RTX 3080 undervolting adventures

[wolf]

So undervolting isn't new, I've been doing it since Pascal and we know it can be a great way to reduce heat and power consumption, or even get higher clocks than stock with lower voltage an optimise for your individual silicone lottery win.

Myself and a mate got our 3080's early in the bit and have been having some fun undervolting, overclocking, benching against each other etc it's been quite the adventure. We've found 3dMark Timespy Extreme is a test that really pushes the wattage draw to the max and is a nice repeatable run with a score output at the end to judge performance, I then make sure Quake RTX likes the clocks too and doesn't want to drop clocks/crash. Most other graphical workloads don't push the card this hard at all, for instance if I'm seeing 350w draw in timespy extreme I'd be lucky to push over 300w in Control or HZD.

With that little blurb said here are some quick results from Timespy extreme, specifically the graphics score, usually runs done multiple times to ensure stability and reliable scores.

• 1930mhz @ 875mv ~ 9400
• 1890mhz @ 856mv ~ 9250
• 1830mhz @ 825mv ~ 8940
• stock ~ 8800

Anyone else got theirs or a 3090 and want to share scores and experience? I'm still having fun finding my sweet spot, and keeping this GPU off the power limiter.

 

[ratirt]

• 1930mhz @ 875mv ~ 9400
• 1890mhz @ 856mv ~ 9250
• 1830mhz @ 825mv ~ 8940
• stock ~ 8800

Hey.
You got the 3080. Nice. Can you post temps and power draw of the 3080 in an afterburner with the undervolt during gaming?
I was wondering how much does the temp and power draw go down when you do that.

 

[wolf]

Hey.
You got the 3080. Nice. Can you post temps and power draw of the 3080 in an afterburner with the undervolt during gaming?
I was wondering how much does the temp and power draw go down when you do that.

Hey, yeah was lucky enough to get the order in quick and got it next buinsess day.

The thing about this behemoth card is that the power draw can vary wildly depending on the load/game/task. So I use Timespy Extreme (tse) as a test and Quake RTX (q-rtx) after to ensure stability because they absolutely brutalise the card. Stock will always be bumping the limiter and drops clocks to do so, they vary wildly between 1950 and 1710mhz, and that undervolt I've listed 1930@875 is 345-360w in tse and q-rtx.

Now at that same 1930@875 setting I can run HZD and draw 250-270w constant or Control at 290-300w constant so it really varies quite a lot. I choose to base mine off worst case and know I can maintain clocks in any load situation, where I imagine I could shoot for 2000mhz at say 950-975mv or so, and get that in some situations but not others, I'm just 'fussy' and like a maintained speed.

Temps on the Asus TUF are phenomenal, 1930@875, q-rtx is about 62-64c in a prolonged session, HZD is more like 57-58c

 

[ratirt]

That's not so bad. Considering how big the card is. Around 300W for this type of card is acceptable. Actually it's pretty decent to be honest. There's probably slight FPS penalty when you undervolt but it's still worth it. 50Watts less is huge and probably the FPS penalty isn't noticeable at all. You can still pull an awesome FPS outta it anyway.

 

[wolf]

That's not so bad. Considering how big the card is. Around 300W for this type of card is acceptable. Actually it's pretty decent to be honest. There's probably slight FPS penalty when you undervolt but it's still worth it. 50Watts less is huge and probably the FPS penalty isn't noticeable at all. You can still pull an awesome FPS outta it anyway.

Yeah it's really not too bad at all I think, sure the card is power hungry but there is tremendous performance behind it. And the overengineered cooler/PCB etc goes a long way. I'm still shocked that it's so much cooler and quieter than the GTX1080 G1 Gaming it repalced.

Tinkered a bit more last night and I think I might end up at around 1860mhz @ 843mv for a 24/7 setup, not the most efficient the card can run mind you but it keeps it nicely away from the power limiter in tse/q-rtx as my worst cases.

 

[tabascosauz]

@wolf what's the stock VID on your card? Does it settle at closer to 1.0V or 0.950? Either way that's a good drop. Perhaps give 0.843V the rest of the week to game to make sure it's completely stable? Unstable GPU UV always seems to hold out on me for a couple of days then crash when I'm already accustomed to it.

Who buys a card to undervolt, this makes no sense to me. You pay that much, you best be exploiting its performance to its full on potential.

Perhaps those individuals who are experienced enough to understand that undervolting newer Geforce cards can both lower power/temps and increase clocks at the same time?

