How do I limit power when just doing general tasks on my RTX 3090

[Bites za dust]

I have a Asus TUF RTX 3090, as eveyone already know that it's hungry for power. The electricity cost in my country is high so I would rather keep the power on the low side when not doing anyrhing significant. As you can see even when doing basic task such as browsing, using word and other general tasks, it still goes upto 120watts at times which is not ideal (I know its nothing compared to its max 350 watts consumption) But coming from a RTX 2060 S which on full loads sips only 120 watts of power, it's still a lot for general tasks. I was wondering if I can somehow limit this when not doing heavy tasks.
 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bites za dust]

Another thing is that I've seen people use eco mode in armory crate, I'm not sure if it's just for laptops or not because I can't find those settings here. 

[adm0n]

Your GPU has several power modes, which it goes through automatically. As you can see, the GPU voltage is generally at 0.725V which is as low as it goes. If you do something, that causes the GPU to go to it's next higher power target, it will already go up to ~100W.

 

If you'd want to lower the power consumption of your GPU, you'd need to figure out how it could disable more of its components. The only one you realistically have access to, are the fans and RGB. You could also not connect a monitor to it, but at that point it doesn't GPU all that much for you anymore.

 

Just for reference, this is my 3090

 

I get around ~25W idle with no RGB and fans off. If I open a 4k youtube video, it spikes to ~106W for a second and goes back down, when it's done decoding the block (I assume).

 

So there isn't much you an do. But the 100W+ figure only really applies when you are actually doing anything with your GPU. Otherwise it will quickly go down to it's idle state. Can't really tell you, why your idle power is 45W though. Are you running multiple monitors?

[thrasher_565]

25-30w is as alow as it gos at idle for probably most gpus.

[Bites za dust]

27 minutes ago, adm0n said:

Your GPU has several power modes, which it goes through automatically. As you can see, the GPU voltage is generally at 0.725V which is as low as it goes. If you do something, that causes the GPU to go to it's next higher power target, it will already go up to ~100W.

 

If you'd want to lower the power consumption of your GPU, you'd need to figure out how it could disable more of its components. The only one you realistically have access to, are the fans and RGB. You could also not connect a monitor to it, but at that point it doesn't GPU all that much for you anymore.

 

Just for reference, this is my 3090

 

I get around ~25W idle with no RGB and fans off. If I open a 4k youtube video, it spikes to ~106W for a second and goes back down, when it's done decoding the block (I assume).

 

So there isn't much you an do. But the 100W+ figure only really applies when you are actually doing anything with your GPU. Otherwise it will quickly go down to it's idle state. Can't really tell you, why your idle power is 45W though. Are you running multiple monitors?

Yes, I'm running a dual monitor setup currently, I actually did change chrome's gpu setting to use my 7600's integrated gpu to not use the gpu for Youtube and stuff because I usually listen to music in the background.

So in a nutshell, this is the lowest as we can go with the 3090? I do know it's taking the lowest amount of power it can since even the fans are not ramping up on normal usage.

Thanks for your answer!

[igormp]

1 hour ago, Bites za dust said:

I have a Asus TUF RTX 3090, as eveyone already know that it's hungry for power. The electricity cost in my country is high so I would rather keep the power on the low side when not doing anyrhing significant. As you can see even when doing basic task such as browsing, using word and other general tasks, it still goes upto 120watts at times which is not ideal (I know its nothing compared to its max 350 watts consumption) But coming from a RTX 2060 S which on full loads sips only 120 watts of power, it's still a lot for general tasks. I was wondering if I can somehow limit this when not doing heavy tasks.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at average power consumption, and not a single power spike. A single 120W spike to finish a task in 1s consumes less power than wasting 5s at 30W to finish the same task.

With that said, my 2x 3090s idle at like 30~45W each, which is kinda meh.

3000 series is not that efficient, you'd be better off jumping to a 4080 or 4090 if you really want better idle consumption.

[jaslion]

9 minutes ago, Bites za dust said:

gpu setting to use my 7600's integrated gpu to not use the gpu for Youtube and stuff because I usually listen to music in the background.

