[SOLVED] Gpu undervolt doesnt take place until full load

poorbugger

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Hi all, i hope you can clear some confusion for my understanding of undervolting. I undervolted my 3070 and this is my voltage curve.

View: https://imgur.com/a/B81Pxlj


How during monitoring, in games like apex legend where the gpu load isnt 100% but the clock speed is 1890mhz, the voltage shown is still 1.075. But during benchmark or more intensive games where gpu is pushed to 100% load and still 1890 mhz, then the undervolted voltage is shown at 0.925. Is this normal?
 
Solution
You lowered the power limit, even undervolting lowers just the max. So if the gpu isn't using max, you don't get the loss. In other words, just undervolting the gpu 0.10mv doesn't mean at 50% usage the card will be using 0.10mv less. It's going to boost as high as voltages, power limits and temps allow.

Karadjgne

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You lowered the power limit, even undervolting lowers just the max. So if the gpu isn't using max, you don't get the loss. In other words, just undervolting the gpu 0.10mv doesn't mean at 50% usage the card will be using 0.10mv less. It's going to boost as high as voltages, power limits and temps allow.
 
Solution

poorbugger

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You lowered the power limit, even undervolting lowers just the max. So if the gpu isn't using max, you don't get the loss. In other words, just undervolting the gpu 0.10mv doesn't mean at 50% usage the card will be using 0.10mv less. It's going to boost as high as voltages, power limits and temps allow.
Ah i see. Thank you for the explanation. I thought it just means 0.10 mv less at any usage as long as when the clocks hit 1890 like in the curve.
 

Karadjgne

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Ah i see. Thank you for the explanation. I thought it just means 0.10 mv less at any usage as long as when the clocks hit 1890 like in the curve.

Yes, the gpu will use whatever it thinks it needs to to achieve the max boost it can and stay inside temp limits. 50% usage just means that 50% of the time it has periods of idle, and idle requires maximum voltage. Just like a cpu at idle has a higher voltage set than under boost loads. It has to do with the initial spike demand for the next non-idle phase, the gpu needs the voltage to cover anything. At 100%, there's no idle periods, no spike demands.
 
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