Need Help!!! R11 i7 10700KF 3080 Power Limit Issues, restrictions, and my options

[Ragnarok8016]

*FIRST TIME POSTING*

Hi everyone, as it stated above this is my 1st post and I went over the guidelines as recommended, so I hope this is the right place for my question/problem. I apologize if it is not, but I wasn't really sure because they're several topics I felt this could go under. Just a quick background of how this problem came to be.
I was in the market for a desktop and had my sights set on a custom build. In what is NOW seeming to be an unfortunate event, my darling wife reminded me of a substantial amount of Dell rewards we had on our account, and in addition a hefty rebate from Dell, to be used on our next purchase(given for literally screwing up her latest XPS purchase....several times). Both things all expired at or near the 1st of the year. Jumped on the Dell page, which after negotiating best pricing on 2 similar units, with 3 different Reps & Supervisors....Well, I made the purchase, but as good of a price I may have walked away with, in the end I'm really starting to regret it terribly. Which finally bring me to my questions/problems.

I am having a MAJOR issue with the 3080 POWER LIMITING. My thermals seem fine, as I've never seen it go above 70 typically hover around 60 - 61. I really don't have much experience in dealing with power limits, I realize what they are, but I don't know what I can do about them. All I know is that my 3080 hits the 323 watt on the board and limits constantly. I have a 2k monitor and struggle to get 65fps on RDR2 and COD CW (on Ultra but custom settings, so not all settings are maxed). Which is way under the tests and game play I've seen. Same with Synthetic ST, on 3dmark and Kombuster. I do realize that some of the other 3080 FE tests were done in custom builds with better towers, air flow, well better overall in general, but I don't think it should be this big of a loss. I've tried the what I thought might help, but really have no idea because as mentioned I don't know much about PL's
Here are things I've done.


- Reduced core clock in AB with curve (Got better thermals but as before they weren't the issue.)
- Tried to unlock PL slider in AB 4.6 3 beta (Doesn't seem to work, options not grey'ed out in AB settings, but after applying still maxes out at 100)
- Messed around in Nvidia settings
- CPU therm's have been very low as well but I tried UV through w/TS
- Looked around in Bios for something that will unlock the PL for the GPU

I'm basically looking for ALL options, I've read about vBIOS and that can allow you more options by unlocking restrictions. I have definitely spent the last 3 weeks looking into everything I can on the issue with any free time I have, as well as testing in game and synthetically looking to see if anything helps reduce the amount of Board power draw, to keep under the 323 watt. Nothing has helped. At this point I cant return the thing, and since I saved a decent amount of coin not going with the custom, I'm open to putting some of it in upgrades/mod/anything that will help. I also want to point out that I can get around with these OC/UV tools, data monitoring programs and a PC itself, I'm still very much a NOOOB (with 3 O''s) as I didn't really touch anything other than consoles till 2015. So any advice, knowledge, or where the best place to look is greatly appreciated. The rest of my system spec's should show themselves, but just in case the unit is Liquid cooled 1000 Psu.

Thanks in advance to everyone that takes time out of their day to read and help out others, including myself.

 

[phanbuey]

If your 3080 is hitting 323 watts then it should be performing normally. You might have a bottleneck somewhere else in the system. RDR2 is a hog but I do run it at about 70FPS (at 4k) so you should be getting much more at 1440P*?

Can you post some benchmarks of timespy to see if it's the card.

Can you also try this:

How to Enable the Ultimate Performance Power Plan in Windows 10

Ultimate performance comes at a cost.

www.howtogeek.com

 

[Tatty_Two]

In addition to Phanbuey's comments above. If the OP's card is a Founders edition it's stock power limit is 320W, W1zzards review noted that even at stock it hits the power limit all the time but that limit can be increased up to 370w which would certainly prevent throttling at stock, any 3rd party software such as MSI Afterburner would allow the slider to be maxed up to that 370w.

 

[Ragnarok8016]

Sorry with late reply, I got swamped trying to hit a hard deadline at work. Ill post anything that will help figure this out when I get home today. I will also enable the ”Ultimate Power Plan”. I know AWCC switches it from balanced to High when I launch any game or anything demanding.

