Low power draw under load

[jirrrrbs]

Hey all,

My EVGA 3080 FTW performance has tanked the past few days (after working normally for a year) and the issue appears to be due to low board power draw in the primary build. I have a primary build and a spare build that I've been testing to determine what's causing it.

-Primary build: Intel i7-12700, EVGA 3080 FTW3, ASUS H670 mobo, Super flower Leadex III 850W PSU

-Spare build: Ryzen 2600, EVGA 1660Ti XC, ASROCK B450 mobo, Rosewill photon 650W PSU

I've been benchmarking the 1660Ti in Heaven 4.0 and monitoring via GPU-Z in both builds since it's easier to move around than the 3080.

 

Here are the results so far.

-I don't believe it's a GPU issue since the 1660Ti underperforms in the primary build, albeit still better than the 3080, but exhibits the same power draw issues compared to the spare build where it easily exceeds boost clock and draws over the rated TDP of 120W. Temperatures are normal. CPU is not bottlenecking.

-It's not a PSU issue since I tested a spare Seasonic Gold+ 650W on the primary build and achieved the same results

-I updated to the latest GPU drivers, Windows 10 is up to date, I've changed the power settings to high performance, and forced PCIe to 3.0 in the BIOS

Therefore, I think this points towards a motherboard or software issue and I'd like to avoid reinstalling windows unless I can pin it on a software issue. I was thinking of taking the spare build SSD (Win10 installed), putting it in my primary build, then booting from there and running another Heaven 4.0 benchmark. Any other ideas to help diagnose? Would really appreciate any thoughts, thanks!

[Winterlight]

It depends on game. Some game even under 99% load never draw max GPU power that is pretty normal and if your GPU hit 50-60% for example power draw can be very low in game. Mine 4070 Ti rated at 285W but in reality in never draw that power in any game. Usally it draw about 150-200W depends on game. In some older game even with max settings GPU power goes only too ~100W and don't even need active cooling can run at zero RPM. Paradox that actually my old 2080 draw more power in game than new even it have higher power limit than old.

[jirrrrbs]

During benchmarking it should be pushing the limits of the hardware, no? Just to be sure I tested the 3080 in the spare build:

 

GPU-Z 3080 Spare build running Heaven 4.0

 

GPU-Z 3080 primary build running Heaven 4.0

 

It's severely underperforming in the primary build now, but had been working normally for almost a year. I'm probably going to try and boot the spare build SSD in the primary build to see if it's a software issue, but otherwise it looks like my mobo needs replacing, unless anyone has other ideas?

[Winterlight]

Benchmarking show nothing it's just synthetic test too push GPU for it's max to test stability for OC. In reality any game push that high GPU even it show 99% usage. You shoudn't care at all about low power draw from GPU it show nothing. One game can draw ~100W at 99% usage while other can 200W at same 99% that just depends from game.

[jirrrrbs]

I get what you're saying, the more graphically demanding a game is the more power it requires and GPU usage is not indicative of performance. My issue is that I'm running the same "game" (benchmark) on an arguably worse PC and getting much better performance. The only discernable difference I can see is the board power draw and voltage. My primary PC was getting 100-150fps in COD MW2 up until a few days ago and suddenly it can't break 30fps. It's not that it doesn't need to draw more power - it is suddenly unable to draw enough power to obtain the clock speed it's capable of and I'm trying to figure out why.

[jirrrrbs]

Just in case anyone else runs into this issue, I determined it was a software problem and googled keywords within the past month. I found a reddit post that said:

 

"The recent Nvidia drivers add an overclocking feature to Nvidia Experience which screws with any overclocking software that is currently running. The software then ends up defaulting to the lowest power limit, crippling your GPU performance."

Sure enough EVGA Precision X1 had set the power limit to 41%. Everything works as it should now!