Why won't my 4090 underclock?

[HungryHamster]

I'm trying to troubleshoot an issue with my Asus ROG Strix RTX 4090 OC edition crashing and it was recommended I try to underclock it. I downloaded Asus GPU Tweak III and moved the "GPU Boost Clock" slider to the left to about -130 MHz yet I'm still getting clock speeds not only higher than that, but also about +200MHz higher than the default of 2610MHz. Can someone explain what is going on here and if this is normal? I'm worried something is causing my card to OC when I actually want to underclock it. 

[PDifolco]

9 minutes ago, HungryHamster said:

I'm trying to troubleshoot an issue with my Asus ROG Strix RTX 4090 OC edition crashing and it was recommended I try to underclock it. I downloaded Asus GPU Tweak III and moved the "GPU Boost Clock" slider to the left to about -130 MHz yet I'm still getting clock speeds not only higher than that, but also about +200MHz higher than the default of 2610MHz. Can someone explain what is going on here and if this is normal? I'm worried something is causing my card to OC when I actually want to underclock it. 

Undervolting shouldn't be static, use afterburner to set a voltage/clock curve

[HungryHamster]

2 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Undervolting shouldn't be static, use afterburner to set a voltage/clock curve

Thanks for your response. So I actually need to mess with the voltage to get a lower clock speed?

 

Also, do you know if it's normal for my card to be running at 2820MHz without any overclocking?

[PDifolco]

1 minute ago, HungryHamster said:

Thanks for your response. So I actually need to mess with the voltage to get a lower clock speed?

 

Also, do you know if it's normal for my card to be running at 2820MHz without any overclocking?

There's no reason to cap clocks, if you just want more efficiency you should undervolt and limit power

On my 3080 I managed to have it run at max 270W (nearly 20% less power) for less than 10% performance loss

[HungryHamster]

5 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

There's no reason to cap clocks, if you just want more efficiency you should undervolt and limit power

On my 3080 I managed to have it run at max 270W (nearly 20% less power) for less than 10% performance loss

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear enough in my post, but I want to underclock because someone recommended trying this to resolve an issue with my graphics card crashing. They recommended lowering it by 100MHz. It's just a test to see if it will still crash. I still don't know why it's running at 2820MHz and why moving the boost clock speed slider lower by -130MHz has no effect.

[Agall]

22 minutes ago, HungryHamster said:

I'm trying to troubleshoot an issue with my Asus ROG Strix RTX 4090 OC edition crashing and it was recommended I try to underclock it. I downloaded Asus GPU Tweak III and moved the "GPU Boost Clock" slider to the left to about -130 MHz yet I'm still getting clock speeds not only higher than that, but also about +200MHz higher than the default of 2610MHz. Can someone explain what is going on here and if this is normal? I'm worried something is causing my card to OC when I actually want to underclock it. 

RTX 4090 really only cares for a lower TDP. Usually a RTX 4090 will be power and/or voltage limited, even when running full bore 133% TDP. Lowering that down to even 60% doesn't net that much loss in performance, but its a tipping point. Anything like 80-90% is almost negligible compared to stock in actual games.

 

Its probably staying at its boost clock because its not TDP or voltage limited, to answer your question.

[xg32]

1 minute ago, HungryHamster said:

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear enough in my post, but I want to underclock because someone recommended trying this to resolve an issue with my graphics card crashing. It has nothing to do with efficiency. It's just a test to see if it will still crash. I still don't know why it's running at 2820MHz and why moving the boost clock speed slider lower by -130MHz has no effect.

if it's crashing at stock it's likely a psu issue, dont underclock it like that, all ur doing is making the card slower, instead undervolt+power limiting is the way to go, 320w-380w is the sweet spot for the 4090

[JLssg4]

6 minutes ago, HungryHamster said:

Also, do you know if it's normal for my card to be running at 2820MHz without any overclocking?

Yes.  These cards (and maybe most/all modern ones?) have three 'stages' if you will: normal clocks, boost clocks (automatic overclocking), and (manual) overclocking.  Mine is somewhere in that 2850-2950 range normally, I've yet to do any modifying as I don't see a need. [For some reason or another Furmark seems to get more out of my card's 'boost phase' than any other benchmark/game/app and I was seeing over 3GHz with boost clocks...haven't seen that high anywhere else though.]

[emosun]

6 minutes ago, HungryHamster said:

but I want to underclock because someone recommended trying this to resolve an issue with my graphics card crashing.

if the card doesnt function at stock speeds then it won't function underclocked either.

trying to underclock a gpu that already doesn;t work while ignoring the problem wont solve anything

[Alex Atkin UK]

7 minutes ago, JLssg4 said:

Yes.  These cards (and maybe most/all modern ones?) have three 'stages' if you will: normal clocks, boost clocks (automatic overclocking), and (manual) overclocking.  Mine is somewhere in that 2850-2950 range normally, I've yet to do any modifying as I don't see a need. [For some reason or another Furmark seems to get more out of my card's 'boost phase' than any other benchmark/game/app and I was seeing over 3GHz with boost clocks...haven't seen that high anywhere else though.]

