What is "Memory Controller Load" in GPU-Z?

[Fulano5321]

After a lot of googling I found one thread that says it was VRAM bandwith usage, another said it was DRAM bandwidth usage, and the rest just deal with issues of it staying at 99%.

Does anybody know what that sensor is actually measuring? I'd guess the usage of the memory controller chip, but that doesn't translate directly to bandwidth usage, does it?

 

[Tradesman1]

Believe it translate more to the amount of GPU VDRAM that's being used, if you run something like Unigine Heaven you can watch the load in relation to amount of DRAM being used

 

[Fulano5321]

Believe it translate more to the amount of GPU VDRAM that's being used, if you run something like Unigine Heaven you can watch the load in relation to amount of DRAM being used

It does have a sensor for video memory being used as well, and they don't seem that closely related as the Memory Controller Load stays pretty much the same, while I've noticed the video memory will fluctuate +- 200 MB.

Thanks for the tip about Unigine Heaven though, I'll check into that. I am a fan of numbers.

 

[Fulano5321]

Unfortunate that they auto-choose answers here...

After more research I found the memory controller was a chip that directs the data going to the memory. Unfortunately most of those articles were from 10 years ago, but basically it seems GPU-Z is just reporting on the usage of that chip.

I'd guess the usage doesn't change much because they put in a chip that's able to manage the max bandwidth all the time.

It seems the only time it maxes out before memory bandwidth is in the case of driver trouble or the card failing.