As for the Power Limit slider in AB, mine is unfortunately locked. Well... when I say locked, I mean it wont go over 100. I can slide it lower, but I don‘t have the option to go to 103 or higher like others I’ve seen. I’ve looked into this for quite some time an can‘t seem to find anything solid on why. From what I gather is it is locked from Bios. I’ve also read there are things you can do to “Unlock” your Bios (which I’d be willing to do if it I’d gain access to extra PWR limit) but haven’t seen anything saying how to do this. I really could care less about Dell’s warranty or anything like that. I much rather have the ability to do what I want (with-in reason) with my rig/gear. Nvidia has their own safety limits built in anyways to prevent anything to crazy from happening.

I know that hitting the 323 is normal, I guess mine just gets there so easy without seeing very good performance. Yes running at 1440p the average FE 3080 FPS Ultra settings was in 110 -120. If there is anything I can post that will help determine if there is a bottleneck elsewhere let me know and I‘ll post. Off the top of my head I can‘t seem to think of anything. The 10700KF holds up well form what I gather. This weekend I’m going to be opening up the case to upgrade the fans and cooler. I read somewhere that using Daisy chained 8 pin connector can cause minor power problems, so I figured I‘d look at that.

What are the all options when it comes to a GPU’s Power Limits? Whether that be increasing the MAX limit, or Decreasing the amount drawn. What is it that effects it the most, other than the obvious....like voltage....If I can decrease my thermals (even though there fine) will that lower the amount of PWR the GPU pulls?

Sorry for all the questions, I’m just so used to thermals being the issues, so that is all I ever cared to dive into. Now that my issue is this PWR LMT crap, i don’t know what to do, and cant seem to find much with google, other than increasing the slider but mine is locked. I just want to get the average (or close to it) out of my GPU, and I’m just not getting close.

 

[phanbuey]

you can undervolt the card in AB -

Something like this will give you higher clocks at lower wattage. Since you will be running 1800Mhz at 800mv and then go up from there, it won't let it drop below 1800mhz even when throttling but should run in the 1900 to 1800 range at all times (which is better than bouncing around). Might be able to start it higher at like 1830 depending on your chip...

You can also usually OC the ram to about +800 and that gives a few FPS more.

On intel systems FPS does increase, even at 1440P with a mild overclock to 5Ghz stable/steady, and a cache/ring + ram OC, that will give you more FPS as well esp if you are ram or latency limited in the game.

this is a good undervolting technique:

I wouldn't rely on AWCC to control your power plans, closing AWCC and limiting the dell crapware background applications as much as possible will give you a few more FPS as well.

 

[Falkentyne]

Sorry with late reply, I got swamped trying to hit a hard deadline at work. Ill post anything that will help figure this out when I get home today. I will also enable the ”Ultimate Power Plan”. I know AWCC switches it from balanced to High when I launch any game or anything demanding.

As for the Power Limit slider in AB, mine is unfortunately locked. Well... when I say locked, I mean it wont go over 100. I can slide it lower, but I don‘t have the option to go to 103 or higher like others I’ve seen. I’ve looked into this for quite some time an can‘t seem to find anything solid on why. From what I gather is it is locked from Bios. I’ve also read there are things you can do to “Unlock” your Bios (which I’d be willing to do if it I’d gain access to extra PWR limit) but haven’t seen anything saying how to do this. I really could care less about Dell’s warranty or anything like that. I much rather have the ability to do what I want (with-in reason) with my rig/gear. Nvidia has their own safety limits built in anyways to prevent anything to crazy from happening.

I know that hitting the 323 is normal, I guess mine just gets there so easy without seeing very good performance. Yes running at 1440p the average FE 3080 FPS Ultra settings was in 110 -120. If there is anything I can post that will help determine if there is a bottleneck elsewhere let me know and I‘ll post. Off the top of my head I can‘t seem to think of anything. The 10700KF holds up well form what I gather. This weekend I’m going to be opening up the case to upgrade the fans and cooler. I read somewhere that using Daisy chained 8 pin connector can cause minor power problems, so I figured I‘d look at that.

