Undervolting RTX 3080

[OrangeLibra]

Hey everyone!

 

I just recently got an MSI 10 GB GDDR6X Gaming Z Trio Card and after using it for a couple of days I am thinking of undervolting it, however im not sure. I still have a couple of questions regarding all of that

 

1. GPU-Z says the Boost clock is 1830 Mhz however ingame I noticed it goes up to 1970 Mhz. Does that mean that the card is factory overclocked and will I need to put it back to its Base Clock before undervolting?

2. I have never undervolted a GPU before, so I dont really know what to do and what to look out for. Is there any video or guide that you guys would recommend?

3. The TDP when playing games like RDR2 and Cyberpunk 2077 is usually around 350W sometimes goes all the way to 360W and the temperatures go to 71c. If the card is undervolted, will this decrease the Temperature AND TDP or will it just decrease the power consumption?

4. Is there anything really bad that can happen while doing this aka can the card somehow break while undervolting?

 

Sorry if these are stupid questions, but id much rather get informed before doing anything and potentialy ruining my build. Looking forward to your replies!

[Shimejii]

Undervolting is pretty much pointless if you arent having specific issues. Generally there are 3 main reasons to undervolt. 

 

Thermals, this tends to be something done in the Tiny case builds and such where you have to undervolt to meet thermal thresholds or noise levels since higher fan RPM. Your at 71C, you do not need to undervolt.

 

Instability: Sometimes undervolting/Underclocking memory to fix it can help stabilize a card, this is usually an issue on the 1st few batches of GPUS.  At this point unless you bought a used card, this shouldnt be an issue.

 

Crashing/Power trip: Some 3080s/3090s/ ti variants have Transient spikes that will trigger one of the power trips on the PSU, undervolting a bit can certainly help alleviate this a bit but dont expect major results. 

 

Other cases are people that just like to tinker and play with their hardware to see where they can get a balance of Card performance to thermals, but overall honestly its pretty much a huge waste of time for the vast majority of people, since they have to make sure settings stick often and most people are lazy.

 

 

[LIGISTX]

42 minutes ago, OrangeLibra said:

Hey everyone!

 

I just recently got an MSI 10 GB GDDR6X Gaming Z Trio Card and after using it for a couple of days I am thinking of undervolting it, however im not sure. I still have a couple of questions regarding all of that

 

1. GPU-Z says the Boost clock is 1830 Mhz however ingame I noticed it goes up to 1970 Mhz. Does that mean that the card is factory overclocked and will I need to put it back to its Base Clock before undervolting?

2. I have never undervolted a GPU before, so I dont really know what to do and what to look out for. Is there any video or guide that you guys would recommend?

3. The TDP when playing games like RDR2 and Cyberpunk 2077 is usually around 350W sometimes goes all the way to 360W and the temperatures go to 71c. If the card is undervolted, will this decrease the Temperature AND TDP or will it just decrease the power consumption?

4. Is there anything really bad that can happen while doing this aka can the card somehow break while undervolting?

 

Sorry if these are stupid questions, but id much rather get informed before doing anything and potentialy ruining my build. Looking forward to your replies!

Like stated above, don’t undervolt unless you have a very specific reason to. Your temps are not an issue at all, so I doubt you have a good reason to do this…

 

Just let the card behave as it wants to, no reason to try and alter it. It is boosting because it has temperature and power headroom. 

[OddOod]

ibid
Cards are pretty good at keeping themselves healthy these days. 

If you're curious you can look at HWMonitor and see if it's being limited by temp or power while you game

[ewitte]

Out of the box most cards are WAY overvolted.  Aside from borderline chips.  Its unnecessary power usage, heat and fan noise.  I'm quite sensitive to noise.  The 50-80W I knocked off my 3080 made the fan way more tolerable and the performance is the same.  Actually, eve n if I really push the card to like 450W it gives me less than 5% performance increase.

[PDifolco]

15 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

Like stated above, don’t undervolt unless you have a very specific reason to. Your temps are not an issue at all, so I doubt you have a good reason to do this…

 

Just let the card behave as it wants to, no reason to try and alter it. It is boosting because it has temperature and power headroom. 

Nope

Manufacturers tend to overvolt/underclock everything so that it meets base specs and they won't have a lot of RMA and bad press if it doesn't

So usually you can save some watts or gain some clocks or timings on all GPU CPU and RAM

[LIGISTX]

1 hour ago, PDifolco said:

Nope

Manufacturers tend to overvolt/underclock everything so that it meets base specs and they won't have a lot of RMA and bad press if it doesn't

So usually you can save some watts or gain some clocks or timings on all GPU CPU and RAM

I mean... sure. Most would typically go the route of upping clocks vs reducing voltage, but in a desktop where heat isn't really a concern, I would typically say its not worth introducing potential instability just because someone may have seen a youtube video about undervolting and go ahead and try it.

