Should You Undervolt Your GPU? 

Finally a proper undervolting process with correct explanation :) Even Linus did this wrong.

This is the first undervolting tutorial I've seen that doesn't tell people to reduce their clock speeds before peak voltage, which would make GPUs actually consume more power when running less demanding games. Cheers for that!

2:16 spot on! It’s a shame people are so fixated on highest FPS/clocks possible, when having stable clocks is a MUCH better playing experience.

Man what a GREAT video! I knew about underclocking but now I know a lot more about it! Im happy I stumbled upon your channel & it was a straight away 'subscribe'! Keep up the great work man! I'll have to redo my settings in MSI Afterburner after what I've learned!

This guy doesn't understand that the curve is dynamic, not static. It's not changing from where you set it. It fluctuates dynamically based on thermals. This is a function of the video card bios, not MSI Afterburner. MSI Afterburner is just reporting those fluctuations. 🤦‍♂️

Im a noob when it comes to this stuff but I tried following the steps as best I could from videos on RU-vid. My 3080 12GB model would always hit and stay at 83c when gaming. The core clocks would be around 1980-2000. After messing with my case fans and GPU fans I got it around 70c but my pc sounded like it was about to take off lol. So I tried undervolting and came to 1920 core clock at 850mv. I ran a few benchmarks and played some ray tracing games and no crashes and now my GPU is around 65-67c while playing the same games.

after all the undervolting videos i looked through, this one just did it for me. 3080ti FTW3. Thank you!!

This steps are only ones that work with my GPUs...more power to your channel

tyvm!this is ultimate guide undervolting gpu

Great content! Tks for the video

My mobile 3060 went from 74c to 68-70c using 15w less. I even gained 2% performance with my preset (875mv 1897mhz).

Sir, you upload this just the day before i was planning to do it to my 3080 what a perfect timing. I tried before but it wasnt that great and i had crashes. Also do you have a stable frametime with no micro stutters ?

I have a helios predator 300 315-54 rtx 3060, and I undervolt mine to 850 at 1960 and see significant fps gains while having a -10 degree reduction at all times, definitely helps with gaming laptops

Hi! Thanks for the video. Though I haven't yet watched it all, and moreover - I've already undervolted my GPU, I wanted to share that for me personally the main reason to undervolt was not the desire to get better performance (I have 3090). Nor even I needed lower temparatures, because my PC is water-cooled. I realized I literally needed to lower the power consumption. And while doing it and researching how much and at what circumnstances my PC consumes power, I was shocked. I never measured these things before, and I couldn't even imagine how much (really much) PC can drain power for doing virtually nothing. I then simply tried to scale the problem to the global PC market, and it becomes really scary to realize how much energy is wasted for nothing world-wide. Especially if we take PoW-miners. And here comes understanding why any software, especially computationally heavy, must be optimized. I mean just algorithmically. Just for example, some dry numbers. When I first measured consumption of my PC, it was a whooping 190 Watts at idle on Windows (under Linux it was 220). After some investigation, I just killed some LighningService (didn't needed it, cause I turned lights off) - it was consuming 20W for literally nothing. Shortly before that I killed some ASUS service (AsusSvc, or smth like) - not even sure how much it consumed, but sometimes it literally caused my PSU to go for emrgency shutdown 🤣I also did some other optimizations (including even turning off my desktop speakers, which consumed 7W for nothing while just being idle). As a result, I went from 190W to 130W with totally not effect on my usual experience. It's actually still pretty much, but I'm not sure yet what esle to optimize, and my PC is a powerfull workstation, so in general it's kinda normal to consume more than an average PC. Or imagine now a huge horde of a gamers world-wide, playing lots and lots of hours per day in sum. 3090, of course, is not the most widely spread GPU for just gaming, but I'll still share my results of undervolting. At normal voltages, my GPU consumed 355W under a constantly running Heaven benchmark on extreme settings. After I did a simple undervolting, it became 307W without any decrease in the benchmark. That is a 13.5% reduction for free. Imagine if all the gamers around the world undervolted their GPUs? :) That could save a lot of energy. And what is also important - decrease the CO2-emission. Though I've never been a fanatical Greenpeace adhenerent and don't wanna seem to be it, but lately I realize more and more how environmental problem is much more acute than it seems at first glance, unfortunately :(

I got the frequency jumping up or down when I save it as a profile too. I got annoyed by it but I found a way around it. What I did was instead of increasing the clock of the target voltage in the curve editor, I used the core clock slider instead then flattened the curve on the target voltage in the curve editor. So yeah consistent clock everytime I load a profile. Also the curve graph is smoother too. A win win solution!