What are the all options when it comes to a GPU’s Power Limits? Whether that be increasing the MAX limit, or Decreasing the amount drawn. What is it that effects it the most, other than the obvious....like voltage....If I can decrease my thermals (even though there fine) will that lower the amount of PWR the GPU pulls?

Sorry for all the questions, I’m just so used to thermals being the issues, so that is all I ever cared to dive into. Now that my issue is this PWR LMT crap, i don’t know what to do, and cant seem to find much with google, other than increasing the slider but mine is locked. I just want to get the average (or close to it) out of my GPU, and I’m just not getting close.

The only way to increase the power limit is to shunt mod. Shunt modding a 3080 FE and 3090 FE is a bit tricky as the edges of the original 5 mOhm shunts are lower than the middle (non conductive) part, by like half a mm or something, which means the "easy" way of soldering 5 mOhm (stacking) shunts on your card won't work.

e.g. this example works on shunts (1 watt shunts) which are completely flush and flat (black to silver edges=flat), but 2 watt shunts, which are used on the FE, and Gigabyte cards, have depressed edges.

Look at 16:20 here. This is the *perfect* way to solder "flat / flush" shunts to stack them.

Unfortunately, since the edges and middle are not flush, the shunts will not contact each other. So you need to build a 'solder bridge' first, as shown perfectly in this video.

Then you can flux on top of the solder bridge (as shown), apply the new shunt on top, then melt the entire layer while pressing down (one edge at a time!!) and create a nice mod.

I recommend the following for novices (after you watch those two videos and some others):

1) 5 mOhm shunts (safe to use on FE--FE cards do NOT have fuses. Also you cannot exceed 600W except in Q2 RTX anyway--hidden "MVDDC" limits will cause a power throttle especially at 4K, between 520 to 580W, depending on what you're running.

ERJ-M1WSF5M0U Panasonic | Mouser

Kester 60/40 solder:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00068IJNQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Solder tip cleaner:

Amazon.com: Soldering Tip Cleaner Solder Tip Cleaning Wire and Holder Soft Coiled Brass Tip Cleaner Kit with 5 PCS Solder Tip Cleaning Wire and 1 PC Holder for Cleaning Soldering Irons and Tips, No Water Needed: Home Improvement

Amazon.com: Soldering Tip Cleaner Solder Tip Cleaning Wire and Holder Soft Coiled Brass Tip Cleaner Kit with 5 PCS Solder Tip Cleaning Wire and 1 PC Holder for Cleaning Soldering Irons and Tips, No Water Needed: Home Improvement

www.amazon.com

TS100 tip good for shunts (but you can use the stock one also):

Soldering Iron Tips, Mini Stainless Steel Soldering Iron Tips Replacement for TS100 Soldering Iron: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

Soldering Iron Tips, Mini Stainless Steel Soldering Iron Tips Replacement for TS100 Soldering Iron: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

www.amazon.com

TS100 65W temp regulated soldering iron (Please avoid ANY starter crappy low power irons they are TERRIBLE for shunts!!)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MDTO6X7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

3M high temp polyimide tape (essential for protecting your PCB from soldering mistakes!!!!)
92-Amber-1/4"x36yd 3M Electronic Specialty | Mouser

High quality Rosin flux (required--always apply flux before each soldering step!)

SRA Soldering Products Rosin Paste Flux #135 In A 2 oz Jar - Brazing Flux - Amazon.com

SRA Soldering Products Rosin Paste Flux #135 In A 2 oz Jar - Brazing Flux - Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

Desoldering wick (you probably won't need this but its useful to have anyway!)

Chemtronics 80-1-10 Braid, DESOLDERING, Rosin SD, 10FT: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

Chemtronics 80-1-10 Braid, DESOLDERING, Rosin SD, 10FT: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

www.amazon.com

That's about all you can do for increasing the power limit.
also for those who intend to shunt mod, highly recommended you have a 16 AWG FE 12 pin power cable, the ones made by the PSU manufacturers are the best (like Seasonic; Corsair and eVGA, BeQuiet and a few others have them also).