Just a wild guess from living above the proverbial rock.

 

[wolf]

Who buys a card to undervolt, this makes no sense to me. You pay that much, you best be exploiting its performance to its full on potential.

Against my better judgement, I've viewed the ignored content to try and extend an olive branch and give you a comprehensive answer.

Undervolting has many benefits, reduced heat, power consumption, and as is often the case (and is the case here), better performance than stock.

Companies like NVIDIA need to design and ship the cards with settings that work for absolutely everyone. So they need to have a clock/voltage curve that errs on the side of caution for stabilities sake. This does not take into account individual GPU variances and your win in the 'silicone lottery'.

So in this case I've done extensive testing and have found I can run the card at a clock/voltage that not only nets me better than stock performance, but also with reduced heat and power consumption. This might not be the case for absolutely everyone and every GPU, but by and large the same principle applies and there is optimisation benefits to be had.

@wolf what's the stock VID on your card? Does it settle at closer to 1.0V or 0.950? Either way that's a good drop. Perhaps give 0.843V the rest of the week to game to make sure it's completely stable? Unstable GPU UV always seems to hold out on me for a couple of days then crash when I'm already accustomed to it.

Stock it tries to boost up between about 1950-1980mhz at around 1.02v, and in less demanding titles can hold that, but not q-rtx or tse which are my brutaliser tests. The problem is when it can't hold those values stock, the clock can drop as low as 1710mhz so I am much happier with locking clocks and getting the other benefits at the expense of losing potentially the top few % at most in some games while drawing more power etc.

yeah I think I'll sit on the 843mv/1860mhz for a week or so and be sure she's rock solid.

 

[Nuckles56]

Who buys a card to undervolt, this makes no sense to me. You pay that much, you best be exploiting its performance to its full on potential.

What your idea of full potential is, is different to others, as many people (including myself) are willing to give up a frame or two a second for a card that runs cool and quiet all the time vs a noisy space heater that gives you that tiny little bit more (potentially). I've personally run my RX 480 undervolted and overclocked its whole life as I could remove 30-50w off full load and gain some performance and only when I was running benchmarks for TPU did I run anything else. My 1080ti has been left at stock as I never managed to gain much undervolting it as I got fairly unlucky in the silicon lottery.

 

[nguyen]

Hey, yeah was lucky enough to get the order in quick and got it next buinsess day.
The thing about this behemoth card is that the power draw can vary wildly depending on the load/game/task. So I use Timespy Extreme (tse) as a test and Quake RTX (q-rtx) after to ensure stability because they absolutely brutalise the card. Stock will always be bumping the limiter and drops clocks to do so, they vary wildly between 1950 and 1710mhz, and that undervolt I've listed 1930@875 is 345-360w in tse and q-rtx.
Now at that same 1930@875 setting I can run HZD and draw 250-270w constant or Control at 290-300w constant so it really varies quite a lot. I choose to base mine off worst case and know I can maintain clocks in any load situation, where I imagine I could shoot for 2000mhz at say 950-975mv or so, and get that in some situations but not others, I'm just 'fussy' and like a maintained speed.
Temps on the Asus TUF are phenomenal, 1930@875, q-rtx is about 62-64c in a prolonged session, HZD is more like 57-58c

That's the way pal , I too have always run my watercooled 2080 Ti at 1920mhz/925mV, constant clocks --> better frametimes consistency.
People just don't know that AVG FPS means little to actual gaming experience, the same reason why Xfire/SLI are dead. It's the AVG FPS combine with 99th percentile FPS (or 1% LOW FPS) that can portray the actual gaming experience.

Though I hate to say that you are not correct in saying undervolting when it's actually undervolt/overclock since you have increased the core clock offset. You can overclock (increase the core clock offset) with stock voltage and get better result than your current undervolt/overclock in games.

But right now i'm a little conflicted between running stock voltage/overclock and set a maximum FPS in Nvidia CP or running undervolt/overclock and no framerate limit. Basically setting a FPS limit will not only lower your input latency, it would also lower your power consumption (as you would when undervolting).

 

[wolf]

Though I hate to say that you are not correct in saying undervolting when it's actually undervolt/overclock since you have increased the core clock offset. You can overclock (increase the core clock offset) with stock voltage and get better result than your current undervolt/overclock in games.

