Undervolting AMD's Radeon R9 Fury For Better Efficiency

[hagjohn]

I'm not sure saving money (undervolt) would be in the forefront of my mind if I was going to purchase a fury.

 

[Guest]

Undervolting saved my 3 Way Crossfire setup. Middle card would reach 94C in matter of minutes in Crysis 3 and other two around 88C. I dropped voltage -100 mV and kept stock speed and temperatures are now after hours of playing 67C, 79C, 75C. I'd say do it cause cards will run more stable and much cooler. AMD cards are overvolted already.

 

[dragosmp]

Nice article, really appreciated. It reflects my AMD CPU undervolting experience in so far as for CPUs the voltage actually seems to decrease. My find is that universally AMD CPUs can be undervolted to gain tenths of watts. I'm happy to do it myself, but I just feel that AMD leaves performance/W on the table due to neglect.

 

[Math Geek]

thanks for the few who chipped in other models they were able to undervolt. will play with mine a bit and see what might happen just cause i got time

i have a 280x, 270x and a couple 270's i can fiddle with. wonder what the 270 might be able to save on the power side since it does not use a bunch anyway.... more than anything i'm curious what the 280x can do.

 

[alidan]

No after reading all of this I'm starting to wonder why AMD didn't do it in the first place? Most of the current accusations towards them was "hot power hog", and now you are showing that getting close 980 in terms of performance per Watt... how the hell did they missed it? Now ok you are not holding the reference card... that might not work that well and that might be explanation, but in that case why Sapphire also missed that fact?

personally i take higher power and cheaper cards over lower power and more expensive cards, as higher power means more cards are able to be sold.

 

[maxoptimus]

I think undervolt can harm your expensive hardware, better reduce RAM freq. if you want better cool and lower wat and lost few fps;

 

[maxoptimus]

I think undervolt can harm your expensive hardware, better reduce RAM freq. if you want better cool and lower wat and lost few fps;

 

[TJ Hooker]

I think undervolt can harm your expensive hardware, better reduce RAM freq. if you want better cool and lower wat and lost few fps;

How would undervolting damage the hardware? AFAIK, the only thing you risk is becoming unstable.

Speaking of stability, is there a difference between being stable for gaming, and stable for compute? When I undervolt my R9 380 by 50 mV, I don't get any artifacts in games, but if I run the OCCT GPU stress test (or GPU error checker, forget what it was called), I get a bunch of errors (which I don't get at stock voltage). Maybe that's another possible reason for AMD's seemingly high stock voltage?

 

[MetalSparks]

It would've been nice to see the temperatures with the fans set to various RPMs at stock voltage vs -96mv to see the ?T between everything.

 

[maxoptimus]

I think undervolt can harm your expensive hardware, better reduce RAM freq. if you want better cool and lower wat and lost few fps;

How would undervolting damage the hardware? AFAIK, the only thing you risk is becoming unstable.

Speaking of stability, is there a difference between being stable for gaming, and stable for compute? When I undervolt my R9 380 by 50 mV, I don't get any artifacts in games, but if I run the OCCT GPU stress test (or GPU error checker, forget what it was called), I get a bunch of errors (which I don't get at stock voltage). Maybe that's another possible reason for AMD's seemingly high stock voltage?

it's not only my thinks: see discuss here:
http://superuser.com/questions/732089/is-there-a-risk-to-undervolting
CPU or GPU are complex circuit, so my think use it undervolted a long time can reduce working life of device.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Umm, that guy doesn't say that he thinks undervolting is bad, he's asking whether or not it is. And the answer he receives is 'probably not'. You can think whatever you want, but without any source or rationale to back it up, I'm not going to worry about undervolting.

 

[Eggz]

Umm, that guy doesn't say that he thinks undervolting is bad, he's asking whether or not it is. And the answer he receives is 'probably not'. You can think whatever you want, but without any source or rationale to back it up, I'm not going to worry about undervolting.

I'll start out by saying upfront that I'm not defending anyone else's point in this post, just responding to the notion that undervolting won't ever cause any issues.

It's obvious that undervolting can and will crash any chip after a certain point. Undervolt enough, and it's the same as simply turning off the power switch or unplugging your computer from the wall. But you don't have to go so far to see the same principle work. Undervolting less than "off" will also crash things.

If you want to test it, go into your BIOS and turn down the voltage on your CPU to 0.1 v (or as low as it will allow). It won't boot. That just shows there's a minimum amount of power required to keep a chip up and running, which isn't surprising at all. They are (after all) electrical components that need sufficient electricity.

 

[TJ Hooker]

I didn't say that undervolting won't ever cause any issues. If you look at what I said a couple posts up, I specifically mention that undervolting can cause instability. I was just responding to the claim that undervolting can damage your hardware.

 

[Eggz]

I didn't say that undervolting won't ever cause any issues. If you look at what I said a couple posts up, I specifically mention that undervolting can cause instability. I was just responding to the claim that undervolting can damage your hardware.

Yeah, not specifically at you, but I see why it seemed that way given the quote - m'bad! Just felt like clarifying something on the thread

 

[Jack_120]

Thanks for the article. My MSI 390 works fine with -96 undervolt and stock clocks. GPU-Z shows 300W from 350W, fans spin to 90% instead of 100% with slightly lower temperature. Tested with OCCT.