Is undervolting worth it in my case?

[IAmAndre]

Hey,

 

So I bought a Vega 56 last month and haven't done any tweaking on it yet. Actually I haven't been able to use it for a long because my motherboard died soon after so I ordered a replacement. However I've been able to run a few benchmarks and I'm wondering if I should consider undervolting/overclocking it.

I only have a 400W power supply (BeQuiet! Pure Power) so I don't have a lot of power headroom. I've never really overclocked anything in my life. I've already spent quite a few hours just to understand how undervolting works and I still don't know, but I do know that the procedure will take a lot of time and trial and error - even more for me considering that I'm new to this.

I've been using the GPU with the second BIOS, the more power-efficient one, and with the Balanced profile. Based on this review, the difference in performance between both BIOS versions are quite marginal:

Quote

The default setting of 210 W can be lowered to just 150 W if so desired. We ran benchmarks with both settings and were able to discover that the GPU was not much slower when running with the 150 W BIOS than the 210 W BIOS. Thus, it can make sense to enable the more power-efficient BIOS permanently. It will not only reduce the power consumption but also noise emissions. While the fan remained very audible with the 150 W BIOS, it was significantly quieter than before.

So I ran UserBenchmark and got pretty decent results, though still below the average results for this GPU. I'm getting a GPU score of 104 while the average is 110, but that's still on par with the RTX 2060  and the RTX 2080 Ti Max-Q. Not too bad considering that it never consumes more than 150W, which is ever more power efficient than the 2060 according to this benchmark. Unfortunately I haven't been able to test it more yet, but I've been playing two games (Apex Legends and Arkham Knight) on ultra settings at my native resolution and frame rate (1080p 60FPS) with VSync on.

I also checked Gamer's Nexus article and though I don't understand quite a lot of things, I can see that when undervolted the GPU frequency increases by 300MHz and consumes 30W more for a total of 210W. 

Quote

We’re at a higher clock than just the 50% offset – 1524MHz, steady as a sniper, versus 1475MHz. The stock card reports “1300MHz” here, resulting in a 224MHz boost for 30W more power – not a bad trade at all, and there’s plenty more room to play if getting serious about it.

Now my particular model has a boost clock of 1546 Mhz. Does this mean that I'm already at the "right" frequency with no undervolt?

[Quadriplegic]

You dropped link to Vega 64.

Regardless, just keep power limit stock, overclock the memory a bit and if you are not satisfied with temperatures/noise level, undervolt the card a bit. Just because your card is set to 1546 Mhz in Wattman, it doesn't mean it will reach 1546 Mhz in actual games, as that depends on thermals and voltage.

[fluxdeity]

34 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

Hey,

 

Your 400 watt PSU should be able to draw at least 500 watts. They're just rated for 400 watt continuous. Seasonic's new 1600 watt PSU for example can pretty much do 2000 watts, they just rate it at 1600 for reliability.

[IAmAndre]

19 minutes ago, fluxdeity said:

 

Your 400 watt PSU should be able to draw at least 500 watts. They're just rated for 400 watt continuous. Seasonic's new 1600 watt PSU for example can pretty much do 2000 watts, they just rate it at 1600 for reliability.

I don't think so. The system crashed once when I used the Turbo profile, and it was still under the low power BIOS.

[fluxdeity]

1 minute ago, IAmAndre said:

I don't think so. The system crashed once when I used the Turbo profile, and it was still under the low power BIOS.

I'd go for a bigger PSU then. Why would you get a Vega with a 400 watt PSU? 

[Ross Siggers]

Saying that it's okay to consistently use a power supply above it's rating, is horrible advice.

Yes it's possible. But not advisable, all units react differently, and OP's reports of crashing supports this.

[fluxdeity]

3 minutes ago, Ross Siggers said:

Saying that it's okay to consistently use a power supply above it's rating, is horrible advice.

Yes it's possible. But not advisable, all units react differently, and OP's reports of crashing supports this.

Be Quiet PSU's must be pretty bad if you're saying that. Seasonic themselves say their PSU's do more than rated for. It'll just trip and turn off if you over-current your PSU.

[Stormseeker9]

28 minutes ago, fluxdeity said:

 

Your 400 watt PSU should be able to draw at least 500 watts. They're just rated for 400 watt continuous. Seasonic's new 1600 watt PSU for example can pretty much do 2000 watts, they just rate it at 1600 for reliability.

But when a psu is rated, at a certain wattage( especially lower end ones) you don’t want to run then there. 

 

A 550w A tier or above would be much better choice.

[IAmAndre]

37 minutes ago, Quadriplegic said:

You dropped link to Vega 64.

My bad. Here's the right link: https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/Radeon-RX-Vega-56-Air-Boost-8G

Updating the post now.

[Stormseeker9]

4 minutes ago, Ross Siggers said:

Saying that it's okay to consistently use a power supply above it's rating, is horrible advice.

Yes it's possible. But not advisable, all units react differently, and OP's reports of crashing supports this.

100% mate. Well said 

[fluxdeity]

5 minutes ago, Ross Siggers said:

Saying that it's okay to consistently use a power supply above it's rating, is horrible advice.

Yes it's possible. But not advisable, all units react differently, and OP's reports of crashing supports this.