 

[FireFox]

The only way to increase the power limit is to shunt mod. Shunt modding a 3080 FE and 3090 FE is a bit tricky as the edges of the original 5 mOhm shunts are lower than the middle (non conductive) part, by like half a mm or something, which means the "easy" way of soldering 5 mOhm (stacking) shunts on your card won't work.

e.g. this example works on shunts (1 watt shunts) which are completely flush and flat (black to silver edges=flat), but 2 watt shunts, which are used on the FE, and Gigabyte cards, have depressed edges.

Look at 16:20 here. This is the *perfect* way to solder "flat / flush" shunts to stack them.

Unfortunately, since the edges and middle are not flush, the shunts will not contact each other. So you need to build a 'solder bridge' first, as shown perfectly in this video.

Then you can flux on top of the solder bridge (as shown), apply the new shunt on top, then melt the entire layer while pressing down (one edge at a time!!) and create a nice mod.

I recommend the following for novices (after you watch those two videos and some others):

1) 5 mOhm shunts (safe to use on FE--FE cards do NOT have fuses. Also you cannot exceed 600W except in Q2 RTX anyway--hidden "MVDDC" limits will cause a power throttle especially at 4K, between 520 to 580W, depending on what you're running.

ERJ-M1WSF5M0U Panasonic | Mouser

Kester 60/40 solder:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00068IJNQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Solder tip cleaner:

Amazon.com: Soldering Tip Cleaner Solder Tip Cleaning Wire and Holder Soft Coiled Brass Tip Cleaner Kit with 5 PCS Solder Tip Cleaning Wire and 1 PC Holder for Cleaning Soldering Irons and Tips, No Water Needed: Home Improvement

Amazon.com: Soldering Tip Cleaner Solder Tip Cleaning Wire and Holder Soft Coiled Brass Tip Cleaner Kit with 5 PCS Solder Tip Cleaning Wire and 1 PC Holder for Cleaning Soldering Irons and Tips, No Water Needed: Home Improvement

www.amazon.com

TS100 tip good for shunts (but you can use the stock one also):

Soldering Iron Tips, Mini Stainless Steel Soldering Iron Tips Replacement for TS100 Soldering Iron: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

Soldering Iron Tips, Mini Stainless Steel Soldering Iron Tips Replacement for TS100 Soldering Iron: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

www.amazon.com

TS100 65W temp regulated soldering iron (Please avoid ANY starter crappy low power irons they are TERRIBLE for shunts!!)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MDTO6X7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

3M high temp polyimide tape (essential for protecting your PCB from soldering mistakes!!!!)
92-Amber-1/4"x36yd 3M Electronic Specialty | Mouser

High quality Rosin flux (required--always apply flux before each soldering step!)

SRA Soldering Products Rosin Paste Flux #135 In A 2 oz Jar - Brazing Flux - Amazon.com

SRA Soldering Products Rosin Paste Flux #135 In A 2 oz Jar - Brazing Flux - Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

Desoldering wick (you probably won't need this but its useful to have anyway!)

Chemtronics 80-1-10 Braid, DESOLDERING, Rosin SD, 10FT: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

Chemtronics 80-1-10 Braid, DESOLDERING, Rosin SD, 10FT: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

www.amazon.com

That's about all you can do for increasing the power limit.
also for those who intend to shunt mod, highly recommended you have a 16 AWG FE 12 pin power cable, the ones made by the PSU manufacturers are the best (like Seasonic; Corsair and eVGA, BeQuiet and a few others have them also).

Well, looks like you missed something:

W1zzards review noted that even at stock it hits the power limit all the time but that limit can be increased up to 370w which would certainly prevent throttling at stock, any 3rd party software such as MSI Afterburner would allow the slider to be maxed up to that 370w.

 

[Valantar]

The only way to increase the power limit is to shunt mod. Shunt modding a 3080 FE and 3090 FE is a bit tricky as the edges of the original 5 mOhm shunts are lower than the middle (non conductive) part, by like half a mm or something, which means the "easy" way of soldering 5 mOhm (stacking) shunts on your card won't work.

e.g. this example works on shunts (1 watt shunts) which are completely flush and flat (black to silver edges=flat), but 2 watt shunts, which are used on the FE, and Gigabyte cards, have depressed edges.