This wont help a lot as now the 7600's igpu has to pass through the 3090 which does add some load to the 3090 too.

 

Is it just a quick couple second spike to 120w? Could just be it doing a slightly heavier task very quickly

 

As for getting it lower. Undervolting can easilt get a 3090 to 300w or eveb 250w with almost no performance loss. It also does reflect somewhat in its other power states

[adm0n]

19 minutes ago, Bites za dust said:

Yes, I'm running a dual monitor setup currently, I actually did change chrome's gpu setting to use my 7600's integrated gpu to not use the gpu for Youtube and stuff because I usually listen to music in the background.

Not sure how much of a difference this makes. If you ever do a before and after test, I'd be very interested in the results.

 

20 minutes ago, Bites za dust said:

So in a nutshell, this is the lowest as we can go with the 3090? I do know it's taking the lowest amount of power it can since even the fans are not ramping up on normal usage.

Well your card does consume way more than mine. This could just be by the virtue of having two monitors, it's the fans, the RGB or everything combined.

 

You could just unplug your secondary monitor and check the power consumption. If it went down significantly ~10W, you could try connecting the secondary monitor via the iGPU.

 

Try using a program like fancontrol (https://getfancontrol.com/) to set your GPU fans to zero speed, when it's temperature is below 55C.

And check how much power the RGB is consuming (if you have that enabled)

 

Otherwise there isn't anything in your control beyond just using a laptop for normal tasks and only firing up your main rig when you want to play games.

[Bites za dust]

22 minutes ago, igormp said:

Look at average power consumption, and not a single power spike. A single 120W spike to finish a task in 1s consumes less power than wasting 5s at 30W to finish the same task.

With that said, my 2x 3090s idle at like 30~45W each, which is kinda meh.

3000 series is not that efficient, you'd be better off jumping to a 4080 or 4090 if you really want better idle consumption.

I actually just bought this 3090 this week, I had an option of buying a 4070ti or this 3090 but I went with the 3090 because I'm a video editor and the 24GB helps out a lot compared to 4070ti's 16GB vram. If it weren't for that then I would've picked that card up because the performance is very similar, it's more efficient but the only issue for me was the lower vram amount.

[Bites za dust]

21 minutes ago, jaslion said:

This wont help a lot as now the 7600's igpu has to pass through the 3090 which does add some load to the 3090 too.

 

Is it just a quick couple second spike to 120w? Could just be it doing a slightly heavier task very quickly

 

As for getting it lower. Undervolting can easilt get a 3090 to 300w or eveb 250w with almost no performance loss. It also does reflect somewhat in its other power states

Yeah I just noticed it just spikes for  a couple of seconds which is fine I guess. 

I actually run my PC on a gas powered generator because of the power outage issues here. I do have a surge protector for the voltage spikes. But my main conern is that my generator will just turn off due high power consumption from this pc, that's mainly why I'm looking to limit this GPU for safety purposes.

I do run 2-3 other systems on the generator 1 of them has a R5 3600/ RTX 2060S, other 2 got Xeons and Quadro M4000s. So that's the main concern I don't want to damage my systems because of the generator.

I have a 3kVa Generator and the surge protector shows a power draw of around 4-6 amps on all systems, everything included.

[Bites za dust]

13 minutes ago, adm0n said:

Not sure how much of a difference this makes. If you ever do a before and after test, I'd be very interested in the results.

 

Well your card does consume way more than mine. This could just be by the virtue of having two monitors, it's the fans, the RGB or everything combined.

 

You could just unplug your secondary monitor and check the power consumption. If it went down significantly ~10W, you could try connecting the secondary monitor via the iGPU.

 

Try using a program like fancontrol (https://getfancontrol.com/) to set your GPU fans to zero speed, when it's temperature is below 55C.

And check how much power the RGB is consuming (if you have that enabled)

 

Otherwise there isn't anything in your control beyond just using a laptop for normal tasks and only firing up your main rig when you want to play games.

I can try the monitor experiment, I'll see what difference does that make.

[Bites za dust]

17 minutes ago, adm0n said:

Not sure how much of a difference this makes. If you ever do a before and after test, I'd be very interested in the results.

