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Nvidia clock stuck on high - How much extra power? Potential for same on 3080?

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Scun'orp
I have a 980Ti and dual monitors (144 + 60) and have *never* been able to resolve the clocks being stuck high when on desktop. I eventually gave up and just lived with it. But now I am pretty much certain to go for a 3080 I am wondering how much this is going to rack up in unnecessary power usage compared to my 980 setup. Apparently any card does use more power when running at high clocks on the desktop, but I have only seen this described as "slightly more" or vague words to that effect, since the card is not doing any actual true work. Does anyone have any clue as to how much it more it uses in real terms, between normal idle clocks compared to just stuck high clocks on desktop?

If it truly is just a tad more, like say 2-3% over a proper idle clock, then I would probably not bother trying to resolve it again and just live with it, if the same ratio carries over to the 3080 compared to a 980/1080 etc. But with newer cards sucking up more and more juice, it is making me wonder how much power will I be chucking down the drain. It's things like this that would definitely make me think twice about a 3090, though luckily I am probably never going to need that power with my current monitor setup. Would be nice if the thing just worked as advertised though of course.
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Oct 2002
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Near Cheltenham
You should be able to use nvidia-smi (A command line tool) to interrogate the card and as part of that it should show you current power draw..

I was having issues on Linux with a GTX 1660 Super not dropping clockspeeds and entering the low power state (turns out its the Plex app causing it) but as part of the information you can see the current power state and how much power it's drawing.. I believe the nvidia-smi tool is available on windows and linux..
 
Soldato
OP
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Scun'orp
Thanks, I will have a look at that. Would be nice if someone could give us an idea of what a proper working idle clock gives for power usage, using the same tool, since I won't be able to see that being stuck high.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
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Scun'orp
The clocks are stuck high because they automatically do that when you connect more than 1 monitor.

I was going by this kind of advice:

EVGA Forum Post said:
Here are the top causes of why a GPU would run at full clocks at idle...

#1 You're running multiple monitors. Fix: Enable mutil display power saver using nvidia inspector.
#2 Your machine has a virus. Fix: Scan computer using malwarebytes.
#3 One or more programs running in the background are using your GPU. Fix: Perform a clean boot of windows.
#4 Power management mode inside the nvidia control panel is set to prefer maximum performance. Fix: Set power management mode to adaptive then reboot your computer.
#5 Running a resolution of 2560x1440 @ 144Hz. Fix: Change refresh rate to 120Hz.
#6 K-Boost is enabled inside Precision X. Fix: Disable K-Boost.
#7 Shadowplay is enabled inside geforce experience. Fix: Disable shadowplay inside geforce experience OR completely uninstall geforce experience from your machine (highly recommended)
Apparently there are ways to deal with it as above, but nothing has worked for me. If I can work out how much extra power this actually uses I will know whether this is really that important or not. I kind of suspect it is not that big a deal, but as I say, as cards use more and more power it becomes potentially noteworthy.
 
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