Very clear tutorial. But I think just checking if Heaven crashes isn't enough. I think you should look for artifacts. Those look like little blue squares that flash in some parts of the image (with my 4070, at least). In certain scenes it's much more noticeable than in others, and it's easier to see if you press the spacebar to pause the camera.

Okay, so...i decided to undervolt my Gigabyte RTX 2070 Non-Super since i had some temperature issues with it. All i did was to set it at 850mv (wich it seems to be quite freaking stable) and i now i get temperatures between 70-75C in full freaking load my guys. Yes, this is possible even with 30C ambient temps. I also played with the fan curve :D. It also helps the fact that i added 140mm fans on top, so now i have better airflow in my FSP 350 CMT case (front panel chocking it's not great). Thank you for your video as it helped me better understand MSI Afterburner!

I got afterburner to apply the profile the same every time with my 3060 ti by setting frequency in multiples of 15 which your setting of 1935 mhz is. Then if it keeps not applying that same profile causing you to have to apply it manually, go down to the next multiple so in your example I would set it to 1920mhz and that should stick. This includes the "set at idle temps" trick you mentioned.

Fuck I hate paying for RU-vid premium then Clicking on a video and getting a 1 minute advert straight up

Excellent, thanks.

GREAT tutorial. I was hitting a max boost of 1980, but it wasn't holding to it for long. I got 2002MHz@975mV and 8000MHz VRAM frequency. The temps went from 75ºC to 73ºC even with more frequency. I get to 72ºC if I lower just the clock back to 1980.

In the clock graph you can leftclick on a point then control+shift+enter and type in the Mhz you want to reach instead of manually sliding it. So shift+leftclick every point you want to change then click on a point ctrl+shift+enter. Just wanted to share that! I have undervolted underclocked my nvidia mx150 2gb laptop and because of it I can run fortnite on 60fps on a laptop that on stock settings would overheat if even running it on 30fps. It's great for some situations!

Heya What do you think about the Radeon RX6700XT??? Its in my price range ,down from pandemic pricing. BigT,Alaska

The issue with MSI Afterburner not setting the right frequency is not the program fault. It's all because of how Nvidia GPU Boost works as it sets the clocks according to the temperature. What you set in MSI Afterburner will stick at the same temperature range. But if the temperatures is different, the frequency will be slightly lower or higher as well. I always set the frequency at say 40-42 degrees Celsius or even under 40C. For example, in my case I want 1800Mhz at 0.825V for my 3080Ti. So I boost the fans to 100% while setting the profile and set 1770Mhz at 0.825V when GPU is under 40 degrees in MSI Afterburner. This way the GPU will boost initially to 1770 at around 50C and lower. Close to 60C it will boost to 1785 and over 60C it will hit the 1800Mhz that I want. Considering most heavy games will stress the GPU a lot and it will warm it to over 60C you should hit that 1800Mhz most of the time. This way I am sure I won't get a frequency that's too high that might crash my GPU. I don't know if I explained it in a good way but it took me a while to figure out myself why MSI was not setting the frequency that I want. Hopefully the example is much easier to understand.

Great video gonna follow your advice my man. A little issue lm having though. been watching many OC videos and something lve noticed is that they never mention anything about the PSU l mean lm assuming that as long as it can handle your system that mean you can OC without worries but lm just concerned a little about that stuff as sometimes my PC shot down when gaming but supposedly should handle my PC with no issues. l have a Thermaltake 600w and an Rx570 8gb.

