Need some pointers with undervolting 7900 XT

[MistaSparkul]

So I helped setup a new PC for my nephew and wanted to do some undervolting. I always turn to Afterburner to undervolt GPUs but I'm not familiar with undervolting AMD GPUs using this method as the curve editor layout is different vs Nvidia GPUs. Below is what I ended up doing but the power consumption and temperatures remain unchanged. What am I missing here? Is it better to just undervolt using Adrenaline instead?

 

[SamiiRoss]

use adrenaline it's just better overall.

 

[MistaSparkul]

use adrenaline it's just better overall.

Problem I have with adrenaline is that it will reset settings a lot of times, whether it's due to a driver crash or something else. At least afterburner will always keep your settings locked in place as long as you tell it to do so. My nephew isn't going to be digging around his pc so I'm trying to go for a "set it and forget it" solution here. If I can force adrenaline to never reset the settings for any reason then that would solve things.

 

[TheHig]

I can say that most all my Adrenaline crashes have been the result of me getting too aggressive with UV or OC so using afterburner to lock in unstable settings is still an issue.

Maybe find good stable settings in Adrenaline then set it back to default. After that punch them in AB and hope for the best.

 

[MistaSparkul]

I can say that most all my Adrenaline crashes have been the result of me getting too aggressive with UV or OC so using afterburner to lock in unstable settings is still an issue.

Maybe find good stable settings in Adrenaline then set it back to default. After that punch them in AB and hope for the best.

Good idea. What about the issue with the temps and power consumption having no improvement? Would be pointless to lock in those settings within afterburner if they end up doing nothing. I will try undervolting through adrenaline and see if there's an improvement.

 

[FiveDollarBill]

Problem I have with adrenaline is that it will reset settings a lot of times, whether it's due to a driver crash or something else. At least afterburner will always keep your settings locked in place as long as you tell it to do so. My nephew isn't going to be digging around his pc so I'm trying to go for a "set it and forget it" solution here. If I can force adrenaline to never reset the settings for any reason then that would solve things.

Hold up, time out I’m calling a foul here. You need to show your nephew how to manage his Radeon on his own. If you do it for him he will never learn how to do it himself. He’s a lot better off with you showing him what’s up or better yet showing him where to look on the internet to learn these things for himself. Kids are better at this stuff than we are, you just have to point him in the right direction.

 

[MistaSparkul]

Hold up, time out I’m calling a foul here. You need to show your nephew how to manage his Radeon on his own. If you do it for him he will never learn how to do it himself. He’s a lot better off with you showing him what’s up or better yet showing him where to look on the internet to learn these things for himself. Kids are better at this stuff than we are, you just have to point him in the right direction.

He's completely fine with just using default settings and he knows how to update drivers and what not. It's the finer tweaks like undervolting that he doesn't wanna bother doing. Can't really point him in the right direction when even I myself have no clue how to properly undervolt Radeon lol. I got a bunch of mixed results when googling this stuff and I'm just gonna agree with one of the answers I got that undervolting does nothing to improve power consumption on RDNA 3 but instead it's actually overclocking it. *shrug* Anyway I handed the system over to him last weekend and he's been more than happy with it.

 

[chameleoneel]

Good idea. What about the issue with the temps and power consumption having no improvement? Would be pointless to lock in those settings within afterburner if they end up doing nothing. I will try undervolting through adrenaline and see if there's an improvement.

If you want a temp and power consumption improvement, you need to lock a max frequency. So, set the advertised boost clock, as the max clock. In afterburner, you manually make a voltage/frequency curve. So, once you choose the advertised frequency, your curve is flat after that.

If you don't set a max frequency, then the boost algorithms will simply try to push more frequency, up to the same overall power limit. Because, the temps and power usage at stock speeds, are better at each frequency step (because you undervolted). And if you set a higher power limit, it will keep going until it hits that limit or a temperature limit.

**This all assumes the card is stable at whatever undervolt you try. Its luck of the draw. I had a 6700 XT which wouldn't tolerate any undervolt, no matter how small. Despite multiple youtube videos about undervolting 6700 XT.