Not even that, NVIDIA cards have for a long time pretty much ignored the boost clock and just go as hard as they can.  Its really odd as especially with the 4090 there is really no difference between OC and none-OC models outside of extreme overclocking with volt mods.

 

3 minutes ago, emosun said:

if the card doesnt function at stock speeds then it won't function underclocked either.

trying to underclock a gpu that already doesn;t work while ignoring the problem wont solve anything

Although if it works fine on a lower TDP it could indicate a PSU issue.

[emosun]

5 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Although if it works fine on a lower TDP it could indicate a PSU issue.

yeah so solve the problem then undervolt

[Alex Atkin UK]

6 minutes ago, emosun said:

yeah so solve the problem then undervolt

And make sure the power connector is plugged in fully and not melted.

 

Its a bit odd otherwise as they seem to be using a high-end (overly expensive in fact) PSU.

[Agall]

14 minutes ago, emosun said:

if the card doesnt function at stock speeds then it won't function underclocked either.

trying to underclock a gpu that already doesn;t work while ignoring the problem wont solve anything

Lowering the TDP is my usual go-to to test if there's a PSU or VRM limitation, in this case, I personally don't think it's the problem. That's mostly a troubleshooting step for RX 6000 or RTX 3000 series upper end cards with their notorious power spiking.

[PDifolco]

37 minutes ago, HungryHamster said:

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear enough in my post, but I want to underclock because someone recommended trying this to resolve an issue with my graphics card crashing. They recommended lowering it by 100MHz. It's just a test to see if it will still crash. I still don't know why it's running at 2820MHz and why moving the boost clock speed slider lower by -130MHz has no effect.

Mmm sketchy advice imo

Use afterburner then to do this

 

[HungryHamster]

34 minutes ago, Agall said:

RTX 4090 really only cares for a lower TDP. Usually a RTX 4090 will be power and/or voltage limited, even when running full bore 133% TDP. Lowering that down to even 60% doesn't net that much loss in performance, but its a tipping point. Anything like 80-90% is almost negligible compared to stock in actual games.

 

Its probably staying at its boost clock because its not TDP or voltage limited, to answer your question.

OK, thanks for the info. If I understand you correctly, the only way I will be able to get to 2510MHz (-100MHz from the default) would be to power limit the card? I would do that by setting the power target slider to maybe like 80%? I have already tried setting that to 80% before and it still crashed. I was mainly worried that something was causing my card to overclock too much (I thought 2610MHz was the max I should be seeing).

[Agall]

Just now, HungryHamster said:

OK, thanks for the info. If I understand you correctly, the only way I will be able to get to 2510MHz (-100MHz from the default) would be to power limit the card? I would do that by setting the power target slider to maybe like 80%? I have already tried setting that to 80% before and it still crashed. I was mainly worried that something was causing my card to overclock too much (I thought 2610MHz was the max I should be seeing).

RTX 4090 doesn't seem to overclock like normal cards in my experience. You basically give it a higher TDP, and it'll boost itself to quite high clocks. Offsets help you get past 3GHz like on my standard OC, but if the voltage and TDP are high enough, it'll go brrr regardless.

 

If lowering the TDP doesn't solve the issue, I doubt forcing a sub 2500MHz clock speed will.

 

Have you tried forcing 8x and/or PCIe 3.0 yet to see if that changes any of the behavior?

[Alex Atkin UK]

15 hours ago, HungryHamster said:

OK, thanks for the info. If I understand you correctly, the only way I will be able to get to 2510MHz (-100MHz from the default) would be to power limit the card? I would do that by setting the power target slider to maybe like 80%? I have already tried setting that to 80% before and it still crashed. I was mainly worried that something was causing my card to overclock too much (I thought 2610MHz was the max I should be seeing).

I've not seen a single report of a 4090 NOT reaching 2800Mhz+, its supposed to do this.  Its performing as NVIDIA intended so even if it WAS causing the crash, that would make it a defective card.

Personally all I ever do is open the Curve Editor and run the OC Scanner.  This should find the optimal voltages for your specific card, but this is not to fix crashing issues as they shouldn't be happening, its to allow it to clock a bit higher in fact.

[BetteBalterZen]

GPU Tweak have had and does have a lot of issues regarding applying settings properly. It's been extremely buggy on my system too. I ended making a rather big support ticket about this to ASUS per Juan Jose Guerrero, admin from the official ASUSPCDIY fb group, request. Ultimately I've gone back to MSI Afterburner because MSI Afterburner actually applies the settings I put in. So maybe give MSI Afterburner a go. 

And just to mention, if you have to underclock/undervolt to make your card stable, something is wrong with it and you should RMA.