No undervolt option in MSI Afterburner for 2070 Super

[Marcus L]

Hi, Newbie to the forums..

I have a 2070 super in my 2nd PC and following on from undervolting my 6700XT GPU using MSI Afterburner which works brilliantly at reducing my temps and power, I wanted to do the same with my 2070 Super, however when I unlock the voltage controls, there is only the option to increase the voltage slider not an option to reduce it, is this inherant with how MSI Afterburner works with Nvidia cards or am I missing something?

Marcus L.

 

[Lew Zealand]

That is how is generally works with my Nvidia cards (though I don't use Afterburner for my AMD cards).

Instead I usually control undervolting or power usage on my Nvidia cards by overclocking the GPU to where it's at max but still stable (usually +150 to +210MHz, depending on the card). If it doesn't need to use that maximum power, it downclocks and undervolts in tandem to save power, depending on the GPU demand. If you want to save power, you can set a power cap in addition to that, say at 150W or 200W for your 2070S, and the card will vary it's clock speed and voltage continuously to match that power limit.

You can also effectively set an exact MHz and voltage by using the curve editor and while I did that religiously in the past with all my Nvidia GPUs, IMO it is less performance-efficient than doing the above. But why?

Because different games load the GPU differently and (using my GTX 1080 as an example) capping to 1923MHz at 0.95V is very efficient, some games will use 160W and some will use 120W. And some will vary from 120-160W depending on the scene. During those 120W games and scenes, you are leaving performance on the table at a fixed clock speed and voltage, where if you set the core clock to +195MHz and the Power Limit to 160W, you will hit that 160W at 1923/0.95 in the demanding scenes and then hit 160w at 1999/1.0V in less demanding scenes.

Will that make a huge difference in fps? Nope. Is that easier to set and use in Afterburner? Oh hell yes it is!

 

[Marcus L]

I am more interested in limiting the power and heat than overclocking, in this case is setting a power limit of say "75%" of power enough to effectively manage the clocks and voltage within that power target? I would rather set it and forget it, as at 75% power I think I would be happy with FPS in games 99% of the time whilst knowing it will be running much cooler and quieter than leaving it at stock, or would you recommend using a capped clock rate alongside lower power consumption target?

 

[Lew Zealand]

Certainly setting it to 75% power will work but the overclock section in Afterburner is effectively the undervolt and you should do that as well. It is accomplishing the same goal: Running the GPU at higher clocks at the same voltage, or running the same clocks at a lower voltage.

Set your Core Clock to +150, I have yet to see a Nvidia GPU that cannot achieve this. Then set your Power Limit to 75% (your stated preference). This will most easily maximize your efficiency at the lower 75% power level.

 

[Marcus L]

Certainly setting it to 75% power will work but the overclock section in Afterburner is effectively the undervolt and you should do that as well. It is accomplishing the same goal: Running the GPU at higher clocks at the same voltage, or running the same clocks at a lower voltage.

Set your Core Clock to +150, I have yet to see a Nvidia GPU that cannot achieve this. Then set your Power Limit to 75% (your stated preference). This will most easily maximize your efficiency at the lower 75% power level.

Thank you, have experience with Afterburner though have been lazily using AMD's built in tool for the last year or so since owning an AMD card and TBH was not that impressed with it's efforts until I went back to using AB and achieved better results off the bat... thought I would do the same on my 2070 Super until I realised it was different to my AMD GPU.... this clarifies it somewhat, I will set a power target of 75% and up the clocks as a double effort, if I understand rightly one will never override the other, so if I'm at 75% power target and there is headroom left for a higher boost I will be able to benefit from those increased clocks where there is more headroom available? and vice versa so it's a win-win?

 

[Lew Zealand]

Thank you, have experience with Afterburner though have been lazily using AMD's built in tool for the last year or so since owning an AMD card and TBH was not that impressed with it's efforts until I went back to using AB and achieved better results off the bat... thought I would do the same on my 2070 Super until I realised it was different to my AMD GPU.... this clarifies it somewhat, I will set a power target of 75% and up the clocks as a double effort, if I understand rightly one will never override the other, so if I'm at 75% power target and there is headroom left for a higher boost I will be able to benefit from those increased clocks where there is more headroom available? and vice versa so it's a win-win?

Yes, exactly.

I wish I had tried it this way earlier as I have a slot-power-only GTX 1050 Ti that I had undervolted using a specific speed and voltage, but you could see it would hit the 69W power limit sometimes and not others. I now set it the way you will be doing and it hits higher clocks with a few extra fps (sorely needed in a lower-end card like this) at all times. Or run at lower power while maximizing that power use when it's installed in a case with restricted airflow and I need it to produce less heat.

 

[Marcus L]

Now I just need to settle on a power target... I used 75% as a quick example, need to look into total max power of the GPU and what I want to set it's max to, I will also use FPS limit/vsync/freesync in games alongside. So it doesn't need to be running 100% all the time, as well, a combination of all the above should ideally have the desired effect as much as possible without getting too anal-retentive about the whole thing.

 

[Raptor_i]

Ctrl + F in afterburner to open V/F curve editor
Use SHIFT to highlight the range of points after the desired point
move the highlighted point below the target point then press APPLY
Use ALT to move up the whole curve to the desired clock then press APPLY
Choose the voltage you want to run at and try to get the max stable clock at this specific voltage

https://imgur.com/FN414Oq

 

[Marcus L]

Ctrl + F in afterburner to open V/F curve editor
Use SHIFT to highlight the range of points after the desired point
move the highlighted point below the target point then press APPLY
Use ALT to move up the whole curve to the desired clock then press APPLY
Choose the voltage you want to run at and try to get the max stable clock at this specific voltage

https://imgur.com/FN414Oq

Would imagine if you don't get it right then there will be a lot of back and forth until you find the stable settings doing it this way? kinda what I am trying to avoid, but understand is necessary when fine tuning, would the above method not work then?

 

[Lew Zealand]

raptori's way is how I used to do it but it's a lot of effort and IMO only worth it for fine tuning. For most uses the simpler way I describe will get you 98% of the way there with far less hassle.

 

[Marcus L]

raptori's way is how I used to do it but it's a lot of effort and IMO only worth it for fine tuning. For most uses the simpler way I describe will get you 98% of the way there with far less hassle.

Yea, I get that and if I wanted to get out every bit of performance from the 2070 S like I have in the past, I would agree, now it's all about power saving as high as 25% with hardly a noticeable drop in performance and less heat, power etc

 

[agent_x007]

Your power slider in Afterburner doesn't go to 75% from 100% ?
(because you aren't touching voltages without "fine tune" from V/F curve table)