Since I undervolted my i5 2500k for the very first time, I have become quite a fan of undervolting in general. I mean, who can say no to a cooler chip and perhaps even a performance increase. (I know, this heavily depends on the architecture.)
Naturally, I undervolted my old 2700X as well as my now retired r9 390X. Therefore, it goes without saying that I had plans to undervolt both the CPU and the GPU of my new rig. A few days ago, I started to start with the GPU.
The specs of my new PC are the following:
- Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master
- Ryzen 5900X
- ASUS Strix 3090
Unfortunately, I now feel the need to explain why I picked up a 3090: The reason is plain and simple because I wanted to. I knew I was paying extra for roughly 15% more performance than the 3080, but I also knew that if nVidia was to release a 3080ti I would be unhappy with my choice. However, I wouldn’t be unhappy if a 3090ti would have been released because this GPU would be even more expensive than the already expensive 3090. (Furthermore, I still do not consider the probability high.)
Now, for the undervolting process I used MSI Afterburner along with the curve editor. At first I played ran two benchmarks a couple of times (Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Horizon: Zero Dawn) and played Cyberpunk 2077 for quite a while to determine my average GPU clock. (Unfortunately, I was to dumb to save the benchmark results for comparison afterwards.) I ended up with 1860MHz @950mV. I then proceeded with curve editing and currently I have settled with the following curve:
As you can see, I also bumped up the frequency. This was due to a mistake at first but since this improved my frametimes in Cyberpunk 2077 I decided to stick with it. Thus, my current setting is 1905MHz @862mV. I am now almost constant at 1905MHz while gaming, whereas it fluctuated heavily before; in CP2077 it was usually just between 1830-1840MHz.
Aside from the obvious performance increase, my GPU now consumes less power (50W? - I will need to check, I don’t have access to my logs currently) and as a result runs cooler. Previously when gaming I was at 67°C max whereas now it is at 64°C max. But please consider this with a grains of salt since I am unable to have constant temperature in my room between tests. Likewise, the difference might be even higher, considering that the GPU fans probably run slower now than they did before. Once during gaming, I noticed them being turned off completely for a while (below 60°C).
I am not sure if I will try to decrease the voltage further for now, because it seems like I noticed an artifact while gaming once. Thus, I keep an eye out for now, but I also might have been wrong or this might have been a bug of the game.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this here since you also have been interested in my 2700X undervolt back then. I will continue undervolting my CPU when I have found both the time and an appropriate way to do so.
Update:
Out of curiosity I performed a stability test and compared the card’s default settings with my undervolt and overclock in TimeSpy Extreme and Port Royal, because I’ve heard from GamersNexus that card that appear to reach the targeted clock speed actually can have a decreased performance. Luckily, my setting seem fine so I pushed the clock higher again to 1950MHz (I think) at the same voltage. Below are comparison pictures.
Default:
Undervolt + Overclock:
So, this results in 4.56% more points in Port Royal and 3.64% in Timespy Extreme.