Undervolting

[koji]

Im using R9 280x and I am playing Dota2, CS:GO, Witcher3.

 

1.) Is it safe to undervolt my GPU? And is it still safe if I repeatedly change voltages like my question #2?

2.) Is it easy to do it? Like if I wanna play Witcher3 i'll return to normal voltage and if I stopped playing i'll undervolt again.

3.) Can I still play Witcher3 with good fps if I maintained it Undervolted?

4.) Is undervolting beneficial? Like how many wattage does it save or what's the impact on my electricity bill?

5.) R9 280x uses 150W according to the specs, is it possible to make it as low as R9 380 like 90W?

 

I hope I can find answers with my 5 questions. Those who have tried and still using undervolted cards, I hope you can guide me on my decision making.

[givingtnt]

no. you can't cut a power by half and expect everything to be the same.

if you undervolt, the gpu will be unstable, unless you underclock too.

both work together

[ShadowCaptain]

SNIP

 

Not even worth it, the energy saving is minimal at best

 

 

A kilowatt of energy probably costs you like 15 cents, - if you save 50 watts, it would take save you 15 cents for every 20 hours you are gaming on your PC

 

 

Also, even if your card is 180W, it is will not draw that unless its under 100% load, so restricting its power is not worth it since it wont be using that power anyway

[WereCat]

Undervolting just reduces power consumption and temperatures. As long you don't touch clock speeds you won't decrease performance. It may decrease performance with NVIDIA gpu boost but I am not sure.

You need to find voltage in which your currently clocked card will be stable. I doubt you will get it down to 90W with only reducing voltage though.

[koji]

no. you can't cut a power by half and expect everything to be the same.

if you undervolt, the gpu will be unstable, unless you underclock too.

both work together

I havent mentioned underclocking, that'll be fine for me if it's beneficial. I hope you can answer all my questions if possible it'll help me a lot.

[givingtnt]

I havent mentioned underclocking, that'll be fine for me if it's beneficial. I hope you can answer all my questions if possible it'll help me a lot.

1 yes

2 depends on the gpu (dunno bout the 280x)

3probably yeah

4. no. your loosing raw power of the gpu for less power draw.   its like limiting your gpu's capability to boos the clocks and all. and its a bit more unstable

5 yes. but the card won't work. at all

[TheMcSame]

1. Don't see why it wouldn't be safe tbh

2. I'd assume it's a slider like most things, so yes, it's easy to do unless the card's voltage is locked down.

3. Possibly? It depends really. Some will, some won't.

4. Negligible at best tbh... The main reason people undervolt is for lower temps, the money you save is minimal at best.

5. No.

[typographie]

1. It's safe, though it can introduce the possibility of crashing unless you stress test it thoroughly. Basically you're introducing the same problem we test for when we overclock, you're just going in the other direction.
2. This can be done by setting up multiple profiles in MSI Afterburner, and then in the settings menu assigning the undervolted one as the 2D profile and the other as the 3D profile. It's easy if you know how.
3. That depends on your luck. If you can undervolt without also dropping the clock speed, then no, you should not see any loss of performance.
4. Benefits to your power bill are probably minimal. It can lower your GPU temperatures a bit, and/or fan noise since you might able to relax fan speeds slightly. Overall, no, I personally don't think it's worth bothering.
5. I don't think you can get anywhere near those power savings by doing this. We're on the scale of single digits, most likely.

 

if you undervolt, the gpu will be unstable, unless you underclock too.

 

Possibly unstable, anyway. Depends on the amount of undervolting, and to some degree the silicon lottery. Some cards may be completely intolerant of undervolting, though I think most would allow for at least a small change at factory clocks.

[koji]

It seems that Undervolting is not beneficial.. Hm.. Alright then I will not undervolt. Thank you very much guys!

[xAcid9]

Im using R9 280x and I am playing Dota2, CS:GO, Witcher3.

 

1.) Is it safe to undervolt my GPU? And is it still safe if I repeatedly change voltages like my question #2?

2.) Is it easy to do it? Like if I wanna play Witcher3 i'll return to normal voltage and if I stopped playing i'll undervolt again.

3.) Can I still play Witcher3 with good fps if I maintained it Undervolted?

4.) Is undervolting beneficial? Like how many wattage does it save or what's the impact on my electricity bill?

5.) R9 280x uses 150W according to the specs, is it possible to make it as low as R9 380 like 90W?

 

I hope I can find answers with my 5 questions. Those who have tried and still using undervolted cards, I hope you can guide me on my decision making.

1) I've done it with my 7950 and 290x but there's is a limit on how low it can go. 

2) Very easy, you can use MSI Afterburner profiles and set hot-keys for each saved profiles.

3) I play Witcher 3 undervolted, no performance different.

4) Depend, if you just a casual gamer i doubt you'll see significant different.

5) 280x use 220w and 380 use 180w. Yes it's possible but you need to invest in kill-o-watt meter to actually measure it.