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1 октября, 2023

Folding@Home: Nvidia GTX 1080 Review Part 3: Memory Speed

In the last article, I investigated how the power limit setting on an Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 graphics card could affect the card’s performance and efficiency for doing charitable disease research in the Folding@Home distributed computing project. The conclusion was that a power limit of 60% offers only a slight reduction in raw performance (Points Per Day), but a large boost in energy efficiency (PPD/Watt). Two articles ago, I looked at the effect of GPU core clock. In this article, I’m experimenting with a different variable. Namely, the memory clock rate.

The effect of memory clock rate on video games is well defined. Gamers looking for the highest frame rates typically overclock both their graphics GPU and Memory speeds, and see benefits from both. For computation projects like Stanford University’s Folding@Home, the results aren’t as clear. I’ve seen arguments made both ways in the hardware forums. The intent of this article is to simply add another data point, albeit with a bit more scientific rigor.

The Test

To conduct this experiment, I ran the Folding@Home V7 GPU client for a minimum of 3 days continuously on my Windows 10 test computer. Folding@Home points per day (PPD) numbers were taken from Stanford’s Servers via the helpful team at https://folding.extremeoverclocking.com.  I measured total system power consumption at the wall with my P3 Kill A Watt meter. I used the meter’s KWH function to capture the total energy consumed, and divided out by the time the computer was on in order to get an average wattage value (thus eliminating a lot of variability). The test computer specs are as follows:

Test Setup Specs

  • Case: Raidmax Sagitta
  • CPU: AMD FX-8320e
  • Mainboard : Gigabyte GA-880GMA-USB3
  • GPU: Asus GeForce 1080 Turbo
  • Ram: 16 GB DDR3L (low voltage)
  • Power Supply: Seasonic X-650 80+ Gold
  • Drives: 1x SSD, 2 x 7200 RPM HDDs, Blu-Ray Burner
  • Fans: 1x CPU, 2 x 120 mm intake, 1 x 120 mm exhaust, 1 x 80 mm exhaust
  • OS: Win10 64 bit
  • Video Card Driver Version: 372. 90

I ran this test with the memory clock rate at the stock clock for the P2 power state (4500 MHz), along with the gaming clock rate of 5000 MHz and a reduced clock rate of 4000 MHz. This gives me three data points of comparison. I left the GPU core clock at +175 MHz (the optimum setting from my first article on the 1080 GTX) and the power limit at 100%, to ensure I had headroom to move the memory clock without affecting the core clock. I verified I wasn’t hitting the power limit in MSI Afterburner.

*Update. Some people may ask why I didn’t go beyond the standard P0 gaming memory clock rate of 5000 MHz (same thing as 10,000 MHz double data rate, which is the card’s advertised memory clock). Basically, I didn’t want to get into the territory where the GDDR5’s error checking comes into play. If you push the memory too hard, there can be errors in the computation but work units can still complete (unlike a GPU core overclock, where work units will fail due to errors). The reason is the built-in error checking on the card memory, which corrects errors as they come up but results in reduced performance. By staying away from 5000+ MHz territory on the memory, I can ensure the relationship between performance and memory clock rate is not affected by memory error correction.

Memory Overclocking Performed in MSI Afterburner

Tabular Results

I put together a table of results in order to show how the averaging was done, and the # of work units backing up my +500 MHz and -500 MHz data points. Having a bunch of work units is key, because there is significant variability in PPD and power consumption numbers between work units. Note that the performance and efficiency numbers for the baseline memory speed (+0 MHz, aka 4500 MHz) come from my extended testing baseline for the 1080 and have even more sample points.

Nvidia GTX 1080 Folding@Home Production History: Data shows increased performance with a higher memory speed

Graphic Results

The following graphs show the PPD, Power Consumption, and Efficiency curves as a function of graphics card memory speed. Since I had three points of data, I was able to do a simple three-point-curve linear trendline fit. The R-squared value of the trendline shows how well the data points represent a linear relationship (higher is better, with 1 being ideal). Note that for the power consumption, the card seems to have used more power with a lower memory clock rate than the baseline memory clock. I am not sure why this is…however, the difference is so small that it is likely due to work unit variability or background tasks running on the computer. One could even argue that all of the power consumption results are suspect, since the changes are so small (on the order of 5-10 watts between data points).

Conclusion

Increasing the memory speed of the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 results in a modest increase in PPD and efficiency, and arguably a slight increase in power consumption. The difference between the fastest (+500 MHz) and slowest (-500 MHz) data points I tested are:

PPD: +81K PPD (11.5%)

Power: +9.36 Watts (3.8%)

Efficiency: +212.8 PPD/Watt (7.4%)

Keep in mind that these are for a massive difference in ram speed (5000 MHz vs 4000 MHz).

Another way to look at these results is that underclocking the graphics card ram in hopes of improving efficiency doesn’t work (you’ll actually lose efficiency). I expect this trend will hold true for the rest of the Nvidia Pascal series of cards (GTX 10xx), although so far my testing of this has been limited to this one card, so your mileage may vary. Please post any insights if you have them.

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This entry was posted in Computer Efficiency, GPUs, PPD/Watt and tagged distributed computing, Efficiency, F@H, Folding@home, GTX 1080, PPD, PPD/Watt. Bookmark the permalink.

How To Overclock and Undervolt NVidia GTX 1080

Overclocking and undervolting NVidia GTX 1080 is a great and completely free way to get more performance out of your graphics card. You can increase its performance and decrease temperatures by adjusting the clock speed, voltage, fan curves, and other advanced settings on your NVidia GPU.