 

[FiveDollarBill]

If you want a temp and power consumption improvement, you need to lock a max frequency. So, set the advertised boost clock, as the max clock. In afterburner, you manually make a voltage/frequency curve. So, once you choose the advertised frequency, your curve is flat after that.

If you don't set a max frequency, then the boost algorithms will simply try to push more frequency, up to the same overall power limit. Because, the temps and power usage at stock speeds, are better at each frequency step (because you undervolted). And if you set a higher power limit, it will keep going until it hits that limit or a temperature limit.

**This all assumes the card is stable at whatever undervolt you try. Its luck of the draw. I had a 6700 XT which wouldn't tolerate any undervolt, no matter how small. Despite multiple youtube videos about undervolting 6700 XT.

Why bother running afterburner when the stock Radeon drivers handle all that stuff without extra software?

 

[MistaSparkul]

If you want a temp and power consumption improvement, you need to lock a max frequency. So, set the advertised boost clock, as the max clock. In afterburner, you manually make a voltage/frequency curve. So, once you choose the advertised frequency, your curve is flat after that.

If you don't set a max frequency, then the boost algorithms will simply try to push more frequency, up to the same overall power limit. Because, the temps and power usage at stock speeds, are better at each frequency step (because you undervolted). And if you set a higher power limit, it will keep going until it hits that limit or a temperature limit.

**This all assumes the card is stable at whatever undervolt you try. Its luck of the draw. I had a 6700 XT which wouldn't tolerate any undervolt, no matter how small. Despite multiple youtube videos about undervolting 6700 XT.

Geez I remember on my 3080 Ti all I had to do was move a single point on the afterburner voltage curve and that was it, no extra steps needed for a successful undervolt. Anyway he's just using stock settings with FPS limiter in place so that's been keeping the power consumption in check since the 7900 XT can easily plow through most games at 1440p.

 

[chameleoneel]

Geez I remember on my 3080 Ti all I had to do was move a single point on the afterburner voltage curve and that was it, no extra steps needed for a successful undervolt. Anyway he's just using stock settings with FPS limiter in place so that's been keeping the power consumption in check since the 7900 XT can easily plow through most games at 1440p.

Oh now that I think about it---------------set your undervolt-----and then set a lower power limit. That's the simple way to get the benefit. Too many variables to think about, hahaha.

You will have to test a little bit but, undervolt and then find a lower power limit where its still boosting to stock speeds. and that will let you see exactly how much percentage you have knocked off the max power limit.

 

[emphy]

Geez I remember on my 3080 Ti all I had to do was move a single point on the afterburner voltage curve and that was it, no extra steps needed for a successful undervolt. Anyway he's just using stock settings with FPS limiter in place so that's been keeping the power consumption in check since the 7900 XT can easily plow through most games at 1440p.

One only needs to set the voltage for a successful undervolt.

However, if the goal of the undervolt was to reduce power consumption you are going at it the wrong way, because the gpu is designed to seek out its power and temperature limits, ie it will likely run at the higher clocks for longer when you reduce the voltage (in the case that performance is gpu restricted).

If you want lower power consumption you also need to restrict the gpu's power limits.

 

[MistaSparkul]

One only needs to set the voltage for a successful undervolt.

However, if the goal of the undervolt was to reduce power consumption you are going at it the wrong way, because the gpu is designed to seek out its power and temperature limits, ie it will likely run at the higher clocks for longer when you reduce the voltage (in the case that performance is gpu restricted).

If you want lower power consumption you also need to restrict the gpu's power limits.

Well again on an nvidia card all I did was undervolt and it greatly improved the temps because it was now using less voltage to reach the same clock speed. Basically at stock settings the card was pulling around 1100mv to reach 1975Mhz but by undervolting it was now acheiving the same 1975Mhz clock speed but only pulling 950mv now. That reduction from 1100mv to 950mv is what resulted in the temperature drop. I thought it would work the same for AMD but that's not the case.