Definitely recommend people giving this a shot. Especially if you enjoy tinkering. I’ve been undervolting a 1080ti for about the past year with great results. Only maybe a few percent increase in performance using Heaven as a benchmark but more importantly slightly lower temps, lower fan speeds, and more stable clocks.

Thanks for such a great tutorial but one question, I assume this undervolting method/principle also apply to the rtx 20s or is it a different concept for that series? I have a 2080 and I am very conscious of its power consumption. In fact, I want to disable it when not gaming or video editing and have my pc use just the Ryzen 5600G APU which is very low power consumption. Is that possible?

Thank u sir , this was so helpful .. at msi afterburner i get another curve editor with 2 lines ..but my gpu is amd ! i have to put the numbers for both lines manually ..my gpu stock boost is 1260 should i keep on boost or i should lower the core clock ?

This all applies to a gaming laptop right? I have a MSI GP66 Leopard 10UG model. My 3070 keeps hitting temps like 75 and sometimes 78 when it never used to do that before. The thermal paste was replaced from the factory on warranty.

If you have a laptop, that runs hot then it's worth it. Yes, under volting actually gives a benefit if you have a laptop, both temperatures and power consumption are reduced which saves a little more battery life. But anyone doing this should perform a GPU Stress test by running in game benchmarks or other stress testing tools etc. To confirm that there undervolting actually works without any issues.

Appreciate the guide, running 1725-1800 .800 .825 at about 80-150watts compared to default at 200 - 250watts on a 3070..

Thank you for covering the weirdness of MSI Afterburner not always setting the curve to where you tell it to! This was one confusing issue when I started out and I wish that I had found your guide first!

Is highlighting with shift necessary? If i set the voltage, others automatically flatten out.

I know this comment is a lil late but I was just wondering if this way will get my task manager to stop saying that my 3D is always at 100%. Thank you for the video.

To fix the changed preset simply choose to lower the clock speed by a 100 - 200 mhz and then apply the voltage to whatever point you aiming for at 1800 - 1900 mhz , that way it stays stable each time you load your preference

So I’m guessing before we undervolt, we want to try and max out the clock speed first? Or should I just leave it at the factory overclock?

Same for CPU. No problem w the Intel extreme tuning util. Works great btw and consumes less power.

So first time undervolting, quick question about the wattage use. I was under the impression that undervolting would lower wattage use which I can see using the heaven benchmark (320W) but when using another like superposition using the same settings it jumps back up to stock levels (360W.) Currently running tests at 4k and settings are below. Gpu: msi 3080 gaming z trio 10GB Monitor: Odessy G7 28in 4k -300 to whole curve, clock: 1920MHz, 883mV Noticed 875Mv would not crash on heaven but would on doom eternal.

@CyberCPU Tech i think i know why you never could consistently save/load a profile if you set a curve in afterburner or change clockspeeds and hit apply and it does not apply exactly what you set that means you cannot set that specific clock speed go up/down 5-10 mhz and try again you will find values that consistently will save and are repeatable. i do not know why that happens i only know if you found values that are solid they work everytime.

I used to have an Inno3d 2070 X3 which is a sub 200mm twin fan card, under 80C 2500 rpm fan, over 80C 4300 rpm fan (jet engine). I ended up watercooling it because it was so loud and now I really wish I had tried undervolting it instead.

13:21 AMD GPU users can find out the necessary settings using MSI Afterburner, and then change the GPU settings using AMD Adrenaline Software, so you never need to worry about Afterburner altering settings on its own and having to redo the entire method each time. Or, even simpler, there is an actual "Undervolt GPU" in Adrenaline Tuning settings.

Of course, you should. My 3060ti Gigabyte Eagle OC at stock is loud and hot as hell (over 100 C at the hot spot). Tuned down to 850 mV, power usage set to 85%, bumped clocks a bit, fans adjusted with curve optimizer. Now is quiet, has 82 C at the hot spot, and is even a bit faster than the stock one.

