Laptop 1070 Memory Underclocking=Stability & Performance

[padams0511]

I've noticed something curious, I'm running an Asus Laptop from last year with a laptop 1070 and a Core I7-6700HQ. Anyone who as a laptop 1070 knows how difficult it is for them to hit their boost clock, or even the base clock sometimes. So, knowing that the power limit is hard coded and that I lacked any thermal headroom, it is a laptop card overall. I went out to see if underclocking the memory on the card would improve the stability of the core clock, and it did, reducing the memory clock by 100Mhz and increasing the GPU clock by 100Mhz yielded a 2.6% performance gain in Unigine Heaven, Underlocking the memory further seemed to reduce performance, but I was wondering if anyone has done this before and enjoyed similar performance gains, or if it has been investigated by someone else, a quick google search yielded little information. While this might only mean the difference between 62 and 64 FPS, I think any enthusiast would rather take the 64.

[Leonius]

1 hour ago, padams0511 said:

I've noticed something curious, I'm running an Asus Laptop from last year with a laptop 1070 and a Core I7-6700HQ. Anyone who as a laptop 1070 knows how difficult it is for them to hit their boost clock, or even the base clock sometimes. So, knowing that the power limit is hard coded and that I lacked any thermal headroom, it is a laptop card overall. I went out to see if underclocking the memory on the card would improve the stability of the core clock, and it did, reducing the memory clock by 100Mhz and increasing the GPU clock by 100Mhz yielded a 2.6% performance gain in Unigine Heaven, Underlocking the memory further seemed to reduce performance, but I was wondering if anyone has done this before and enjoyed similar performance gains, or if it has been investigated by someone else, a quick google search yielded little information. While this might only mean the difference between 62 and 64 FPS, I think any enthusiast would rather take the 64.

generally the "laptop" 1070 is the same card as the reference only difference is, that many settings are usually locked. The performance gain you observed is to be expected. Since power for the card cannot be adjusted and is consumed by both memory controller and gpu itself, if you lower one you get a bit more headroom for the other. Since overclocking the core usually yields more improvement than memory overclocking, it is only logical that to some degree, if the clocks werent optimally balanced before you would gain some performance. Note though that this can depend on the application slightly. The new amd Vega cards in their air cooled variant are know to have the issue of holding their advertised boost clock and can be modyfied in a similar way you did to yours (with the exception that the power target can be changed) and this yields better performance. So yah if you find a nice middle ground between core and memory clock, good for you, a couple of fps more are never a bad thing.

[Sadleast]

Hey. I have a 860m and under clocked and OCd it to its limits and test the hell out of it. Ive never experiecend a higher score with lowering the MEM and higher the Core clock but the 860m is far away from the 1070 but it produces way less heat.

[padams0511]

1 minute ago, Sadleast said:

Hey. I have a 860m and under clocked and OCd it to its limits and test the hell out of it. Ive never experiecend a higher score with lowering the MEM and higher the Core clock but the 860m is far away from the 1070 but it produces way less heat.

The thing about the 1070 Laptop, is that the core clock is lower then the Desktop card, but the memory clock is pretty much the same, so, I figured that pulling back on the memory that's calibrated for more of a consistent 1900mhz Core Clock, would not hurt performance that much, and I thus far seem to be correct. I'm hoping that someone like Linus, or more likely Gamers Nexus investigate this in detail at some point.

[Sadleast]

1 minute ago, padams0511 said:

The thing about the 1070 Laptop, is that the core clock is lower then the Desktop card, but the memory clock is pretty much the same, so, I figured that pulling back on the memory that's calibrated for more of a consistent 1900mhz Core Clock, would not hurt performance that much, and I thus far seem to be correct. I'm hoping that someone like Linus, or more likely Gamers Nexus investigate this in detail at some point.

Just want to know, how hot does your GPU run while gaming?

[Elerek]

Are you allowed to undervolt the card? You could try the same thing people are doing on the vega fe. You can put a slight underclock to give more amperage room and more oc room without needing more wattage.

[Leonius]

1 minute ago, Elerek said:

Are you allowed to undervolt the card? You could try the same thing people are doing on the vega fe. You can put a slight underclock to give more amperage room and more oc room without needing more wattage.

read the post, thats exactly what he did.

[Elerek]

1 minute ago, Leonius said:

read the post, thats exactly what he did.

No? He said he under clocked the memory, not under volted the card...

[Leonius]

Just now, Elerek said:

No? He said he under clocked the memory, not under volted the card...

well yes but the result is exacly the same, since when running on a lower clock the components consume less power. All 10series nvidia cards voltages are locked, except some very expencive aib models, laptop models will especially be locked, you ususally cant even adjust he power targets, due to thermal constraints.

[Elerek]

1 minute ago, Leonius said:

well yes but the result is exacly the same, since when running on a lower clock the components consume less power. All 10series nvidia cards voltages are locked, except some very expencive aib models, laptop models will especially be locked, you ususally cant even adjust he power targets, due to thermal constraints.

Huh? Undervolting and underclocking are not at all the same thing and do not have the same result. Also voltage is not locked on any desktop cards that I know of.

I have an evga 1070 that uses a stock founders board and the neither the voltage nor the power limit is locked. The power limit setting has a hard upper limit on the card, that is not the same as locked.

Vega gets HIGHER clockspeeds while undervolted due to reduced heat output and more available amperage within the power limit. 

[padams0511]

36 minutes ago, Elerek said:

Huh? Undervolting and underclocking are not at all the same thing and do not have the same result. Also voltage is not locked on any desktop cards that I know of.

I have an evga 1070 that uses a stock founders board and the neither the voltage nor the power limit is locked. The power limit setting has a hard upper limit on the card, that is not the same as locked.

Vega gets HIGHER clockspeeds while undervolted due to reduced heat output and more available amperage within the power limit. 

It is impossible to change voltage on 10-series laptop cards, this is as good as it is gonna get.

[padams0511]

In sythnetics, low 80s. Last night when I was playing the Witcher 3 with Fastsync it ran at about 87 degrees Celsius, not great, but little to be done.

[padams0511]

1 hour ago, Sadleast said:

Just want to know, how hot does your GPU run while gaming?

Sorry, my last message above this was in reply to this.

[Elerek]

1 minute ago, padams0511 said:

In sythnetics, low 80s. Last night when I was playing the Witcher 3 with Fastsync it ran at about 87 degrees Celsius, not great, but little to be done.

Nonsense!

 

 

[padams0511]

FYI, I'm going to run the benchmarks more tonight to make sure that the results are truly repeatable.

[padams0511]

Just now, Elerek said:

Nonsense!

 

 

Ah, I'm glad that Linus has never lost his inclination towards janky solutions.