 

Well your card does consume way more than mine. This could just be by the virtue of having two monitors, it's the fans, the RGB or everything combined.

 

You could just unplug your secondary monitor and check the power consumption. If it went down significantly ~10W, you could try connecting the secondary monitor via the iGPU.

 

Try using a program like fancontrol (https://getfancontrol.com/) to set your GPU fans to zero speed, when it's temperature is below 55C.

And check how much power the RGB is consuming (if you have that enabled)

 

Otherwise there isn't anything in your control beyond just using a laptop for normal tasks and only firing up your main rig when you want to play games.

Just changed the 2nd monitor's input to the iGPU and it did make a 10-15w difference. It does work, it's something I guess.

 

 

[jaslion]

8 minutes ago, Bites za dust said:

conern is that my generator will just turn off due high power consumption from this pc, that's mainly why I'm looking to limit this GPU for safety purposes.

GET A UPS!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Like dude a proper ups will prevent like all those issues and also will actually protect against voltage spikes a surge protector offers limited of that.

 

The main killer is brown power, basically meaning its not always same and clean a surge protector does NOTHING against that and a generator tends to have that behavior.

 

So get EACH system a proper ups and your worries will be A LOT less even if the generator craps out the sustems have a buffer, proper protection and backup power for a couple minutes at most.

[adm0n]

5 minutes ago, Bites za dust said:

Just changed the 2nd monitor's input to the iGPU and it did make a 10-15w difference. It does work, it's something I guess.

 

 

That's great! What about trying to turn the fans off? That would give you another few watts.  Also just make sure that your iGPU isn't drawing 15W now.

 

As another point, if you want to limit the power consumption of your GPU in gaming scenarios as well, you could just set up an undervolted profile in MSI afterburner. Something like 0.725 V - 1500 MHz is working great for me. If you ever actually need the full performance, it's one click to apply the default profile. And like this you limit your GPU to at most 300W. And if I understand it correctly, you also lower the transient spikes as well.

[Bites za dust]

20 minutes ago, jaslion said:

GET A UPS!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Like dude a proper ups will prevent like all those issues and also will actually protect against voltage spikes a surge protector offers limited of that.

 

The main killer is brown power, basically meaning its not always same and clean a surge protector does NOTHING against that and a generator tends to have that behavior.

 

So get EACH system a proper ups and your worries will be A LOT less even if the generator craps out the sustems have a buffer, proper protection and backup power for a couple minutes at most.

I was thinking of getting a UPS but they don't offer much backup.

1 question though if I get UPS for each system and then run them on the generator will I be free from any risk? Or should I only run the systems on UPS no the generator because that's not possible here because of the long power outages.

[igormp]

6 minutes ago, Bites za dust said:

I was thinking of getting a UPS but they don't offer much backup.

1 question though if I get UPS for each system and then run them on the generator will I be free from any risk? Or should I only run the systems on UPS no the generator because that's not possible here because of the long power outages.

I do have a 2kVA UPS in my system with an extra battery module that can hold my system (+TV and networking gear) in full load for a couple hours, or on idle for over 10 hours, may be worth looking into such UPS + expansion module.

[Bites za dust]

21 minutes ago, adm0n said:

That's great! What about trying to turn the fans off? That would give you another few watts.  Also just make sure that your iGPU isn't drawing 15W now.

 

As another point, if you want to limit the power consumption of your GPU in gaming scenarios as well, you could just set up an undervolted profile in MSI afterburner. Something like 0.725 V - 1500 MHz is working great for me. If you ever actually need the full performance, it's one click to apply the default profile. And like this you limit your GPU to at most 300W. And if I understand it correctly, you also lower the transient spikes as well.

It's seems to be not bothering the iGPU at all, I'll try the undervolting in a bit. I'm a bit scared with messing with the voltage of stuff, just to be sure that undervolting setting is safe right?

BEFORE (on 3090)

 

 

AFTER (on iGPU)

 

[Bites za dust]

Just now, igormp said:

I do have a 2kVA UPS in my system with an extra battery module that can hold my system (+TV and networking gear) in full load for a couple hours, or on idle for over 10 hours, may be worth looking into such UPS + expansion module.

