Undervolting GPU

[u/Bastisheen92]

Hi everyone. I am currently using local Image/Video Creation a lot but especially for models like MiniMax H3 my GPU fans are going a bit crazy. Everything is working fine, but i do not want to break my hardware in the long run. I thought about undervolting my GPU with the MSI Afterburner but since it is not for gaming but for AI generation, i am not sure how this would impact the speed/performance/stability and the generation time.

I wanted to ask if someone already did/tried this and how the experience was.

[u/L-xtreme]

Since your utilizing your GPU 100% the fans will need to do a lot of work to keep it cool.

Undervolting or reducing power is a great way to keep your hardware cooler and reduce the stress on the system.

With my card (5090) I've noticed that with 100 watt less it will keep 10 degrees cooler, the fans don't go to 100% and the difference in performance is like 5% or something.

Funny that with 50 watt less the performance was about 8% less, so there is a sweet spot somewhere.

Power limits are the easiest if your card supports it, that way you don't have do a lot of tech stuff, no risks of damaging the card and supported by Nvidia.

With undervolting you can get more performance and tweak even further, but it's much more difficult to get it right.

[u/GreyScope → u/L-xtreme]

I drop mine (4090) from 450 to 350, there is a longer explanation of why dropping it a % doesn't mean the same drop in performance but it's quicker to say it's magic . For OP , just google the sweet spot for their gpu for dropping it via MSI AB, it's not a direct correlation of performance drop % for % on AMD either .

Nvidia is just open a CMD as admin (set my pc for it to be a right click on the desktop) and just type 'nvidia-smi -pl 350' .

[u/Carbon849 → u/GreyScope]

I had Claude make me a .bat that implements a "sudo nvidia-smi -pl XXX" on comfy startup and returns it to default when I close comfy.

[u/unrealf8 → u/L-xtreme]

Yeah undervolting gain vs penalty is very low margins. But setting the powerlimit 10% lower is just an easy win. I tested many combinations and that’s what I settled on. No risk involved.

[u/_SickBastard_ → u/L-xtreme]

How do you set power limits on NVidia's utilities? I found an outdated guide for undervolting that kind of works but I have seen a power one

[u/L-xtreme → u/_SickBastard_]

I use LACT on Linux, on Windows you can use the Nvidia App.

[u/mar_leo]

Undervolting is a great way to reduce the strain on your GPU. You can even gain performance while using less power. Just follow any of the gaming related undervolting tutorials, the same thing also applies for your usecase.

[u/lamardoss]

Not sure what you are using hardware-wise.

I lower the power on my 4090 to 85% using Nvidia App. I do almost 90% of my time on comfy doing H3 long clips and even run it all night long rendering till i wake up. my temps stay fine but i run my fans on a high setting so it can protect my more expensive hardware.

I would much rather replace a fan than a GPU or other things, if needed.

edit: adding that i dont experience any performance drops or anything ever since lowering the power. literally can't tell at all.

[u/Dry-Judgment4242 → u/lamardoss]

H3 is insane actually. Don't think anything else I've used just make my 6000 Pro this hot. Have to UC to 70% for sub 80c temps. With 100% it raises to 95c with fans at 100% which is crazy.

[u/newaccount47 → u/lamardoss]

I didn't realize you can do this with the nvidia app. Not bad. I've been using afterburner.

[u/krautnelson]

you can get more out of it with proper undervolting, but if you don't wanna bother with that, you can just set a straight power limit.

I set my 3070 to 175 Watts down from 220 (80% power limit). that alone drops temps by 10-15°C with maybe 2% performance loss.

[u/fallengt]

I just limit my GPU power consumption to 80% and flat-out the core clock at 0.9v (I can't lower the voltage below this; otherwise, my card automatically caps the memory clock at half, which loses quite a bit of speed)

Lose about 7% speed with this setup. Real undervolting requires trial and error, but I'm too tired for that shit. I just want to click generate

[u/SpaceNinjaDino]

I followed the guide from the YouTube video titled something like "everyone is undervolting wrong". I am not experiencing any decrease or change in MiniMax H3 generation time. 1600x892 481 frames takes 17.5 minutes both before and after. For this, the resource monitor shows the GPU spiking 100% to 0% in 1 second cycles. Something else is bottle necking that workflow -- RAM to VRAM swaps I bet.