Look at 16:20 here. This is the *perfect* way to solder "flat / flush" shunts to stack them.

Unfortunately, since the edges and middle are not flush, the shunts will not contact each other. So you need to build a 'solder bridge' first, as shown perfectly in this video.

Then you can flux on top of the solder bridge (as shown), apply the new shunt on top, then melt the entire layer while pressing down (one edge at a time!!) and create a nice mod.

I recommend the following for novices (after you watch those two videos and some others):

1) 5 mOhm shunts (safe to use on FE--FE cards do NOT have fuses. Also you cannot exceed 600W except in Q2 RTX anyway--hidden "MVDDC" limits will cause a power throttle especially at 4K, between 520 to 580W, depending on what you're running.

ERJ-M1WSF5M0U Panasonic | Mouser

Kester 60/40 solder:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00068IJNQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Solder tip cleaner:

Amazon.com: Soldering Tip Cleaner Solder Tip Cleaning Wire and Holder Soft Coiled Brass Tip Cleaner Kit with 5 PCS Solder Tip Cleaning Wire and 1 PC Holder for Cleaning Soldering Irons and Tips, No Water Needed: Home Improvement

Amazon.com: Soldering Tip Cleaner Solder Tip Cleaning Wire and Holder Soft Coiled Brass Tip Cleaner Kit with 5 PCS Solder Tip Cleaning Wire and 1 PC Holder for Cleaning Soldering Irons and Tips, No Water Needed: Home Improvement

www.amazon.com

TS100 tip good for shunts (but you can use the stock one also):

Soldering Iron Tips, Mini Stainless Steel Soldering Iron Tips Replacement for TS100 Soldering Iron: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

Soldering Iron Tips, Mini Stainless Steel Soldering Iron Tips Replacement for TS100 Soldering Iron: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

www.amazon.com

TS100 65W temp regulated soldering iron (Please avoid ANY starter crappy low power irons they are TERRIBLE for shunts!!)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MDTO6X7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

3M high temp polyimide tape (essential for protecting your PCB from soldering mistakes!!!!)
92-Amber-1/4"x36yd 3M Electronic Specialty | Mouser

High quality Rosin flux (required--always apply flux before each soldering step!)

SRA Soldering Products Rosin Paste Flux #135 In A 2 oz Jar - Brazing Flux - Amazon.com

SRA Soldering Products Rosin Paste Flux #135 In A 2 oz Jar - Brazing Flux - Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

Desoldering wick (you probably won't need this but its useful to have anyway!)

Chemtronics 80-1-10 Braid, DESOLDERING, Rosin SD, 10FT: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

Chemtronics 80-1-10 Braid, DESOLDERING, Rosin SD, 10FT: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

www.amazon.com

That's about all you can do for increasing the power limit.
also for those who intend to shunt mod, highly recommended you have a 16 AWG FE 12 pin power cable, the ones made by the PSU manufacturers are the best (like Seasonic; Corsair and eVGA, BeQuiet and a few others have them also).

.... You're seriously recommending that someone with an undiagnosed performance problem immediately jump to shunt modding their GPU? Isn't that just a tad extreme? Do you also think amputation is the only viable treatment for any limb injury? Because that stuff is last resort stuff. Don't recommend that people start soldering stuff to their GPUs, please. They might be dumb enough to take your advice, and will then break something.


@Ragnarok8016 Please post some benchmark results - the first order of business is figuring out what your actual performance is like. 3DMark results with GPU clock speed graphs would be nice. Bouncing off the power limit is entirely normal behaviour for these GPUs - they try to boost as high as they can within that budget. The important part is what clock speeds you are actually seeing.

It's also normal and expected for an OEM GPU (like what you have, which is likely mde specifically for Dell) to have no option for increasing power limits, and generally very few oveeclocking options. Those are enthusiast selling points for AIB cards; for Dell they're a liability. Don't expect to be able to tune a pre-built to the same degree as a DIY PC. It should still obviously perform up to spec.