It's not advisable you get a 400 watt PSU for a Vega card either, but you see how that worked out for OP.

[IAmAndre]

12 minutes ago, fluxdeity said:

I'd go for a bigger PSU then. Why would you get a Vega with a 400 watt PSU? 

Well I got a PSU before even considering getting a Vega card or even an AMD one. I also don't want my system to draw too much power. But we digress.

[Ross Siggers]

Just now, fluxdeity said:

It's not advisable you get a 400 watt PSU for a Vega card either, but you see how that worked out for OP.

He had the PSU first. That was probably just an uninformed choice. Something we're trying to help avoid him doing again  

But I can't see what his previous decision, has to do with the advice I just gave? You response doesn't really make much sense if you were trying to make a point to me personally.

[Stormseeker9]

5 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

Well I got a PSU before even considering getting a Vega card or even an AMD one. I also don't want my system to draw too much power. But we digress.

I suggest buying a 550w psu, preferably tier a+ but tier a will do fine. 

[IAmAndre]

I won't upgrade the PSU for now so let's go back to the topic. Is undervolting worth it when I can just use the power efficient BIOS and still get away with a solid 2060-like performance for about the same consumption, and considering that I got my Vega for like €150 cheaper?

[IAmAndre]

2 minutes ago, Stormseeker9 said:

I suggest buying a 550w psu, preferably tier a+ but tier a will do fine. 

I might do it at some but not for now. Right now, I'm just curious about undervolting and whether it's worth it since I don't have a real understanding of the stuff I see online about undervolting this card.

[Stormseeker9]

5 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

I might do it at some but not for now. Right now, I'm just curious about undervolting and whether it's worth it since I don't have a real understanding of the stuff I see online about undervolting this card.

I don’t think your system will run on good terms with a 400e psu. Sorry to say

[IAmAndre]

2 minutes ago, Stormseeker9 said:

I don’t think your system will run on good terms with a 400e psu. Sorry to say

I'm not sure what you're talking about. If we use just the TDP's of all components we get a sum of around 400W so it that's enough to power all components in stress tests at stock speed.

[Stormseeker9]

2 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

I'm not sure what you're talking about. If we use just the TDP's of all components we get a sum of around 400W so it that's enough to power all components in stress tests at stock speed.

Yeah but Vega is power hungry. 400w is just not enough. Not sure on the rest of your build - but that’s my shared opinion.

[xAcid9]

1 hour ago, IAmAndre said:

I also checked Gamer's Nexus article and though I don't understand quite a lot of things, I can see that when undervolted the GPU frequency increases by 300MHz and consumes 30W more for a total of 210W. 

GN undervolt + overclock + increase board power target, that's what you do to maximize performance/watt but if you simply want to reduce power consumption then keep power target at +0 and undervolt the card. 

[IAmAndre]

11 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

GN undervolt + overclock + increase board power target, that's what you do to maximize performance/watt but if you simply want to reduce power consumption then keep power target at +0 and undervolt the card. 

Interesting. Would the performance be impacted negatively doing so. Would it perform better than just using the low power BIOS?

[xAcid9]

12 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

Interesting. Would the performance be impacted negatively doing so. Would it perform better than just using the low power BIOS?

If i'm not mistaken it won't but i'm not familiar with Vega card. I know 290/390 series better and that behave differently compare to Vega. 

If you're thermal limited right now, undervolting might yield better performance for you. Also you might better performance overclocking the memory since it doesn't increase power consumption significantly and Vega is kinda memory limited.

 

You can check this thread to understand more. https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/vega-64-overclocking-undervolting-information-guide.18793012/

[Ross Siggers]

Undervolting is quite popular in the small form factor world, to make ridiculously powerful machines into smaller cases. You take a more powerful card and/or cpu, and undervolt, to keep you stable  Often they can be tuned to maintain a net benefit over simply buying a lower tiered component, but it's often done for thermals in those situations. 

 

In a roundabout way, that's essentially what you'll have to do here. Which is NOT running above rating, and having your system repeatedly RESET. That's the very definition of unstable

 

So to answer the thread title... Yes! Read a few guides, and then give it a shot

 

[IAmAndre]

12 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

If i'm not mistaken it won't but i'm not familiar with Vega card. I know 290/390 series better and that behave differently compare to Vega. 

If you're thermal limited right now, undervolting might yield better performance for you. Also you might better performance overclocking the memory since it doesn't increase power consumption significantly and Vega is kinda memory limited.

 

You can check this thread to understand more. https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/vega-64-overclocking-undervolting-information-guide.18793012/

Thanks for the info. OK this looks really time consuming/frustrating and I probably won't have the patience to play with all this. I'd say it's OK to miss the potential 10% performance gain, at least for now. I guess that's what makes Nvidia's strength.

[xAcid9]

18 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

Thanks for the info. OK this looks really time consuming/frustrating and I probably won't have the patience to play with all this. I'd say it's OK to miss the potential 10% performance gain, at least for now. I guess that's what makes Nvidia's strength.

Just start with -50mV undervolt and then -100mV until it get unstable it game. Mind you -100mV is already quite a lot. +25mV if it get unstable and test again. No need to rush this imo. 

 

If you not interested in tweaking the card just sell it and grab a 1660 Ti.