Nvidia software seems to be garbage. RTX 3080 high temps or low performance

vlad_8011

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 13, 2020
Messages
140
Hi. I really wonder what nvidia broke with 3000 series. I had 2 radeons 6800XT and everything was working fine except one detail - cards couldnt work in specific orientation with video outputs facing top - i got brand new case and really wanted this to work, thats my last build so its really "must have" condition.

So i bought RTX 3080 TUF OC. What is going on now is beyond my imagination. Radeon Software had 2 issues, that could be fixed with some compromise, but performance and temperatures were pretty good. With nvidia there is one major settting in NV control panel that is totally ruining experience - power managment. With "prefer highest performance" GPU is ON PAIR WITH PREVIOUS RADEONS, but on desktop idle temps are 60 degree and require its fans to cool it down - on desktop while doing nothing!
With "normal" GPU have normal temps (~34 degree) but in games performance is much worse than on radeons.

Do i really need to set custom profile for every game and change that setting every time i install new game?
 
You leave the default setting to what it was. There is no reason to choose 'prefer max performance' unless you've got a specific older title that has weirdness going on. It's sitting at 60c at the desktop because you aren't allowing the thing to throttle down. The card will automatically throttle up when it needs to in games. There are very few games that have issues with the driver throttling things down and causing FPS issues, and like I said, for those few titles just set them in the NVCP. Leaving the default setting of normal will not give you any performance issues in 99% of titles out there.
 
Prefer maximum performance is as Mchart states, for old games that are such a low load on the GPU that it ends up downclocking to 2D clocks, which then drags framerate down below 60. No demanding games needs that setting to be active.

As for the 60c thing, all RTX 3080s/3090s have fan stop and have no fan on until 60C. The fan curve software for Ampere is a lot clunkier than RDNA2 cards. This generation it seems most of the RTX 30 AIB partner cards have opted to copy the Nvidia FE style of fanstop at 60C + a minimum fanspeed of around 30%, which is a step back from the much better BIOSes that Turing/Pascal AIB cards had, many of which could maintain fan-on always but at a extremely low rotation rate, and/or move where the fanstop position started.

I'm not sure if its laziness, or due to fan hysteresis problems with custom fan curves in Turing cards (most Turing/Pascal AIB cards with PWM control you could tweak custom fan curves from 0-30% without issue), but it seems like this gen Ampere AIBs opted for very basic fan curve BIOSes without much customization (you can see in MSI Afterburner even top end cards have very high minimum fanspeed settings, and fanstop is disabled when custom fan curves are enabled). The reason this works for the FE card is because it's a relatively low RPM fan, so a minimum fan speed of 30% is only around 800rpm. But on many of the AIB cards this ends up being a much higher RPM on average, so the difference between fanstop at 60C and the initial fan surge at 61C ends up being quite a disturbance. For this reason the FE, MSI, and EVGA cards tend to be the best for quality of life as all 3 brands have fans that start at ~800rpm.

Most of the ~2-2.2 slot cards don't have enough heatsink to keep RTX 30 cards at a low temp on the desktop, which causes a continuous loop of heating to 60C followed by aggressive fan blowing until the card is back under 40C, rinse and repeat. You really need some of the larger 2.5+ slot cards to stay under 60C while doing desktop tasks like watching videos or surfing the web. It may be the G6X memory running hotter or something than the GDDR6 in the RDNA2 cards, who knows. Even with the 2.5-3 slot cards, most will sit pretty close to 60C while doing basic desktop tasks (say around 54-56C for the MSI Suprim version).

The only way to avoid this is to install an intake fan near the GPU. If your case supports it, then just put a low rpm intake fan that can blow directly onto the GPU heatsink to prevent the heat buildup from causing this constant fan revving rotation on desktop.
 
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Adaptive power used to work great but now there is only normal and maximum which is not ideal. No way do I globally want to have maximum on as its silly to have to gpu running base clock and full memory clock instead of the idle clocks. But its also tedious having to close a game and go to the profile and put it on maximum after you realize normal power is not working good enough. Adaptive would always find the proper clockspeed needed in games but normal just shits itself sometimes letting the gpu go to 99% at some silly low clockspeed instead of properly ramping up when needed. For instance it may drop to 1200 mhz or even 900 mhz and then go to 99% and then stutter as it did not keep the 60 fps with vsync on. Hell some games I can just flick the mouse around fast and drop fps below 60 as normal power cant properly adjust the clockspeeds on the fly where maximum has no issues. I think I have about 20 games now where I have had to go in change to maximum so the game will run properly the whole time. I wish they would just bring adaptive back for Turing as that worked great on the previous cards. And of course I am expecting to hear "I have never had a problem with normal power so must be your system". You not noticing does not change the fact that plenty of others have noticed that normal power can certainly be less than ideal in some games especially when using vsync.
 
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What's wrong with Optimal Power? You're not getting as much FPS as your previous 6800XT? We need more information than what you provided to help you debug.
 
