should be standard procedure
- Thread starter ne0
- Start date
Definitely upgrade that CPU if you can. My undervolted TimeSpy overall score is 37% higher with the same GPU. (5900x CPU)
Yeh it's getting to that time now, but I've always said I want to wait until DDR5 is a thing then I'll jump in. So I'll do it in a couple of years I imagine.
Are you seeing gains mainly in the CPU score or significant gains in graphics score too?
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Feb 2007
- Posts
- 16,185
- Location
- Sol
I had the 5930K, So basically your CPU but a few extra PCI-E lanes, I saw absolutely huge gains all round going to a 5800X, With DDR5 it'll be at least 2-3 years before we get a nice middle ground on speeds, Timings and more importantly, Stability.
Yeh I can imagine that running a 7 year old CPU is bottlenecking somewhat. Thing is I play at relatively High Resolutions - 3440x1440 and 4k so GPU was always far more important.
I've had a few interim GPUs in the journey, but the main upgrade was GTX1070 to RTX3080 Ti.
I'm happy to wait out the 3 years though. I want the upgrade to be really meaningful and so far the CPU is still doing okay.
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Feb 2007
- Posts
- 16,185
- Location
- Sol
1 thing that would concern me is if the 5820K is able to feed the 3080 Ti fast enough, I know when I had my 5930K I'd get odd stutters now and then even at 1440P, With the 5800X, Completely buttery smooth.
Yeh I hear you. I've not really noticed anything TBH, but will keep an eye out.
If it becomes an issue I'll upgrade, otherwise I'm going to squeeze every last bit of use out of this CPU before jumping on a step change improvement.
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Feb 2007
- Posts
- 16,185
- Location
- Sol
How's the volts on yours ? My 5930K ran damn hot, Lost the silicon lottery with that one XD
It's not great, I'm back at stock in the summer as I run it in a SFF case lol. Yup needs a lot of voltage for a good overckock, can't remember exactly how much.
Very similar graphics score, so all mostly in the CPU score.
Yeh I would suggest I'm not too bottlenecked at my main resolutions.
Will definitely consider upgrading when I can though.
Think I can afford to keep the GPU a few years now and focus on the rest. - CPU, mobo, ram, NVMe etc.
Yes, power limits (either/or in hardware or software) is another important aspect of how a card will perform. If you have a card that has an ample cooling solution, sometimes your power limits is what will hold your card back -- the crazy improvements people have had with a combination of hefty cooling solutions and shunt mods are proof of this.
My 3080 Ti only runs 70c load even with power limit set to 107%. It could certainly run faster, but the power limit (both in software, and due to "only" having duel PCIE connectors) is holding it back.
Associate
- Joined
- 31 Jan 2012
- Posts
- 2,492
- Location
- Droitwich, UK
Comparing stock settings on my 6800 XT to the same settings with a 150mv undervolt (1v down from 1.15v) I save around 50-60w on power draw and temps are around 3°c cooler while the fans run 300rpm slower (1100rpm). Most impressive.
I don't know anything about this stuff, usually just let everything run at stock but I followed a guide online for my new Gigabyte 3070 OC.
Anyway I reduced volts to 850 and increased vram by 1000mhz.
Before my card would boost to 1920mhz but now only boosts to the stock boost of 1815mhz (inline with the FE edition)
Before power usage was 240w when at full boost, now it is at 190w
Load temps have dropped from 75c to 62c
FPS in games seems to be more or less the same although I haven't run any benchmarks
I don't know if the above is good or bad as I was disappointed to see my card no longer getting the big boost to 1920 mhz
Anyway I reduced volts to 850 and increased vram by 1000mhz.