But right now I'm a little conflicted between running stock voltage/overclock and set a maximum FPS in Nvidia CP or running undervolt/overclock and no framerate limit. Basically setting a FPS limit will not only lower your input latency, it would also lower your power consumption (as you would when undervolting)

yeah I guess it's pretty much both right, it's undervolted compared to stock, and overclocked compared to stock, just all part of the subtle nuances that is overclocking GPU's in 2020.

So I tend to try and find my optimal spot, and then I also run framerate caps in NV CP on a per game basis, as desired/required. Like you say it reduces power consumption further, input latency and yet again adds another layer of frame time consistency for that silky smooth experience. It's pretty crazy to play DOOM Eternal maxed out @ 3440x1440, capped at 140fps which never wavers and the GPU is pulling sub 200w, Ampere certainly can be very efficient.

 

[Mussels]

I wanna do this, and have a 3080 undervolted to the max since it's overkill on my current hardware

having it run silent and cold on its factory air means i dont need the expense of water cooling, and i can enjoy the extra performance and its heat when i actually need it in a few years.

(if it ever bloody arrives)

 

[nguyen]

I wanna do this, and have a 3080 undervolted to the max since it's overkill on my current hardware

if it ever bloody arrives

No GPU is ever overkill when you use DSR , perhaps you can try 8K res with DSR and see what kind of FPS you can get ^^.

 

[Mussels]

No GPU is ever overkill when you use DSR , perhaps you can try 8K res with DSR and see what kind of FPS you can get ^^.

30 with DLSS, which defeats the purpose of DSR

 

[nguyen]

30 with DLSS, which defeats the purpose of DSR

Yeah I tried DLSS 2.0 at 1440p vs DSR + DLSS 2.0 (so that DLSS would use 1440p as its internal res) and found that it's impossible to tell with the naked eye. For users with 1080p screen DSR + DLSS is a good idea because DLSS 1080p is not good as good as native res, for 1440p screens and above DSR is not necessary.
But DLSS is not widely available yet, so DSR is a way better alternative to TAA and FXAA

 

[BoboOOZ]

Who buys a card to undervolt, this makes no sense to me. You pay that much, you best be exploiting its performance to its full on potential.

Most savvy AMD Vega buyers? Most savvy Radeon buyers? Undervolting is great because it allows you to remove unneeded power draw which is put there by the manufacturer in order to be on the safe side for millions of GPU's.

It looks like Ampere will make a great candidate for undervolting, because Nvidia had to push the voltages because some of the chips are not stable enough otherwise.
@wolf what software did you use? For Radeon users the driver is already awesome, I wonder if Nvidia will make their own undervolting utility...

 

[wolf]

I wanna do this, and have a 3080 undervolted to the max since it's overkill on my current hardware

having it run silent and cold on its factory air means i dont need the expense of water cooling, and i can enjoy the extra performance and its heat when i actually need it in a few years.

This is exactly my thinking, overkill for current needs, so dropping a few % off the top isn't missed. But a few years down the track I can delve into that if I want to, or just upgrade again lol.

 

[300BaudBob]

I'm tending to leave my system on 24/7 these days so being a little greener sounds good...so long as I don't lose much performance wise though these old eyes can't tell much difference above 60fps anyway. One of these or the AMD is going in my system once prices stabilize.

 

[Deleted member 193596]

don't see any reason to undervolt so far.

my 3080 runs at around 2070 Mhz while gaming and when i undervolt it runs at around 1995 Mhz at 950mv

i save like 35W under load and lose around 10 FPS.
why did i bought a 3080 in the first place then?


reverting my CPU OC does much more in efficiency of my system.
even my 10600k pulls 110W while playing warzone at 5 GHz and 4.7 Ghz cache.

when i go back to 4.5 Ghz and 4.2 Ghz Cache (stock) i lose like 3 FPS while having almost 50% less powerconsumption.

 

[nguyen]

don't see any reason to undervolt so far.
my 3080 runs at around 2070 Mhz while gaming and when i undervolt it runs at around 1995 Mhz at 950mv
i save like 35W under load and lose around 10 FPS.
why did i bought a 3080 in the first place then?
reverting my CPU OC does much more in efficiency of my system.
even my 10600k pulls 110W while playing warzone at 5 GHz and 4.7 Ghz cache.
when i go back to 4.5 Ghz and 4.2 Ghz Cache (stock) i lose like 3 FPS while having almost 50% less powerconsumption.

or just place an FPS limit: less power consumptions, less input delay, better frametime consistency.
now I think the FPS limiter is a better solution overall compare to undervolting.

