Power-Limiting Nvidia GPUs While Folding

[Gorgon]

Now that were about to start the Folding Month and many are going to start folding 24x7 for a protracted period you may want to lower your GPUs power limit.

Experience has shown that there is an exponential increase in power required to achieve the highest range of boost clocks. Typically you see 20-30% additional power required at the high end of the boost table to achieve 5-10% additional clock.

 

Reducing your Power Levels for long-term use will keep you GPUs cooler and your systems quieter. I typically use a power-limit set to 75-80% of the Founder's Edition (FE) Power Limit for daily operation. It is important to note that most Add-in-Board (AIB) partner's cards have default power-limits that typically exceed the FE values so if your using AfterBurner, Precision X-1 or a similar control with a % Slider to know that your 100% value needs to be scaled to the FE value for running the cards more efficiently. Here are the Pascal and Turing FE power limits for reference:

Model  FE_Def  80%_FE   75%FE
1060    120W     96W     90W
1070    150W    120W     90W
1070Ti  180W    144W    135W
1080    180W    144W    135W
1080Ti  250W    200W    188W
1660    120W     96W     90W
1660Su  125W    100W     94W
1660Ti  120W     96W     90W
2060    160W    128W    120W
2060Su  175W    140W    131W
2070-A  175W    140W    131W
2070Su  215W    172W    161W
2080    215W    172W    161W
2080Su  250W    200W    188W
2080Ti  250W    200W    188W

Under Windows or Linux you can use the nvidia-smi tool to set the power limit from the command line or a script. First you have to enable "persistence mode" to have the setting "stick" between jobs:

nvidia-smi -pm 1

Then set the power-limit:

nvidia-smi -i 0 -pl 160

to set a 160W power limit for GPU0.

 

[viming_aint_easy]

Is there a documented AMD equivalent (specifically Navi) or is this an Nvidia exclusive?

[Gorgon]

37 minutes ago, viming_aint_easy said:

Is there a documented AMD equivalent (specifically Navi) or is this an Nvidia exclusive?

Same thing applies to any GPU. I don’t think there’s a way to easily power limit on Navi.

 

I imagine what you’d want to do is a negative clock offset and/or an under volt both of which will have the same effect of reducing the core clock and hence the power.

 

In practice, once you get an idea of what performance (PPD) the card does at stock and what the clocks and power draws are at that point, you reduce the clocks by 20-25% and see what your performance at that power is. PPD/W.

[lewdicrous]

GPU1 went from ~72-75°C to 73°C | GPU2 went from ~80°C to 73°C

Both on 80% power limit, nice!

Spoiler

Note: GPU2 only has one functional fan, while both fans on GPU1 are working.

GPU1: GTX 1070 | GPU2: GTX 1060 3GB. Both from MSI.

 

Both GPUs stay at ~71°C when set at 75%

 

[Baha]

This topic inspired me to try out power limiting a 3080. It took a bit of playing around to find the sweet spot, but I was really surprised by how massive the efficiency gain is on Ampere, Nvidia and OEMs must be running these things way, way beyond where their efficiency falls off.

Basically:

• 100% -> 70% power
• 1905mhz avg. folding core clock -> 1800mhz avg. folding core clock
• 425W total system wall power -> 350W total system wall power
• 70C core temps -> 62C core temps
• 1980 RPM fan speeds (78%) -> 1680 RPM fan speeds (68%)

 

So... 75W less power (!) for 5.6% slower clocks, while running 8C cooler and noticeably quieter.

[Rybo]

Just bumping this to amplify it.  I actually started power limiting my GPU because I installed a 2080 Super into my portable VR rig, causing it to fold at about 80 degrees, but when I set the temp limit to something more reasonable (I limited the temps to 77 degrees, which put the power slider to about 80%), the whole rig just quieted down.  Temps went down.  Noise went down.  It was bliss.  Seeing the results, I did the same to my main rig -- 2080 TI with the power limit set to 70% -- and my temps are sitting around 65 degrees (versus 75 degrees going full bore).  

And there is virtually no loss in PPD

 

Repeat

 

My PPD is within the normal margin of error for daily production. 

 

 

[SchnitzelDaemon]

What's the power limit for a 980 Reference?

[Gorgon]

25 minutes ago, rosebrambles said:

What's the power limit for a 980 Reference?

165 Watts per TechPowerup GPU Database.

[SchnitzelDaemon]

Thanks, so I've adjusted the power limit in afterburner to 80% and it's running now at 63C with the same speed fans as it would have been about 76C (card needs repasting!), I could even reduce fans further if I needed I guess. We shall see how we go for PPD! 

[LazyDev]

Inspired by your research, I shaved off 300 watts on my system, at the loss of an average of 500K points. My electric bill has been dropped by a fair amount, aswell.

 

For reference, this is one of my 2060's, with the TU104 GPU. These settings have been very stable over the past few days.