Should I Undervolt my 5700 XT?

[thegreatestusername]

Hey all!

 

I have an XFX 5700 XT Thicc III Ultra, and have read a number of threads about people's experiences with undervolting. The general sense I have is that doing so won't really impact performance much, but could significantly improve my fan noise and temperatures.

 

Is this true? Should I use Afterburner to undervolt my card? And if so, by how much? :)

[Whiro]

7 minutes ago, thegreatestusername said:

Hey all!

 

I have an XFX 5700 XT Thicc III Ultra, and have read a number of threads about people's experiences with undervolting. The general sense I have is that doing so won't really impact performance much, but could significantly improve my fan noise and temperatures.

 

Is this true? Should I use Afterburner to undervolt my card? And if so, by how much?

Easiest way is to check it by yourself. You can try with small steps undevolting and testing if that’s stable. Btw what’s your temps right now? Are they really bad?

[Otto_iii]

on average a 30-50mv undervolt won't hurt any performance, average clockspeeds, benchmark scores, but will reduce temps.  If you are paranoid then use a program like Afterburner+RTSS, or ideally just reference actual clockspeed in wattman.  For Navi 10 1940-1960 actual clocks is a good place to be, set clocks are higher (Target Clocks, basically what it is), but i mean actual reported consistent clockspeed. 

keep in mind the defaults are there for the worst of the worst silicon, that is just how these specific cards are being produced, and how their vbios is configured.  So far as clockspeeds? Personally i haven't found much use in going above 2020@1161mv for my card (my silicon is likely mediocre or bad, given previous underclock comparisons i did to other cards), it runs cool and benchmarks same as most 2100mhz cards i encounter, unless you are watercooled there isn't a reason to go much higher then about 2000-ish clocks, you might be able to run benchmarks, games etc, but from what i've seen without ultra low temps, or likewise reasonable temps at higher voltages (1.2v-ish) the actual performance isn't there over a more reasonable 2000-ish clockspeed + 1115-1160mv oc

Always validate in actual games after overclocking, likewise if under-volting. 

[Juular]

17 minutes ago, thegreatestusername said:

I have an XFX 5700 XT Thicc III Ultra

Ahh, you mean Plasticc Ultra.

18 minutes ago, thegreatestusername said:

The general sense I have is that doing so won't really impact performance much, but could significantly improve my fan noise and temperatures.

There's only one way, try it for yourself.

[Eigenvektor]

You should also definitely test multiple games. For example, I can undervolt my own card (rx 480) which makes it noticeably more quiet, but while it runs fine in e.g. Witcher 3, the same undervolt will reliably crash in Doom. So it's possible you'll need a "per game" profile.

[Otto_iii]

8 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

but while it runs fine in e.g. Witcher 3, the same undervolt will reliably crash in Doom.

Bad settings not worth using, if its not stable in literally everything its poo

[Eigenvektor]

Just now, Otto_iii said:

Bad settings not worth using, if its not stable in literally everything its poo

Yeah, I agree, which is why I have basically given up on undervolting my card. Even a very slight undervolt (-10mV) isn't stable everywhere.

[thegreatestusername]

1 hour ago, Whiro said:

Easiest way is to check it by yourself. You can try with small steps undevolting and testing if that’s stable. Btw what’s your temps right now? Are they really bad?

Thanks! Temps aren't actually terrible now. In my Apex Legends testing yesterday, I had a GPU temp of 75 degrees, a host spot temp of 99 degrees, and a memory temp of 74 degrees. The 3 fans on the card were spinning at about 2,200 rpm at the time, which wasn't what I'd call quiet though. Just wanted to see if undervolting would get me any improvement with temps and noise, without losing too much performance.

 

How many mV would you recommend starting with for each decrease? And which program would you use to do it? I've never done this before.

1 hour ago, Otto_iii said:

on average a 30-50mv undervolt won't hurt any performance, average clockspeeds, benchmark scores, but will reduce temps.  If you are paranoid then use a program like Afterburner+RTSS, or ideally just reference actual clockspeed in wattman.  For Navi 10 1940-1960 actual clocks is a good place to be, set clocks are higher (Target Clocks, basically what it is), but i mean actual reported consistent clockspeed. 

keep in mind the defaults are there for the worst of the worst silicon, that is just how these specific cards are being produced, and how their vbios is configured.  So far as clockspeeds? Personally i haven't found much use in going above 2020@1161mv for my card (my silicon is likely mediocre or bad, given previous underclock comparisons i did to other cards), it runs cool and benchmarks same as most 2100mhz cards i encounter, unless you are watercooled there isn't a reason to go much higher then about 2000-ish clocks, you might be able to run benchmarks, games etc, but from what i've seen without ultra low temps, or likewise reasonable temps at higher voltages (1.2v-ish) the actual performance isn't there over a more reasonable 2000-ish clockspeed + 1115-1160mv oc

Always validate in actual games after overclocking, likewise if under-volting. 

Awesome, thanks! I've used Afterburner and RTSS before, so I'd prefer that. And I've read complaints of Wattman not implementing things properly at certain releases. Like custom fan curves. And changing things on update. I want to be able to trust whatever I use.

 

Would you recommend decreasing my 10 mV each time until it becomes unstable in a game? Wish there were some good guides online for this, for my card.

[Otto_iii]

On 12/22/2019 at 4:52 AM, Eigenvektor said:

Yeah, I agree, which is why I have basically given up on undervolting my card. Even a very slight undervolt (-10mV) isn't stable everywhere.

What is your current voltage?

If it was by default around 1150-1175mv that is pretty standard for 5700XT at 1975ish clocks, i've seen some people get as low as 1100ish (usually around 1115), but ofc silicon lottery and all.  Personally i have to run about 1157-1161 on 5700 with XT vbios.  The main thing is on some cards it will try to default to like 1.2V and that is almost never called for, unless you have the worst of the worst silicon, or have a waterblock on the card and tempuratures to make use of higher clockspeeds while at low temps

[Otto_iii]

On 12/22/2019 at 5:09 AM, thegreatestusername said:

How many mV would you recommend starting with for each decrease?

Like 10 at a time, run it for awhile in a few games/benchmarks etc, then bump it up like 5ish mv at a time once you start running into issues

Sorry for double post*

[Eigenvektor]

7 minutes ago, Otto_iii said:

What is your current voltage?

If it was by default around 1150-1175mv that is pretty standard for 5700XT at 1975ish clocks, i've seen some people get as low as 1100ish...

Not trying to hijack the thread As I mentioned further above I have an rx480 (Nitro+). I was just saying that undervolting helps my card with temps (but unfortunately isn't stable) as an example why people undervolt.

 

My card is a bit weird, because the second highest clocks have the highest voltage in factory settings (1150 mV on highest clocks and 1168mV one step below)