Underclocking 2D Clocks?

[firewolfsm]

Why doesn't everyone just put their 2D clocks at like 100MHz? Maybe not that low, but I doubt anyone outside of Photoshop would notice any difference in 2D clocks. I was thinking of lowering my 7900GT from 450/800 to 400/800 or 350 and leaving my 3D clocks at 505/800. Does a major difference in clocks affect performance during switching or something? My 7900GT idles at 45C with my tri-speed AC Pro2L fan at medium and 50C with it at low.

 

[TraumaRN]

I thought the 7800 and 7900 series downclocked when not in use anyways.

My 7800GT will clock down to 275 on the core when I'm not using it....

 

[elpres05]

Because no one cares about 2D clocks, your not actually saving power and 45 deg C isn't bad at all.

 

[ElFenix]

i've tried it with att and it didn't work as well as i thought it might. i'd get corruption coming out of standby.

 

[TheRyuu]

I set both the 3d clocks and the 2d clocks the same just in case it forgets to up it to 3d clocks in games (cause it happend once).

 

[LittleNemoNES]

I'd actually like to know more about this myself. Just cos I don't want to use a load of power while I browse the net. That said, is there a cool and quiet type program that lets me switch performance on the fly? TO minimize power consumption.

Like switch to 1.8 ghz when on the net and 2.8 when I'm on COD2

 

[firewolfsm]

Cool 'n Quiet? My VF700 is coming in a couple days anyways. I'll flip the window so the fan is right next to the card to, it should be as good as an open case ;}.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
I set both the 3d clocks and the 2d clocks the same just in case it forgets to up it to 3d clocks in games (cause it happend once).

that doesn't sound good; have you heard other incidents of this happening? and are you sure it was the clock-switching?

 

[Captante]

I used to lower the clock-speed of my 6800GT to like 250 core & 750ddr without any problems at all & it ran much cooler.. X1900XTX lowers speeds on its own in 2d mode so I havn't messed with it manually yet.

 

[F1shF4t]

First 6800ultras and i think gts had huge problems with setting different 2D and 3D clocks, i had my 6800ultra crash like crazy unless i made them the same. I guess it was some bios issue and infact i was told when i rma the card that there was something fishy with the bios, which is weird as i havent touched the bios at all.

It prolly would reduce the temps and power draw, but also the gfx cards can become unstable if u do reduce the clocks too much.

 

[chilled]

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
First 6800ultras and i think gts had huge problems with setting different 2D and 3D clocks, i had my 6800ultra crash like crazy unless i made them the same. I guess it was some bios issue and infact i was told when i rma the card that there was something fishy with the bios, which is weird as i havent touched the bios at all.

It prolly would reduce the temps and power draw, but also the gfx cards can become unstable if u do reduce the clocks too much.

I underclock my 6800gt to 100/1000. The main problem is that this doesn't decrease the voltage and so the idle temps won't fall so much after a given point. There are a huge number of transistors and this will heat things up if the voltage cannot be decreased accordingly. Mine are at 50*C idle. I could have it at 250 core with an increase of just 5*C.

 

[Goi]

Originally posted by: guoziming

Originally posted by: wizboy11
I set both the 3d clocks and the 2d clocks the same just in case it forgets to up it to 3d clocks in games (cause it happend once).

that doesn't sound good; have you heard other incidents of this happening? and are you sure it was the clock-switching?

Never happened to my 6800GT. I monitor my GPU with rivatuner when I play games. The only times it ever clocked down to 2D speeds were when it throttled down(probably due to heat or something) or when I'm out of the game in the game menu/loading new stages/etc.

I do notice inconsistencies in engaging 3D mode when playing videos though. I'm not sure if that's even considered 3D mode(depending on whether you're using overlay, VMR7, or one of the VMR9 modes?) but sometimes it enters 3D mode when I'm watching videos and other times it doesn't.

 

[Goi]

Originally posted by: chilled

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
First 6800ultras and i think gts had huge problems with setting different 2D and 3D clocks, i had my 6800ultra crash like crazy unless i made them the same. I guess it was some bios issue and infact i was told when i rma the card that there was something fishy with the bios, which is weird as i havent touched the bios at all.

It prolly would reduce the temps and power draw, but also the gfx cards can become unstable if u do reduce the clocks too much.

I underclock my 6800gt to 100/1000. The main problem is that this doesn't decrease the voltage and so the idle temps won't fall so much after a given point. There are a huge number of transistors and this will heat things up if the voltage cannot be decreased accordingly. Mine are at 50*C idle. I could have it at 250 core with an increase of just 5*C.

You do realize then that the memory clock stays at 1GHz all the time right(unless you manually change it before you start a game). There's no dynamic frequency scaling for memory, at least in the 6800GT.