What's wrong with Optimal Power? You're not getting as much FPS as your previous 6800XT? We need more information than what you provided to help you debug.


Ampere cards do not have optimal power setting available.

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Nothing wrong with Nvidia software, at least not to the problem you are talking about.

Maybe something else is wrong, like a corrupt driver install. It should work fine on default settings.
 
The settings were changed because the logic on the card itself is better now. Normal is basically optimal. There was no 'downgrade'. If you're having FPS issues, you either are playing a very specific older title where you need to manually set max performance, or you have something else going on.
 
OK, thank you guys for help. I think i resolved issue by reinstalling the system.
I'm not that green in drivers, i DDU'ed drivers before GPU swap, but here goes propably reason of the performance loose. AURA CREATOR. I got MSI B550 Tomahawk, i used MSI Dragon Center to get mystic light (i uninstalled rest of build-in software). With ASUS TUF i had problems with GPU Tweak - first i installed ver 3, which was beta - 0db fan was not possible to turn off (i tried to set fan curve to max acceptable loudness, but couldnt start fans at all). So i uninstalled GPU Tweak 3 by revouninstaller (i use only this to uninstall things) and get GPU Tweak 2 - ASUS software is so buggy, that i wonder how people can accept this - at least i could steer fans now and set custom fan curve. Then when everything except LED was set, i started to search for RGB stuff for this card, again i understanded ASUS software is crap full of bloatware. To get 2 leds to work as i wanted i needed to install some "armory crate", ROG Live service, 30 positions for RGB control on many different hardware manufacturers (i saw this list in RevoUninstaller) and some MS Store app called Aura Creator. to get this working i spend over hour. So i fired up Mafia Definitive Edition - poor performance, ghosting objects in motion, some artefacts with few effects (that game's fault). Then i searched reddits, nv forums (full of intel fanboys, from where you get out without any help.....) , and found this power managment threads. So i set prefer maximum performance (no adaptive - on GTX 1080 Ti i remember adaptive setting), restarted PC, and saw idle temp (i use open hardware monitor) of GPU 59-60, and with 60 according to my fan curve, fans was starting to cool it down to 58-59, then it turned off, card was getting hotter to 60 degree, and it cycled. Then i created THIS thread.

While there was no answers yet, i decided to reinstall system. Boy, that was propably it.
I didnt installed anything except MSI afterburner, then switched to GPU tweak (uninstalled afterburner) to be sure there is no allways 3d clock, and figured out why fans was allways runing - there i not only temperature control for fans, BUT ALSO WATTAGE CONTROL:
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https://rog.asus.com/support/FAQ/1044879
^^^ Its from official ASUS page. So i set normal power managment and see performance improvement. "Prefer Max performance" is freezing core and memory clocks at max, and power draw is above 100W.
Now, idle temp is 24-36 degree (SICK!), and max performance power plan while gaming is 71 degree, max "normal" power plan temps while gaming is 64 degree.
Thats all in ALTA F1 case, which set this card as second (first is RTX 3000 FE's), officially working in 90 degree layout on the market (from all RTX 3000 and RX 6000 cards).

However i still not change my mind about ASUS software, its just a mess, there is no description while i hover mouse cursor over tray icon of GPU Tweak II, it opens really slow and if not option with 3d clocks (to check) i would use afterburner - i was able to set 0db fans and custom fan curve.
 
I never had any issues with Afterburner on Nvidia (there was a black screen issue on AMD for a few months, but it was fixed). You can set fan curve and clocks there no problem.
Yes, but here is one other thing i use - FPS cap at 60. Setting from NVCP not working if you use GPU Tweak or afterburner, so i use cap from GPU Tweak (it works). Not sure if there is such setting in afterburner.
 
Yes, you can set an FPS limit in RivaTuner (which is included and necessary when using Afterburner for certain things). I also have used the Nvidia setting FPS cap as well and never had any issue.
 
Yes, but here is one other thing i use - FPS cap at 60. Setting from NVCP not working if you use GPU Tweak or afterburner, so i use cap from GPU Tweak (it works). Not sure if there is such setting in afterburner.
I use the FPS cap in the NVIDIA control panel with Afterburner running in the background with no issues. You obviously can't use multiple programs to limit your FPS, so choose one and stick to it if you tried to also set it in other programs at the same time.

If you are running both GPU Tweak and Afterburner at the same time then you're going to have issues. Choose one or the other. You cannot have multiple programs running that modify and monitor your video card at the same time.
 
I use the FPS cap in the NVIDIA control panel with Afterburner running in the background with no issues. You obviously can't use multiple programs to limit your FPS, so choose one and stick to it if you tried to also set it in other programs at the same time.

If you are running both GPU Tweak and Afterburner at the same time then you're going to have issues. Choose one or the other. You cannot have multiple programs running that modify and monitor your video card at the same time.
I have only GPU Tweak. Without FPS cap in GPU Tweak fps cap in NVCP didnt worked. It also didnt worked in GTX 1080 Ti with MSIa fterburner as i remember. Installing 2 programs instead of one is not good deal for me. I'll stick to GPU tweak trash, as i dont look at it at all, and settings are saved.
 