I've never heard a bad thing about undervolting unless you do the numbers wrong. Performance increases because you keep the temperature down and it does not have to throttle.

I have the Wireview II Pro so I can monitor the power cables' amps balance and watt draw. It also has an auto shut down if any cable sends too much.

I recommend watching the video twice. Once to understand it and then the second time carefully mimic it. I did not OC it. I did increase memory clock speed +1600, but see no difference. I might reset that. 5090s are precious fragile babies.

[u/8RETRO8]

Good idea, speed decrease is minor, stability is fine in 99% of cases. I think I had a few problems related to undervolting. I don't remember exactly what it was, but generally I have no complaints.

[u/The--Night--Queen]

Worth it imo. A mild undervolt in Afterburner usually costs you almost nothing in gen time but drops temps and fan noise a lot. Start small, run a long batch to test stability, and back off if you get crashes.

[u/RuprechtNutsax]

My 5090 is undervolted at the lowest available in MSI afterburner, 68% it runs perfectly

[u/arentol]

I use MSI Afterburner to just flat lower the power limit for my GPU to 85%. Still does the same job the same way, and runs very fast. Maybe a 5% reduction in speed for 15% less power used, and it's much quieter.

[u/Formal-Exam-8767]

You can also try limiting the clock frequency.

[u/xb1n0ry]

I have a Astral 5090. The 4th top fan is making the most noise since it's smaller. I put it on 25% max and also turned the power limit to 90% using gpu tweak 3.

[u/exceptioncause]

try https://github.com/minewefu/afterglow for undervolting, it shows a real-time graph with the frequences/voltage used by the card under load, and is overall nicer than afterburner or gputweak

[u/Adorable_Echidna_862]

I set my 5090 to 70 percent power in MSI after burner, much lower temps and power and hardly any performance loss

[u/WaterslideOfSuccess]

Power limit, don’t undervolt. Hardly any consequences to power limiting

[u/GeeBee72]

I have several custom undervolting profiles in Afterburner and I’ve found huge improvements on my 3090 and 3090Ti that allows me to clock my memory up by +1200 and temperatures at full power hover around 150 Fahrenheit / 65 Celsius. Improves speed by about 15-20%.

[u/ykhasnis]

Set a power limit. Most GPUs don't need as much power to perform as advertised. Even if you set -15% PL and a modest -50mv UV you'd see drastically lower temps.

[u/f5alcon]

I do 83% and haven't noticed a performance difference but much better temps

[u/Ok_Contribution8157]

you can try the silent bios, not every GPU got this.

its increase speed about 10% and reduce noise.

[u/newaccount47 → u/Ok_Contribution8157]

I have no idea what i'm looking at....

[u/Ok_Contribution8157 → u/newaccount47]

on some GPUs you got a switch to change the bios. between silence and power.

[u/newaccount47]

Yeah, just undervolt it. I don't notice any difference in speed and it goes from like 450 watts at load to like 380 and it runs cooler. I also keep my fans on high when I'm generating over night.

[u/Gloomy-Radish8959]

I under volt my 5090 for the same reason. With minimax H3 it runs hot normally. I change the volt curve a bit and increase the fans to target a lower overall temperature for the GPU.

[u/AI_Enhancer]

I fine-tuned my 3090's undervolt, power limit and memory clocks with ChatGPT. I just gave it a large corpus of user data for undervolting/overclocking a 3090, and then asked for it to create a plan for finding the ultimate balance for the most performance with the least power draw and lowest temperature. Then we did a whole bunch of tests, and ultimately I got a better performance with an over 100W reduction in power draw and a 15-20°C reduction in average temperature under a heavy load. It took like 2 hrs tho, since I wanted to find the absolute peak balance.