 

Its similar to RAM overclocking...... So many posts on this forum have started to pop up with people who have instability issues and can't figure out why and have OCed their RAM without actually understanding how difficult a task that is and how hard it is to properly test. Obviously RAM OCing is not quite the same as GPU uindervolting, but the point remains; for most people, just leaving things alone is likely the best approach unless they want to actually invest the time and energy into learning what they are doing, understanding how to properly test, and be ready for when things may become an issue/unstable. This is what drives most of my answers asking about RAM OCing and GPU underclocking (especially for desktop, laptop there is a bit more of an argument), to just let the GPU do its thing.

[PDifolco]

1 minute ago, LIGISTX said:

I mean... sure. Most would typically go the route of upping clocks vs reducing voltage, but in a desktop where heat isn't really a concern, I would typically say its not worth introducing potential instability just because someone may have seen a youtube video about undervolting and go ahead and try it.

 

Its similar to RAM overclocking...... So many posts on this forum have started to pop up with people who have instability issues and can't figure out why and have OCed their RAM without actually understanding how difficult a task that is and how hard it is to properly test. Obviously RAM OCing is not quite the same as GPU uindervolting, but the point remains; for most people, just leaving things alone is likely the best approach unless they want to actually invest the time and energy into learning what they are doing, understanding how to properly test, and be ready for when things may become an issue/unstable. This is what drives most of my answers asking about RAM OCing and GPU underclocking (especially for desktop, laptop there is a bit more of an argument), to just let the GPU do its thing.

Ok, that's a position good for standard users that just want the thing to work and not bother

And indeed if you tinker with anything you've got to test it and possibly roll back indeed if system crash or is unstable. 

But my point is that stock components operate always under their max capacity because they're sampled and they're given safe settings

[LIGISTX]

1 minute ago, PDifolco said:

max capacity because they're sampled

Ish. They are all binned to some extent, but "max" is a bit of a stretch. Some chips run at higher voltages than others, some run less, its somewhat dependent on the silicon quality and somewhat on the cooling the chip is currently seeing, all mixed in with the voltage table that was determined for the chip from the manufacturer/board partner. They can run at higher voltages safely, they just become "not worth the power or heat" trade off for a slight bump in performance.

 

But, yes, as a result of this you usually can reduce the voltage a bit since they are given voltage tables that will make statistically all of the produced chips happy, which means on average yours will require less. 

[Bobbysixjp]

On 7/3/2022 at 8:20 AM, Shimejii said:

Undervolting is pretty much pointless if you arent having specific issues. Generally there are 3 main reasons to undervolt. 

 

Thermals, this tends to be something done in the Tiny case builds and such where you have to undervolt to meet thermal thresholds or noise levels since higher fan RPM. Your at 71C, you do not need to undervolt.

 

Instability: Sometimes undervolting/Underclocking memory to fix it can help stabilize a card, this is usually an issue on the 1st few batches of GPUS.  At this point unless you bought a used card, this shouldnt be an issue.

 

Crashing/Power trip: Some 3080s/3090s/ ti variants have Transient spikes that will trigger one of the power trips on the PSU, undervolting a bit can certainly help alleviate this a bit but dont expect major results. 

 

Other cases are people that just like to tinker and play with their hardware to see where they can get a balance of Card performance to thermals, but overall honestly its pretty much a huge waste of time for the vast majority of people, since they have to make sure settings stick often and most people are lazy.

 

 

This is not correct - undervolting can lead to lower power usage and lower temperatures. I have undervolted my 3080 to use about 70 watts less for almost the same performance. This also results in less heat as well. So it is definitely worth a try. 

[Shimejii]

7 hours ago, Bobbysixjp said:

This is not correct - undervolting can lead to lower power usage and lower temperatures. I have undervolted my 3080 to use about 70 watts less for almost the same performance. This also results in less heat as well. So it is definitely worth a try. 

it is 100% correct. Unless you are having issues with thermals, noise levels, or crashing,  most really wont care to do it unless that is something you enjoy doing. You said ALMOST the same performance, but not the same. Yes is it 98% of it? Sure, but the vast majority of people simply do not care if their card runs a bit hotter to get every last bit out of it. 

 

I did clearly state the three main reasons why you would undervolt, and some people genuinely enjoy tinkering and such and that is fine, its your hardware! Enjoy it to the full extent you can, but most simply wont give a shit. Its the same reason why most people dont Overclock, or try memory tuning, because in the end its marginal gains for a ton of stability testing wheras if it plugs in and just works without any tinkering and they are getting what they paid for, they are happy with it. Is it fun to OC, tune your card and cpu and such? Sure it can be, but it can also be a headache if things crash and other issues arise. Some people simply dont have the time nor will power to do that. 

[xg32]

On 7/2/2022 at 4:12 PM, OrangeLibra said:

.

if you know what you are doing, undervolting is more efficient, and if the pc is close to you acting as a space heater, for ampere most start at 0.8v 1900mhz and start bumping the clocks from there.

 

If you have never done it before, go look at a guide, leave it stock, or just use the optimized oc in afterburner.