My 3090 doesn't turn on its fans at idle, I see it sitting at 58C in my case in a vertical orientation just messing around the internet. Fans don't come on until I start up a game, and I'm capped in driver to 145fps so I rarely see above 30% fan speed which is quieter than the 140mm fans I use for my case.
 
I have only GPU Tweak. Without FPS cap in GPU Tweak fps cap in NVCP didnt worked. It also didnt worked in GTX 1080 Ti with MSIa fterburner as i remember. Installing 2 programs instead of one is not good deal for me. I'll stick to GPU tweak trash, as i dont look at it at all, and settings are saved.
Not sure what you're doing but AB was way better than asus gpu tweak last I checked. Works fine with NVCP as well.
 
Not sure what you're doing but AB was way better than asus gpu tweak last I checked. Works fine with NVCP as well.
Totally agree, but i want to limit Control software to bare minimum. When i have to choose one program (GPU Tweak), or 2 (AB and RivaTuner) i choose GPU Tweak. I just write again - i switched from 2 x Radeons 6800 XT, where i had all controlls in ONE software.
With AB i dont have allways 3D clock option to check, and no FPS CAP. Not working FPS Cap in NVCP is known issue, and everyone resolved issue by removing AB or GPU Tweak, but i found that option also in GPU tweak and it works.
 
Totally agree, but i want to limit Control software to bare minimum. When i have to choose one program (GPU Tweak), or 2 (AB and RivaTuner) i choose GPU Tweak. I just write again - i switched from 2 x Radeons 6800 XT, where i had all controlls in ONE software.
With AB i dont have allways 3D clock option to check, and no FPS CAP. Not working FPS Cap in NVCP is known issue, and everyone resolved issue by removing AB or GPU Tweak, but i found that option also in GPU tweak and it works.
That's odd, you should always have core clock and mem clock displayed in AB. Something is certainly wrong if you don't. From reading your previous post it seems like you need to uninstall ALL other software (be it for motherboard or GPU) then run DDU again and see if it works properly.
 
That's odd, you should always have core clock and mem clock displayed in AB. Something is certainly wrong if you don't. From reading your previous post it seems like you need to uninstall ALL other software (be it for motherboard or GPU) then run DDU again and see if it works properly.
I had core clock and mem clocks displayed. Problems were "allways 3d clock" and fps cap missing in afterburner.
 
So a fellow 3080 tuf owner...although mine is in the shop.

BUT, what I did learn with the tuf is you need airflow around the card on the backplate or else the ram overheats and throttles. The GPU temps will still look awesome and you'll think you're a rock star, but alas....

This is totally redneck, but effective, but I ended up getting one of those big box fans you can get from walmart or home depot, putting it point blank next to the GPU and turned it on making sure i got some airflow on the backplate. Low and behold, my issues with ram throttling disappeared. Then I just needed to figure out a better solution than a box fan next to my machine.

My solution was a full cover waterblock...That forced me to disassemble the card. The tuf had thermal pads on the backplate where the ram was located on the opposite side. So, that ram must me clocking out some serious heat. With suboptimal air flow, I wonder if some smallish heat sinks like for a raspberry-pi glued onto the back plate would help.
 
Sorry but I have a hard time believing that the memory overheats on the TUF and even throttles at anything approaching realistic conditions. That card is by far one of the most well reviewed and recommended 3080s out there. And maybe I need to Google a little bit but I sure don't recall a single in-depth review having any issue at all with memory getting hot. If anything I recall that they said the back plate had pads on it which help pull heat away from the card unlike Evga's cheap ass having no thermal pads on the back plate even on their FTW Ultra.
 
Sorry but I have a hard time believing that the memory overheats on the TUF and even throttles at anything approaching realistic conditions. That card is by far one of the most well reviewed and recommended 3080s out there. And maybe I need to Google a little bit but I sure don't recall a single in-depth review having any issue at all with memory getting hot. If anything I recall that they said the back plate had pads on it which help pull heat away from the card unlike Evga's cheap ass having no thermal pads on the back plate even on their FTW Ultra.
Yup, it had pads. I'm just saying I ran into a problem of it throttling. And my 3080 is faaar from perfect. It was what lead me to this site.

If throttling is the OPs problem, the box fan test should either confirm or rule it out. It is cheap and easy....just a little loud for a little while as you stress the card.
 
Yeah, I have an ASUS TUF mining ravencoin so it stresses both the core and memory pretty heavily. Core temps are still only 61C in a 100F room. Memory temps can get a little high I believe mining ETH if you don't repad them but for games it should be fine. That being said, the 6800 and 6800XT GPUs I have are much easier to manage in terms of heat, especially for memory, so it's not like nvidia AIBs couldn't have done a better job in general.
 
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