Folding Forum

For the last week or so I have been experimenting with different settings using MSI afterburner and power settings using the Folding@Home Web Control. What I found odd was that I can run the GPU at 123 watts and still get 96% utilization. The GPU is a RTX 2070 Super that has a power limit of 215 watts. Has anyone else noticed that you can still get high GPU Utilization at low power settings?

The low power setting is preferred since my ASUS PC has a mediocre 500 watt power supply and a single 92mm exhaust fan in the case.

Medium Settings – F@H Web Control
Nvidia Performance Overlay
CPU Utilization 14%
GPU Utilization 96%
GPU Temperature 68C
GPU Power 123 Watts

Intel Power Gadget
CPU 25 Watts

MSI Afterburner
Fan Speed 34%
Power Limit 58%
Temperature Limit 65C

Full Settings – F@H Web Control
Nvidia Performance Overlay
CPU Utilization 14%
GPU Utilization 96%
GPU Temperature 82C
GPU Power 170 Watts

Intel Power Gadget
CPU 25 Watts

MSI Afterburner
Fan Speed 34%
Power Limit 91%
Temperature Limit 79C

Cheers

Limiting the power is likely reducing the GPU clock speed, which would make WUs take longer to finish. This would earn a smaller quick return bonus, and reduce total points earned and WUs completed per day. But the efficiency probably peaks somewhere between 123 and 215W.

Newer generations of GPUs are dramatically more efficient. My RTX 4060 Ti varies between 115-145W and gives PPD estimated from 5.5-7.5 million. This is a major improvement over even an RTX 3060 which can do maybe 2-2.5M PPD on 150-170W.

When I switched to full power I did see about a 100 MHz increase. Returned back to medium settings. The 80C temp at full power is a bit too high. Averaging a decent 3.1 million PPD with this PC at medium settings (123 watts, 56C at 50% fans speed).

Yes, the 40 series are much improved over the 20 and 30 series card. Been keeping track of the stats at https://videocardz.net/browse/nvidia/geforce-40

4060ti FP32 Perf. per Watt =137.9 GFLOPS/W
My RTX 2070S FP32 Perf. per Watt = 42.2 GFLOPS/W

Power usage grows exponentially as voltage is increased to hit higher clock speeds. By limiting power you're avoiding the worst part of the efficiency curve.

This article has a table showing FPS at various power limits on RTX 2080 Super that correlates with your results. Here's a graph for an RTX 4090 that shows performance decreasing less than the reduction in power limit.

Also see https://greenfoldingathome.com/ for some articles on efficiency. That site is run by F@H forum user Paragon who doesn't post here too often anymore.

Also should mention that the RTX 40 series cards usually don't use their full TDP when folding. My RTX 4070 Ti shows 175-220W used on a 250W TDP GPU when not restricted. And my RTX 4060 Ti shows 115-150 on a 160W TDP GPU. They frequently stay toward the lower part of the range.

The older RTX 30 and GTX 16 series that I was using in the past typically would use close to full TDP frequently and needed to be power limited for better efficiency.

Bob_6591 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 2:02 pm Medium Settings – F@H Web Control
[...]
Full Settings – F@H Web Control
[...]

This setting has no effect on GPU folding.

Thanks. I switched to v8.1.18 on all my PCs. That version seems to have done away with the option.

I have seen the biggest drop off in GPU Folding PPD start the power limit is set to under 70%. 60% - 70% isn't soo bad. Under 60% has been (for me) a huge drop off in PPD.