 

[Cowboystrekk]

or just place an FPS limit: less power consumptions, less input delay, better frametime consistency.
now I think the FPS limiter is a better solution overall compare to undervolting.

The best is to do both. Undervolt and fps-limiter. Find the highest possible voltage/frequency that avoids pwr-limit and you get better than stock performance, or undervolt for better efficiency and get clise to stock perf at much lower consumption and temps. Fpslimit is very useful combined with g-sync, setting it to 140 on a 144Hz you get no tear and great inputlatency

 

[Mussels]

The best is to do both. Undervolt and fps-limiter. Find the highest possible voltage/frequency that avoids pwr-limit and you get better than stock performance, or undervolt for better efficiency and get clise to stock perf at much lower consumption and temps. Fpslimit is very useful combined with g-sync, setting it to 140 on a 144Hz you get no tear and great inputlatency

Or in my case with a monitor that reviews show doesnt benefit past 120FPS, i'll just cap to 120FPS and call it a day. Ultra settings and smooth? yas pls.

now i just need it TO ACTUALLY ARRIVE AAAAGGGHHHHH (afaik its not even manufactured yet, they're so far behind)

 

[nguyen]

The best is to do both. Undervolt and fps-limiter. Find the highest possible voltage/frequency that avoids pwr-limit and you get better than stock performance, or undervolt for better efficiency and get clise to stock perf at much lower consumption and temps. Fpslimit is very useful combined with g-sync, setting it to 140 on a 144Hz you get no tear and great inputlatency

Yeah I thought so at first too but there is a problem undervolting combine with FPS limit: let say there are situations where the FPS fall below the limit by 5-10fps, having another 100mhz core clocks at the disposal could have help maintain the FPS at the set limit.

So it's either stock voltage + overclock and set FPS limit in competitive games (PUBG, Warzone, Apex, Fortnite, etc...)
Or Undervolting + Overclock and no FPS limit in casual single player game

Another reason is that with competitive settings for competitive games, they are not stressing the GPU at all, so capping the clocks by 100mhz does not help reduce power consumption that much. With Nvidia Reflex rolling out, the higher the GPU frequency, the lower your input delay is gonna be (Reflex + Boost, basically they are designed to keep GPU queue to a minimum)

So many options to fiddle with but no card yet , I'm just gonna wait until the price gouging subside and a waterblock to be available...

 

[Deleted member 193596]

both is completely useless..
pseudo saving a few watts to "feel better" for what? nothing.

meanwhile my food in my electric oven for less than one € needs 40 minutes at around 2KW to be hot.


overclock, enjoy squeezing every last frame out of it and call it a day.

 

[nguyen]

both is completely useless..
pseudo saving a few watts to "feel better" for what? nothing.
meanwhile my food in my electric oven for less than one € needs 40 minutes at around 2KW to be hot.
overclock, enjoy squeezing every last frame out of it and call it a day.

Having high FPS is pointless if the game is stuttering, 95th percentile FPS FTW baby.

 

[Cowboystrekk]

Yeah I thought so at first too but there is a problem undervolting combine with FPS limit: let say there are situations where the FPS fall below the limit by 5-10fps, having another 100mhz core clocks at the disposal could have help maintain the FPS at the set limit.

So it's either stock voltage + overclock and set FPS limit in competitive games (PUBG, Warzone, Apex, Fortnite, etc...)
Or Undervolting + Overclock and no FPS limit in casual single player game

Another reason is that with competitive settings for competitive games, they are not stressing the GPU at all, so capping the clocks by 100mhz does not help reduce power consumption that much. With Nvidia Reflex rolling out, the higher the GPU frequency, the lower your input delay is gonna be (Reflex + Boost, basically they are designed to keep GPU queue to a minimum)

So many options to fiddle with but no card yet , I'm just gonna wait until the price gouging subside and a waterblock to be available...

On Ampere with it`s limited OC-potential the best solution seems to be the OC+UV at the highest potential that does not pwr-throttle. This will improve perf vs stock and usually yield better results that regular OC with no voltage adjustments as the lower voltage allows you to reach higher clocks. You get the best of both worlds It don`t see the problem of using a fps-limiter anyways. Not using fps-limiter will increase inputlag when you get past monitors refresh unless you use fastsync. Also not using fps-limiter will increase temps in many games and hence get to the thresholds where Ampere reduced clockspeed due to temp more easily.