is it worth it to raise power limit of my gpu?

[Mando772004]

my msi gaming x trio 3080 has a power limit of 102%. so shall i use that extra 2%? is it dangerous?

[Tan3l6]

Not dangerous, just increases power limit so the card can draw a bit more power.

I tend to lower the power limit with newer cards. For example my 3070 is at 80% power level and is still overclocked reasonably. Uses 20-30 watts less power.

[Mando772004]

2 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

Not dangerous, just increases power limit so the card can draw a bit more power.

I tend to lower the power limit with newer cards. For example my 3070 is at 80% power level and is still overclocked reasonably. Uses 20-30 watts less power.

oh ok. i tried +75 on core and + 1000 on memory and it seemed stable on 3dmark. but i only did it to see the score xD however im thinking of keeping the 102 power limit thing.

[SorryBella]

7 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

Not dangerous, just increases power limit so the card can draw a bit more power.

I tend to lower the power limit with newer cards. For example my 3070 is at 80% power level and is still overclocked reasonably. Uses 20-30 watts less power.

Exactly what happened when you ignore boost algorithm and trial and error your way to a stable clock. You get better overclocks.

 

But imo, i do understand why that sort of trial and error is just too laborious considering that in the real world thatll really just translate to few cents saved on the power bill and 5-10 more FPS which is unnoticeable if your game is already running very smooth. So yeah OP, its not dangerous and its pretty good time saver if you just wanna game with your GPU rather than tinker with them.

[Tan3l6]

Tested just to get more accurate numbers:

100% = 248W

80% = 198W

Quite a big difference actually.

 

Lower power limit keeps inside of the PC also cooler a bit.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

4 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

Tested just to get more accurate numbers:

100% = 248W

80% = 198W

Quite a big difference actually.

I've been experimenting with lowering the power limit on my RTX 2080. I was pretty surprised when I compared the results to using an FPS limiter. I can get more frames using way less power vs setting an FPS limit. I setup a 50% power limit profile for more casual games like Valhiem where I don't need full performance. It's especially nice in the summer, since it doesn't heat my room up quite so much.

[KaitouX]

I personally undervolted my 3060Ti so it uses around 160W, decent drop from the stock 200W while performing around 3% worse in the worst case I was able to find, lowering the power limit usually lost more performance in my tests, but it required basically no testing on stability.

In my case, undervolting actually increased the performance in games because at stock the GPU can't boost as high after some time due to the temperatures, so most long tests have the undervolt performing better than stock and it's a lot quieter too.

 

In my tests with the 3060Ti:

Power Limit at 83% = ~163W power consumption ~5% worse than stock on average on the benchmarks I did. Lowering more results in big decrease in performance.

Undervolt 1860MHz at 850mV = ~155W power consumption, around same performance as stock in my tests, longer tests it was faster while on shorter it was slower.