Before my card would boost to 1920mhz but now only boosts to the stock boost of 1815mhz (inline with the FE edition)
Before power usage was 240w when at full boost, now it is at 190w
Load temps have dropped from 75c to 62c
FPS in games seems to be more or less the same although I haven't run any benchmarks
I don't know if the above is good or bad as I was disappointed to see my card no longer getting the big boost to 1920 mhz
Why do you care what the max boost clock is, so much so that you're not sure if a lower max boost clock outweighs the lower temps, lower power draw (and probably lower noise)? I'm genuinely interested. Just a highscore thing? Fair enough if so - that's mostly what overclocking is for nowadays. I think a 21% improvement in power consumption plus a 17% improvement in temps plus an increase in VRAM clock (I'm not sure how much - spec for VRAM clock on that card is 1750 MHz, so +1000 MHz makes me think what's being displayed isn't the actual clock speed) will have more effect on your highscore than a 5.5% reduction in GPU clock speed.
It can't be about performance. Firstly because you're not tweaking settings for performance at all. That has such a low priority for you that you didn't measure it in any way before or after changing settings. Secondly, max boost clock doesn't necessarily affect performance anyway. It's entirely possible (and not even particularly unusual) to get higher performance at lower clocks by reducing voltages. 1815 MHz and power throttling less due to lower power draw could be better performance than 1920 MHz and power throttling more due to higher power draw. In the most extreme case I know of personally (my old Radeon 7950), I got a 35% increase in performance plus a 19C decrease in temps without changing any clock speeds at all, neither GPU nor VRAM. Just from reducing voltage, thus reducing power draw, thus reducing power throttling.
I would check your settings again mate. If your card is only boosting to 1815 that means you have the flat line of your curve (starting at the 850mv) down at 1785-1815 somewhere.
If you want it to boost to 1920 (assuming your card will be stable) you would need to send the line to 1890-1920 at whichever MV you desire and test.
I found my sweet spot for my 3080ti is 1830 @818mv. It will boost higher to 1860 and sit there all day regardless of light or heavy loads. This scores higher than stock (slightly) on all benchmarks and in game performance is the same if not slightly better due to consistency.
I can set it higher (all the way to 1965mz) but the issue is it keeps pinging off the voltage limit and also the boost jumps around a lot at any setting higher than 1830. For example setting it to 1875 will boost to 1905 under light loads but under heavy loads will bounce around and even go as low as 1830 which is lower than the 1860 real world boost I get with mine.
I would check your settings and play around a bit to find the sweet spot.
dont think you understand how it works, will give you my experience I have an 3080fe in some games it can boost to 1950 only for brief moment doesnt mean anything if it only does it for few seconds mostly drops down into the 18xx
over few weeks I have ran quite a number of benchmarks at stock and screenshot the scores and kept note of power usage / temps / fan speed you can set MSI afterburner to show stats overlay
So I tried undervolting for me the sweet spot is 1905@893mV I got crashes if set mV any lower so worked up in steps till it was stable every card is different some might need less some might need more but looking at others experiences I had base to work with , it sustains the clocks at 1905-1920
ended up beating stock performance benchmarks easily while lowering temps/ power use my goal was to match stock performance, the boost clocks dont mean anything if they cant be sustained
Associate
- Joined
- 9 Aug 2020
- Posts
- 492
I have just bought a 6900. How exactly do I undervolt? Do I use afterburner
Soldato
- Joined
- 24 Sep 2013
- Posts
- 2,892
- Location
- Exmouth, Devon
See page 3 for the videos. For AMD card you'll want to use the AMD software.
Seems I went too low on my first undervolt so I increased voltage from 850 to 900 and now my 3070 gets 1935mhz (1920mhz at stock), runs at 65 degrees (75 degrees at stock), power usage has gone down from 240w to 180w and my FPS (and superposition bench score) is 5% higher than stock settings.
Magic !
What surprises me is that Nvidia recommends 750w PSU (for the 3080 anyway) when this is completely unnecessary, the cards are just poorly optimised. Many people probably went out and bought new unneeded power supplies
Magic !
What surprises me is that Nvidia recommends 750w PSU (for the 3080 anyway) when this is completely unnecessary, the cards are just poorly optimised. Many people probably went out and bought new unneeded power supplies
Last edited:
Nvidia need to step up and and add this into the magic of their boosting logic. It surely wouldn't be too hard to provide an Nvidia tuner to stress the card with an aim to undervolt to improve performance per watt etc.