Can I use a normal UPS which usually powers the house or do I need a specific kind of UPS for PC? Any help would be much appreciated! 

[Kilrah]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

This wont help a lot as now the 7600's igpu has to pass through the 3090 which does add some load to the 3090 too.

It can actually be quite significant, I do tend to connect my 2 monitors to the iGPU for daily use, that makes the 3080 drop from 55W to 20.

[igormp]

Just now, Bites za dust said:

Can I use a normal UPS which usually powers the house or do I need a specific kind of UPS for PC? Any help would be much appreciated! 

I'm not sure which UPS you're using at your house, but you could look at any from APC or EATON, or any other brand of your liking. Just size it properly and see if you can get an expansion pack for it.

[adm0n]

16 minutes ago, Bites za dust said:

It's seems to be not bothering the iGPU at all, I'll try the undervolting in a bit. I'm a bit scared with messing with the voltage of stuff, just to be sure that undervolting setting is safe right?

 

As long as you are lowering the voltage, you are only capable of prolonging the life of your GPU. So you are extra safe.

But you can introduce stability issues. So your PC might crash.

 

Here is a guide how to do it: https://github.com/LunarPSD/NvidiaOverclocking/blob/main/Nvidia Overclocking.md#undervolting

If you want to try something simple, that will also make you lose a bit of performance, you can set it like this

 

Spoiler

 

[Salted Spinach]

Most convenient solution is probably

 

1. Set Windows to use only your highest resolution display, or whichever one you use the most when not gaming

 

2. monitor the GPU frequency and voltage when at low load (example, playing a YouTube video in browser). You can use Afterburner or any monitoring software

 

3. Set an Afterburner profile where the volt/frequency curve is a flat line at the low load frequency and 50mV below the voltage that you observed

 

4. Set another Afterburner profile with the default GPU settings (you can undervolt this too if you do your own research)

 

5. Re-enable the displays you want active

 

6. Toggle between the profiles as required on the Afterburner taskbar icon

[Qrdello]

I wouldn't bother with such power spikes as long as they're only spikes and are not constant. My 3080 also spikes to 100W during webbrowsing and video playback for 1 or 2 seconds, but the usual readout is around 30 watts during extended watching. i consider that quite normal. Your CPU will basically do the same. Finish task quickly with high power draw and set for idle around 5-10% during small tasks such as browsing or watching something or even spreadsheet work.

[Bagzie]

On 8/9/2024 at 3:38 PM, Bites za dust said:

I actually just bought this 3090 this week, I had an option of buying a 4070ti or this 3090 but I went with the 3090 because I'm a video editor and the 24GB helps out a lot compared to 4070ti's 16GB vram. If it weren't for that then I would've picked that card up because the performance is very similar, it's more efficient but the only issue for me was the lower vram amount.

What video editing do you do that needs more than 16gb of vram?

 

The 4070ti super doesn't have similar performance to a 3090 by the way it's about 15% faster.....might not seem like much but it's roughly the same difference as a 4070ti super and a 4080.

 

3090 is closer to a 4070 super than a 4070ti super.

 

 

[Stahlmann]

Modern GPUs automatically clock down and lower power consumption when not doing anything intensive. Changing your power limit to 120W won't help with that. Generally, the bigger the physical silicon is, the more power it'll need even on standby.

 

Also, even if you'd theoretically get slightly better efficiency though this, and electricity is fairly expensive in your country, actually calculate how much money you'd save over a year on a few Watts. It'll probably come down to less than $50.

 

Just a small example:

A random 24" 1080p IPS monitor will consume about 30W per hour.

If you use it for 8h a day, 365 days a year, that comes to around 87.6 kWh for the whole year.

 

Even if you live in Ireland, which currently had crown for most expensive electricity with $0.52/kWh in 2023, that means this 30W monitor costs you $45.55 in electricity per year.

And when taking the US as an example, with $0.17/kWh, you'd only spend $14.89 per year to drive that monitor.