In this guide, you will find step-by-step instructions on how to overclock and undervolt the NVidia GTX 1080, as well as a few tips on how to achieve optimum results.

Before we get into it, let’s clear some things most of you might be worried about.

Will overclocking void the warranty of the NVidia GTX 1080?

No, overclocking and undervolting will not void the warranty of your NVidia GTX 1080. This is because it’s just a software adjustment that involves no physical changes to your card. Even if you try to overclock too high or give too much voltage to the card, it will shut itself down to avoid any damage until you revert the overclock.

Will this guide work for other NVidia Graphics cards as well?

Yes, this guide will work for other NVidia graphics cards as well. Overclocking and undervolting an NVidia GTX 1080 is relatively similar to other NVidia GPUs. However, depending on your card’s capabilities and cooling solutions, you may need to adjust specific settings. It is best to research before attempting any overclocking for your particular model.

Overclocking and Undervolting the NVidia GTX 1080

Before you start overclocking the NVidia GTX 1080, I highly recommend you go ahead and reinstall some fresh NVidia GPU drivers. Follow my guide on how to completely uninstall any previous drivers and then go ahead and download the best driver depending on the games that you play.

Now that you have the best NVidia driver installed let’s start.

Step 1 – Download and Install MSI Afterburner

MSI Afterburner is a GPU overclocking tool that allows you to overclock your graphics card’s core clock, and memory clock, and adjust the fan speed. To get started with overclocking your NVidia GTX 1080, you will need to download and install MSI Afterburner.

The MSI Afterburner installer can be downloaded from the MSI website.

Once the installer has been downloaded, simply run it and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation process.

After installing MSI Afterburner, you can begin overclocking your NVidia GTX 1080 graphics card.

Step 2 – Download and Install Superposition.

It is time to download and install a benchmarking tool to properly test if the overclocks you will apply later on are stable or not.

Superposition by UNIGINE is one of the most popular benchmarking tools available today that will allow you to test the stability of your NVidia GTX 1080 overclock accurately.

To download Superposition, simply visit their website and follow the instructions provided.

Once you have downloaded the program, install it on your computer and now you can proceed to the third step of this guide where we are going to show you exactly how to overclock and undervolt your NVidia GTX 1080.

Step 3 – Overclocking & Undervolting NVidia GTX 1080

Go ahead and run MSI Afterburner, and it looks like the image below.

As you can see, there are a few options that you can instantly change, like Core Voltage, Core Clock, Memory Clock, Power Limit, Temp Limit, and Fan Speed.

The first thing I highly recommend you do to your NVidia GTX 1080 when overclocking is to increase the Power Limit and Temp Limit to the maximum. To do that, bring the slider to the right.

Putting the Power Limits to the maximum doesn’t mean that your GPU will automatically consume more power, it just means that your NVidia GTX 1080 will consume more power if it actually needs it to perform better.

Now that you have set the power limits of your NVidia GTX 1080 to the maximum, it is time to start tweaking it.

Now the way that I like to overclock NVidia GPUs is the following:

I start with Memory Clock=300 and Core Clock=0 and perform an 8k Optimized test on the Superposition benchmark.

If everything is good and the test ends with no stuttering, artifacts, or FPS drops close to 0, go ahead and raise the Memory Clock by +100 and do another test on Superposition.

Repeat the same steps until the Benchmark crashes or it’s unstable and go ahead and use the last stable value.

Once you find the maximum Memory Clock speed that your NVidia GTX 1080 can handle, start tweaking the Core Clock.

Start with a Core Clock=50 while having the Memory Clock on whatever value you found stable and perform a test on Superposition.

If it’s stable, go ahead and raise it by +25 and do a test again.

Repeat the same steps with increments of 25 until Superposition crashes or is unstable.

Once you’ve found the perfect overclock for your NVidia GTX 1080, go ahead and do the following:

  • Click the “Apply” button.
  • Click the “Save” button.
  • Click on 1 on the right column to save your NVidia GTX 1080 overclock.

Let me give you an example of a possible scenario when overclocking your NVidia GTX 1080 so you can understand it better:

Overclocking NVidia GTX 1080 example 1

Attempt N. Core Clock Memory Clock Stress Test Results
Default 0 300 Finished
Attempt 1 0 400 Finished
Attempt 2 0 500 Finished
Attempt 3 0 600 Finished
Attempt 4 0 700 Finished
Attempt 5 0 800 Crashed
Attempt 6 50 700 Finished
Attempt 7 75 700 Finished
Attempt 8 100 700 Finished
Attempt 9 125 700 Crashed

DON’T COPY THESE NUMBERS. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND HOW TO OVERCLOCK YOUR NVidia GTX 1080.

With the above table, you can see that Attempt 4 is the best possible speed for your Memory Clock that your NVidia GTX 1080 can have, and Attempt 8 is the best possible Core Clock + Memory Clock overclock that you can have on your NVidia GTX 1080.

You will need a lot of testing and back and forth to get the best overclock settings for your NVidia GTX 1080, but it’s worth it since once you find the best overclock, you don’t have to do it again.

Step 4 – Fan Tuning your NVidia GTX 1080

Since the NVidia GTX 1080 gets pretty hot at high speeds and often overheats, I would recommend creating an “aggressive” fan configuration to keep it as cool as possible.

If you want to keep your NVidia GTX 1080 as cool as possible, you can copy the best fan configuration for NVidia GTX 1080 below:

Once you’ve done everything, save your changes, and you are ready!

Gtx 1080 is not chasing | MiningClub.

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