I'm new to the pc world, in the performance section of Geforce Experience my maximum voltage is set to 0%. I've had some rendering issues and overall graphics quality when playing games i was just wondering whether this could be a problem. RTX 3060

When I drag and highlight everything to the right of the set point and hit enter twice, literally nothing happens. These instructions don't seem to work now.

is 1750MHz and 875mV on a Gigabyte RTX 3070 to low for gaming?

I recently tried undervolting with my ROG RTX3060. It was fun to tinker but it's not much wattage savings and I have a 3 fan cooler so I just crank everything up and it never goes over 56c . Don't even have to mess with the fan curve. Informative video! Thanks for the tips!

Useful! But when i see the values of your afterburner : 53° at 1081 mv i just can say that on thoses news GPUs GDR6X, at 1000mv the temps are more close to 70° and the FANs starts to crying :(

I just undervolted my RTX 2070 Super Ventus via MSI Afterburner. The gpu temp dropped 10C and gives me some fps increase. I'm getting stable results so far in Stalker Anomaly and 7 Days To Die at 1440p. Man I wish I'd done it sooner.

When your 875mV was stable, does running games with Ray Tracing not have the ability to make it unstable if youre right on the edge of it being stable and not?

Is this safe for the graphics card in the long run.

So I have a question. Once I do this on MSI afterburner, is that setting gonna stay even after restarting my pc?

What if you press L on the voltage curve to lock it. Would that work?

why does his msi say "Curve" next to core clock whereas mine just says +0 how can I find out which number I must drag to if my clock keeps moving around

I tried this tool but it kept underclocking my GPU speed. How do you drop the core voltage without impacting the speed using the curve? Am I doing something wrong

hello. i've been trying to understand all this to get the most of my low end laptop. I noticed 'throttling' and frame rate drops, and the CPU drops considerably. Can anyone explain how the GPU might affect the CPU ?

Anychance you can do a video for a Geforce RTX 2060 Super XC Ultra Gaming? if you have one. my wont do anything in msi. Clock is at 1470Mhz, Mem is at 7000mhz, Volt is at 750mv. While gaming some games it hits the highest of 83c and some game its actually kinda of bad. but no matter what i do, for some reason it just wont work?

Good video.

idk about all this but I'm using asus tuf 3090 and the asus gpu tweaks software with the 'power target' set to 98% and seems to run cool and stable while still preforming...but idk if this is the same thing as actually undervolting or not lol

just cannot get the voltage to show, please help! tried everything, checked all those boxes, restarted MSI afterburner, restarted computer, uninstalled & reinstalled, still won't show..

But is it worth it to do without a water cooling setup? Would it really make a difference then?

What determines your the clock speed that you were setting it as (1925)? Were you just setting it at your GPU's base core clock speed?

It looks the power limit is locked on my 2060 laptop (asus), and I cannot change the slider. Do you know if there’s a way to unlock this?

i've always recommended that people undervolt both CPU & GPU. been running the ol' reliable RX580 forever at either 1400mhz overclocked & undervolted at a 1075mv (-75mv) for games. it never goes above 72 degrees with fans around 1500 RPM. for long compute runs i run it underclocked at 1000mhz & undervolted to 900mv (-250mv) & it never reaches over 60 degrees with the same fan settings. saving a couple 100 watts is great as is for the power bill. but the best part is so much less heat. especially on hot summer days, every degree only adds to the misery.

There's a setting for voltage control. The checkbox was above the voltage monitoring. Why not just enable that & apply a negative offset? Why mess around with custom curves when you could apply the offset to the entire curve much easier?

It doesn’t seem counterproductive, it seems counterintuitive. Big difference ✨

I undervolted my RX 7900XT it ran hotter than when overclocked all with adrenalin software ? Im really confused thought it was supposed to run cooler ??

