AMD GPU Downclocking Explained

[eyecantseeover24fps]

http://deliddedtech.com/2016/02/06/amds-downclocking-issue-explained/

 

 

Thoughts? While I appreciate reduced power consumption, temperatures, and fan speeds while running games that don't stress the GPU, the potential stutter and frame drops it causes can be extremely annoying. Do you think AMD needs to adjust this function at all to improve performance?

 

TL;DR:

Spoiler

AMD's GPUs lower their core clock speed when its full power is not needed(such as when you hit a fps cap or vsync, or are bottlenecked by another component), in order to reduce power consumption when not under full load, .However, this "feature" may downclock too aggressively, resulting in reduced performance or stuttering.

[don_svetlio]

This is the same on Nvidia and Intel and has been like that since 2004. If you haven't noticed studder since 2004 then you are likely not going to notice this either

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

You can just turn off ulps. Fairly easy. I have it on since I cap my games at 60fps. Don't have problems with it.

 

Don't peeps already know about ulps?

 

Edit: not ulps hehe oops 

 

Edit: powerplay was what I was looking for, its called powertune now.

[afyeung]

Downclocking hasn't really been an issue as long as it can keep the game at your refresh rate. The issue is when it downclocks, performance drops below refresh rate, and you have v sync on. Then you get stuttering. 

[MEC-777]

One of the R9 290's I used to run did this. Even under full load with no FPS cap/limit and it did effect performance (I could tell when it was running at max clocks). The only way I could get around this was to crank the power limit to +50% in MSI AB and disable Overdrive in Catalyst. 

 

From what I understand, it's something called power-tune and is meant to keep temps and fan noise in check. Caused me a lot of hassle when running crossfire where the one card would throttle like this and the other one didn't. CF doesn't perform as well when both GPUs aren't running at the same clocks. 

[xAcid9]

ClockBlocker exist because of this. http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=404465