Msi Afterburner Voltage Unlock

[Mahmod Ohner]

Ihave my 650TI at 1.137V which is the maximum I can get it to via MSI Afterburner.

Right now using stock cooling I can get the GPU Clock to 1220 MHz with a Memory Clock of 1450 MHz and I'm basically on the edge of stability. The maximum temps I see are around 60C, even with the stock air cooling I'm convinced I can squeeze a bit more performance out of it.

Have you tried the very old versions of msi afterburner or nvidia inspector to see if you can add a bit more voltage ? If that does not work you will have to find the datasheet for the voltage controller and do a hard volt mod.

Almost all Nvidia GPU from the 1080 to the 3090ti can do roughly 1950Mhz at 0.975Mv which will save you peak wattage and temps. Play around with it to find your sweet spot but that a good starting point.

Because, more voltage gives more stability (in general) and nvidia has to account for the serial quality spread of the GPU they sell. Basically, they need to make sure, that every sub-par binned GPU is running without issues after beeing sold. Therefore their default Voltage/clock curve has a lot (A LOT) of safety margin.

I absolutely agree with everything said above. Personally I run my 3080 at 2040MHz/925mV as a save stable daily driver. But it will go up to 2130 @ 975mV when outside temperatures are not as high as they are now. (Water cooled)

Edit: The reason that the cooling is relevant here, is that it the amount of voltage you need to sustain a certain clock speed depends on temperatue. And the silicone lottery determins how energy efficient the gpu is in the first place. So from the same brand and type, one GPU may need 950 mV to push over 2 GHz at a given temperature and the next on may need only 925 mV. Afterburner is a great tool to safely optimize all those variables for your individual GPU (mainly with the curve editor).

Your GPU running cooler is a positive side effect, that may prolong its life. But you can of coure choose your trade off. More Efficiency/less power consumption vs. more performance.

Coming from the stock settings you can have both up to a certain point (so more performance AND less power consumption/temps) - but once you found the optimum - from there you can choose either way.

Edit: btw. on the title of the thread - in principle all of the above is not limited to high-end gpus. (or to nvidia). You can optimize a 3060 in the same way. The results may not be as significant, but there is no reason, not to try.

For every one who want to try this. When you run into stability problems, raise your voltage in 25mV steps as long as you stay below or at 1000mv. If still unstable, lower the clock until stable. Voltages above 1000mV are pointless and almost guaranteed to be inefficient. (In stock 3080s run between 1030 and 1075 mV...)

But its not as easy as dialing in a negative offset. You need to modify the curve. I would recommend one of the countless youtube videos on that matter. But in short: Open the curve editor in afterburner (little bar graph symbol next to the core clock offset). Use the offset to lower the highest point of the curve below the clock you are aiming for. Then click and drag the dot at your target voltage and raise it to your target frequency. When you click apply, the curve should be flat from this point on. It can be a bit fiddly to hit the right numbers and the freq can only be adjusted in steps of 15 Hz.

Even if you found your setup and locked your clock at 2010 MHz e.g., the actual frequency may go up or down a step depending on the temperature conditions.

E.g. I set my card to 2040MHz@925mV but when I start from a completely cold system it would usually clock 2055 MHz. When it gets really heat saturated on a hot day it may drop to 2025MHz.

The whole thing is a matter of trial and error. You can apply the changes to afterburner in real time, while you run Heaven Benchmark in a window. Note though, that something that is stable in Heaven isn't necessarily in DCS... and when it is stable in DCS it may crash in heavier workloads like Cyberpunk2077 e.g.

Every application loads the GPU differently. Heaven is a good approximation for DCS though.

The thing is, that I firmly believe, that there are only gains and no losses in looking into this stuff. Therefore I'm advocating for it.

When I first became aware of GPU-overclocking and Afterburner, I thought it was a complicated matter for enthusiasts and went totally above my head.

Nothing could be further from the truth. It is dead easy. Worst thing that can happen, the gains are minuscule or you introduce instabilities when you overdo it. In this case, you can always convert back to default with the press of a button. But usually you will gain something. Be it higher clocks, cooler temps or less energy consumption (or a mix).

I'm having a problem understanding how to get the reference clock speeds "all" these video's talk about.

None of them makes that clear, they all drop de curve down -200 tot -300Mhz.

Then comes the part where at undervoltage point, they move up that point particular point to a certain frequency (2:30 in the video above) without exactly telling how they defined that.

What i don't understand is how the define that particular frequency. They get by with saying "what you want" "or your desired clock speed".

In some video's they refer to the specs of the card, then point to the clock and boost speeds but then set a value that is never near the clock or boost speeds they just talked about. So what's the point then pointing to those values if they are not used?

If i put all the video's i watched side by side (even for my particular card) they all set it to a different value, none of them near the clock or boost speed. Based on what then?

So how do i determine the clock speed that i need to move up on the new undervolting value?

When you leave your card on defaults and just monitor its behavior (clock speed, voltage, temps), you will notice that the clock fluctuate a lot, but usually close to or below 2000 MHz at best. The voltage on the other hand will fluctuate but usually sit well above 1030mV.

One of the main goals of undervolting is to get into a more efficient part of the curve/envelope. The high voltage by default is there to stabilize the GPU (higher voltage makes flipping transistors faster and more reliable. By default there is a lot of unnecessary safety margin at the expense of clock speed.

Edit2: Mind that the specific clock vs. voltage vs. stability can be very dependent on the application. A stable overclock/undervolt for DCS may crash in a different game or vice versa if you really push it to the limits.

So I would either recommend to find your best settings and than dial it back one step each (+1 step on voltage and -1 step on clock), or to use different presets for different games (and outside temperatures. Stable with 20 Room temperature may crash at 25C ambient temp).

Example, my wife's 3060ti, best it could do stock was 1960 core on stock settings. With added voltage it could run 2035 but it would be hot as crap, suck power and would still throttle down to low 1900s

Playing with the undervolt on my 3080ti (asus tuf oc), with maximum power limits set it will just about top 1920 when benchmarking but will be bouncing down to 1800 and even high 1700s quite regularly.

Set the clocks to 1860 @875mv and she sits constantly at 1860 with occasional drops to 1845. If I try to push anything higher on core clock it crashes heaven benchmark dramatically, even if pushing the voltage up a little; I guess it must be the silicon limit.

1: "Drag down the top of the curve to your desired frequency".

- How do i determine my desired frequency? My 3080Ti has a base clock of 1365 MHz and a boost clock of 1725 MHz. However, the presented curve in my Afterburner graph goes to 1975 MHz from around 1090mV (and is flat from then on to 1250mV). In the video, the curve is dragged down 162 MHz overall but that is based on what? I have seen video's go to -300, most are in between -200 and -250 but on how much the curve needs to be dragged down or what the reference point is is never explained.

Or do i need to bring the top of the curve down to my cards boost freq?

2: "Line that up with the voltage you want to run it at and press confirm".

- Now all these video's use different values above the curve but how do they determine that value? That is never explained.

Also, if i look at the curves in all the video's after they "applied" their choice, most of them (but not all) have a max value that is a bit lower then the max value presented by the default max value but at a lower voltage. I don't have a problem with the voltage value but with the value they move the frequency up again.

Somehow i fail to understand how they determine the values they set.

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