AMD Powertune or "Power Li" lets talk about my issues with it.

[Stu @ MSD]

Hi Guys,
I always thought that powertune allowed a higher "Overshoot" before the clock was throttled and as suich, I have always slid it to +20% and forgotten about it.
However - I have been pushing my OC's a lot more recently and have got round to experimenting with this and found it actually makes things WORSE not better... and thats on benches like 3Dmark Fire Strike, Catzilla, Heaven 3.0 etc.
I realise this may be an anomaly with my system, or even an anomoly with the 13.2 beta 5 drivers on my trifire system, so in an effort to figure out why this may be, I spent all of last night playing with OCCT on 5 min, 2gig runs on level 7 @ 1920x1080 with error checking enabled and I was very surprised to learn that, I ALWAYS get more errors with Powertune higher than zero and find the only way to get an error free run above 1150mhz is to set it to zero and adjust the GPU voltage instead.


Example only... not exact figures but certainly representative:

• 
  
• Core 1150
  
• Volts 1.150v
  
• P-tune (Power li) 0%
  
• Error free run over 5 mins.

---------------------

• 
  
• Core 1150
  
• Volts 1.150v
  
• P-tune (Power li) 20%
  
• 25000 Errors over the 5 mins run.

--------------------------

• 
  
• Core 1150
  
• Volts 1.200v
  
• P-tune (Power li) 0%
  
• Error free run over 5 mins.

In all runs I monitor volts and core speeds with GPU-z to ensure no overshoots or throttles and the results are always the same, less FPS and more errors. Can anyone please try to explain why this is? Am I just bloody using it wrong?



For reference:

• 
  
• Cpu = 3770K @ 4.7ghz
  
• Maximus IV Extreme-Z
  
• 3x Sapphire 7970HD's
• All heavily watercooled with max temps on Core / Vregs of 45c
• Sapphire Trixx 4.4.0 modded for mem voltage adjustments

 

[Rikard]

and adjust the CPU voltage

😕

In all runs I monitor volts and core speeds with GPU-z to ensure no overshoots or throttles and the results are always the same, less FPS and more errors. Can anyone please try to explain why this is? Am I just bloody using it wrong?

What about the temperatures? I would think if powertune allows temps to go too high you would get more errors, no?

 

[Stu @ MSD]

Sorry mate, meant GPU and have edited.
Have also added a note about cooling. My watercooling is excelent and no cards exceed 45c on either Vegs Vcore

 

[3DVagabond]

Are you really running trifire 7970's @ 1080? Or was that just for the testing you've done?

 

[Stu @ MSD]

Are you really running trifire 7970's @ 1080? Or was that just for the testing you've done?

Hi, thats the highest res OCCT will do the error tests.

I run 5760x1080 @ 120hz.

 

[Black Octagon]

Interesting. Never had problems with +20% but then again I've never tried 0 when reaching 'that clockspeed' that seems just a little too fast to be error-free.

Are you talking solely about the OverDrive tab in CCC or Power Li features in general (e.g., like how you find built into tools like Sapphire Trixx)?

 

[3DVagabond]

Hi, thats the highest res OCCT will do the error tests.

I run 5760x1080 @ 120hz.

Good to hear you aren't one of "those people". 😉

I'm curious to see the outcome of this. Maybe some others can do similar testing and see if their results are the same?

 

[Stu @ MSD]

Interesting. Never had problems with +20% but then again I've never tried 0 when reaching 'that clockspeed' that seems just a little too fast to be error-free.

Are you talking solely about the OverDrive tab in CCC or Power Li features in general (e.g., like how you find built into tools like Sapphire Trixx)?

Hi,
I use Overdrive and the Modded 4.4.0 version of Trixx. All these tweaks were tried with Trixx.

The only program I know that will report errors is OCCT, but if there are others id love to hear about them. 🙂

 

[Stu @ MSD]

Interesting. Never had problems with +20% but then again I've never tried 0 when reaching 'that clockspeed' that seems just a little too fast to be error-free.

Nor me - "I thought"
Its only when creating a spreadsheet of settings for catzilla when i was benching for No:1 position that I noticed the anomally. I then tried Fire strike and Heaven and realised they exhibited the same symptoms.