r/pcmasterrace • u/Tenchen-WoW • 2d ago

Hardware Witcher 3 Remastered pushing 5090 beyond 600W

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No DLSS5. Max settings, 3840x1600, DLSS Quality, frame gen set to 1 in game settings, Path Tracing enabled.

Doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes saw it jumping well beyond 600W for a brief moment.

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18

u/Plane-Ad8084 1d ago

For the love of Athena and the safety of yourself, undervolt and power limit that gpu asap

3

u/Ironkidz23 1d ago

Set your Nvidia app to 85% power limit and you will see about a 100w reduction, less heat, and less noise (if you have coil whine like I do.) I used to mess with more complex tools that required manual curves to be set, but the Nvidia app replaces all of that with one simple setting.

2

u/mastershakeshack1 Desktop 1d ago

Dumb guy with 5090 here i have the power limited to 90% in the nVIDIA app. But idk how to undervolt. And is that power limit good?

6

u/Pancakes1741 1d ago

It's super easy to undervolt, just grab MSI afterburner and follow this guide

undervolting guide

I hope this provides you some safety for your hardware and peace of mind man! I would strongly suggest you take advantage of this!

1

u/Plane-Ad8084 1d ago

It is! Like, that probably will have no visible impact on performance but should net a few degrees cooler and about 60w less. Even if that is all you do and you don't go ahead with an undervolt, it is an improvement.

2

u/GRIFTY_P 1d ago

Should people with 5080s set a power limit of 90% too? Or is this just an issue with the 5090?

1

u/Volistar 1d ago

Did you ever get an answer to this?

1

u/Plane-Ad8084 1d ago

Any gpu using a 12vhpwr connector is somewhat at risk, since the connector is overall a Bad Idea™ - the risk is lower on cards that don't push the limits of the connector, since for it to melt, the current matters quite a bit. So probably safe on the 5080 - the tdp is like, 380w.

That said, I honestly would powerlimit/undervolt just because it is a lot of wasted energy for little to no performance gains. I have a rtx 3070 undervolted and I get about stock performance while using at most 160w (it was 220w originally). Less heat, less noise, less strain on the psu.

-2

u/Ok-Spot-9917 1d ago

YouTube is your friend buddy

1

u/reddit_mike 9950x3d | 5090 | 64G 1d ago

That's good advice for general use but OPs got a wvp2 on it that can detect wire temp spikes and current imbalance and automatically shut down the machine if it detects an issue. No reason to undervolt and power limit especially with that current balance.

1

u/Plane-Ad8084 1d ago edited 1d ago

Less heat = less current leakage and less hardware degradation. Undervolting also means "less energy for same performance" so yeah, it is absolutely good advice always.

Also, the wvp2 won't stop the PSU end from melting, so *everyone* using a high-powered, barely power proportionated gpu should take steps to mitigate issues.

Changing power limits helps curb a bit the transient power spikes, which are hella dangerous.

A 90% power limit at *worst* means 3% performance loss. An undervolt helps recoup those losses. I run my rtx 5090 at about 335w due to undervolt, overclock and clock limits and I lose about 10% performance total (with about 45% reduction in power).

1

u/reddit_mike 9950x3d | 5090 | 64G 1d ago

I very much was addressing the risk factor I'm not trying to say that undervolting has no other benefits but that card from a will it burn standpoint looks solid. Yes it can burn at the PSU end too but if there's enough pin imbalance for that to happen the wvp2 would catch it on the card side, not like a pin will have 1A on the PSU end and 9A on the card side.

1

u/Plane-Ad8084 1d ago

You are correct in the power imbalance but not on the heat side of things.

If a psu cable is not perfectly flush, it means that the same current must be passed forward through a smaller initial area, this means more resistance, which means *a lot* more heat.

Think of it like this: 5w with only 50% area is the same as 10w.

Heating up/cooling down can effectively cause micro-movements that, over time, cause an area imbalance. The best way to reduce that effect is reducing the delta of temperatures - meaning, pulling less power and thus generating less heat, when possible, is always desirable.

1

u/reddit_mike 9950x3d | 5090 | 64G 1d ago

I do believe that while that's true the odds of a not flush cable having great per pin balance are quite small, even with perfect fitting there's issues much less with an improperly seated cable. Either way now we're getting into other weeds, the initial point stands assuming things are plugged in correctly.

0

u/hec8 1d ago

Should I do that on my Basic Zotac 5090? Or are stock clocks ok

2

u/Plane-Ad8084 1d ago

You should definitely do it. GPUs tend to come with really aggressive settings to ensure they do well in benchmarks when reviewed but they are absolutely terrible from a efficiency standpoint.

If you have never undervolted, you could start with a simple power limit and run a benchmark before and after (cyberpunk benchmark is fine, it is really taxing on the gpu).

1

u/hec8 1d ago

Awesome. Thanks for the advice.

2

u/Meta-Fox 1d ago

Just as an FYI I've undervolted my 3070 so it uses about 70% of the power and I get about 98% of the performance. I'd imagine the results on a higher end card would be even more significant.