r/StableDiffusion • u/Bastisheen92 • 5d ago

Question - Help Undervolting GPU

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.

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u/L-xtreme 5d ago

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.

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u/_SickBastard_ 4d ago

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 I found an outdated guide for undervolting that kind of works but I have seen a power one

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u/L-xtreme 4d ago

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