If my gpu maxes at 70 degrees at my highest overclock.. Is it worth undervolting? Im going from 2055mhz at 1.1v to 1900mhz at 900mv

How could I under voltage a card even if I want to lose some of its performance but I want as example want to hit 200watt max on it not more . How I could do that ? Because I have tried undervoltage it but I reached a spot where I can't do more low on voltage thee card started to crash on desktop . So what I shall I do to do more undervoltage even if means lose some of its performance ?

i used to get 83 degrees when playing RDR2 with ultra settings on my RTX 3070 and alot of noise ,then i undervolt it and now i get ~ 65 degrees same settings.very happy!

volt dosent show up even after i set it up from the setting any suestions /

Did you tried Precision X1 instead of afterburner?

All I need is a 3000 series :P I'm on 1660 TI she can do 1890mhz But that's with everything set as normal and I have not changed any voltage

I managed to overclock my RTX 2060 to 1980mhz and undervolt it to 1000mV at the same time thanks to this guide!

I could see this being useful for people with really high temps or something. Tried this compared to my regular overclock just to see and I’m performing well with much lower temps but way less performance. My pc cools well so I’ll keep the higher temps for more FPS for my particular setup

Anyone with issues of profiles not saving volts cores memory ect, Turn OFF link for temps and power on fan limits, Its a weird thing but having it linked stops profiles loading and resetting themselves on a pc restart.

Im not sure what my fan curve should be? Kinda confused about that. Auto or do I set my own fan curve?? :/

not seeing volt it's showing 0 for 10 min and volt monitoring is on

Can GPU Tweak 3 replace MSI Afterburner?

This looked like a good idea, and I actually have better performance using -70 mV +90 core +900 mem. I saved the profile and set it to launch at startup, but the MSI afterburner keeps changing the curve (random stuff like adding +50 more to core). My pc regularly crashes now because of these changed curves! MSI afterburner is horseshit, anything else I can use or how to avoid this?

You actually want to move the whole graph, and you don't want to flatten it

i was about to swap may auros 3070 to tuf 3070 just because of temps but i just cant let go of the aesthetic design of auros master so i tried undervolting and omg got 68c full load

The heat generated is _literally_ tho power that is input, and the hotter it gets, the less eff#icient it gets.

5:49 is it normal for idle gpu to be 90% of its max clock value

CTRL + L to lock the offset Voltage / Speed and save the preset ...

what settings should be used in the Heaven test?

So, out of the box it comes over revved. So we sort of a rev it less-ish, lol.

Set the curve at 38 degrees no hotter. That’s the start of the 15 delta ticks

Just use an older version of Afterburner that's more surefooted or Precision X1

5:20 let's go

I’m wondering if it is possible to undervolt the Intel 12th gen non-K mobile CPU es example 12700H???

Why in games voltage has increased for the value i specified

Is your 3080 watercooled? Those temps at default settings are too sus 🤣

Probably generates less heat too, right ?!

As I tried it by myself, this can keep GPU stable when a game needs a high performance with a lower power, but the power consumption can get increased when the game does not need the amount of power which is set by MSI Afterburner. And when the game is not running on PC (idling), it costs more power consumption than non-undervolting. So, undervolting (with these settings) should be used only when we play games which require relatively large power consumption for the good performance.

Does undervolting GPU, lower CPU's temp too? Thanks, David Shahin

Good news

can anyone help who done this recently i think MSI has made an update, now where you go to change the voltage down, it has 2 graphs instead of just the one one for mhz one for mV whenever I change mV down by like 50 my mhz changes about minus 100 by itself, because its downvolted so without even touching core clock, it runs lower if I undervolt gpu

if i made a mistake in undervolting, will my gpu take any damage just like overcloking?

Would I do this on a rx7900xt?

I wonder if someone is struggling with the same problem than I do. I have a laptop that is connected to a external monitor, when I undervolt my gpu, it's all fine, when I'm gaming, editing & rendering its works great. The problem is whe I leave my pc doing nothing, after se mins when it's im "stand mode" it's crashing (BSOD), or some times its switches back to the laptop monitor from the external (and them I can not switch back to the external, unless I restart the pc) . The my laptop restarts and I have to start msi afterburner again. Like why it's happening? And another think I found, is that when I switch from the external monitor back to the laptop monitor this thing does not haappen. Like what the heck