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AMD's GPU Boost value is the MAX, Nvidia's GPU Boost value is the MIN

H

hsjj3

Member
So I just realized the above after looking at various reviews.

AMD's GPU Boost value for the RX 480 is 1266MHz, and out of the box this is the theoretical MAXIMUM clock speed of the GPU. It will go lower due to thermal throttling, and the drop in clockspeeds is more drastic than the 13MHz Nvidia cards drop on each voltage bin level.

Meanwhile, Nvidia's GPU Boost value for the 900 Series and 1000 Series (possibly older as well) seems to be the MINIMUM/GUARANTEED clock speed of the GPU out of the box. Other than Furmark, which truly is a power virus, I have never ever seen a single game/benchmark that got throttled due to power/temps below the rated boost of the card.

Is this an important distinction to make? Or does it not matter?
 
Every review so far I have seen shown that GTX 1080 throttles like hell in every game after 20 minutes of load.

Standard. Nothing to see here really.

Every boost clock is theoretical maximum. It is regardless of brand.
 
With amd it's the max value, but with both the only "guarantee" for the minimum is the base clock.

Anyway, performance matters, clocks don't.
 
Glo. said:
Every review so far I have seen shown that GTX 1080 throttles like hell in every game after 20 minutes of load.

Standard. Nothing to see here really.

Every boost clock is theoretical maximum. It is regardless of brand.
Click to expand...

My point being, the throttling of the Nvidia cards do decrease clock speeds, but even then they are usually far higher than the actual advertised clockspeeds.
 
hsjj3 said:
In the title, I say the rated GPU Boost value is the minimum/guaranteed value.

How do I invalidate the title?
Click to expand...

Because the boost clock is not the guaranteed value. The BASE clock is the guaranteed value. -_-

It's really simple, if temps and power are within limits, NV's boost will go above it's rated boost clocks. This pretty occurs for all custom cards.

For reference, this happens within the first few minutes or so, then it starts to drop. If you leave the fan on auto and power limit on default, after 10 minutes it can drop below the boost clocks on paper and reach base clocks.
 
You are right about AMD's boost clock being the max. However, Nvidia's boost clock isn't the min. It's the average. The min is the base clock.
 
hsjj3 said:
Meanwhile, Nvidia's GPU Boost value for the 900 Series and 1000 Series (possibly older as well) seems to be the MINIMUM/GUARANTEED clock speed of the GPU out of the box
Click to expand...

No, the base clock is the only thing guaranteed (As mentioned above). The boost is something that the card will on average see. Absolutely nothing about boost is guaranteed from either company.
 
Stuka87 said:
No, the base clock is the only thing guaranteed (As mentioned above). The boost is something that the card will on average see. Absolutely nothing about boost is guaranteed from either company.
Click to expand...

I'd be damned but I've never seen an Nvidia card running below the rated boost clock speed when playing a game or running a benchmark. Ever. Not when it is both power and temperature throttled either.
 
Stuka87 said:
No, the base clock is the only thing guaranteed (As mentioned above). The boost is something that the card will on average see. Absolutely nothing about boost is guaranteed from either company.
Click to expand...

^ this is nvidia's definition. Granted you'll often see cards boost well above the advertised clocks with their last couple architectures - particularly with custom coolers - but it's by no means a guarentee.
 
hsjj3 said:
I'd be damned but I've never seen an Nvidia card running below the rated boost clock speed when playing a game or running a benchmark. Ever. Not when it is both power and temperature throttled either.
Click to expand...
I see it everyday.
 
hsjj3 said:
I'd be damned but I've never seen an Nvidia card running below the rated boost clock speed when playing a game or running a benchmark. Ever. Not when it is both power and temperature throttled either.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you are disagreeing with the supposition that an Nvidia GPU can throttle to under the quoted boost clock. If so, did you look for this information and couldn't find evidence? Why would they advertise the base clock if their cards never drop below the boost?

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/05/17/nvidia_geforce_gtx_1080_founders_edition_review/5

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/04/14/nvidia_geforce_gtx_titan_x_video_card_review/3
 
hsjj3 said:
... I have never ever seen a single game/benchmark that got throttled due to power/temps below the rated boost of the card.
Click to expand...
01-Clock-Rate.png

Source: Tom's Hardware. Drops all the way down to base clock.


6pOthhV.jpg

Source: Computerbase. Almost all games drop observed clocks well below boost clock in a very reasonable timeframe of 20 minutes. Just goes to show how little work the other sites do while "benchmarking".

I don't even know why we're discussing this. Nvidias boost is more dynamic than AMDs, but to claim that it's guaranteed is just plain wrong. This has been proven by multiple sites, I picked two for you.
 
AMD's GPU Boost value for the RX 480 is 1266MHz, and out of the box this is the theoretical MAXIMUM clock speed of the GPU. It will go lower due to thermal throttling, and the drop in clockspeeds is more drastic than the 13MHz Nvidia cards drop on each voltage bin level.
Click to expand...

I guess you already have been proven wrong. But in summary, NVidia and AMD GPUs behave very similar since R9 Nano. As long as you are below both power and temperature target, the GPUs are clocked at boost clock.
If either of both limits are hit it throttles, but you can increase the targets. In addition the bad thing about the GTX 10xx FEs is, that despite increasing the targets it still can throttle (see linked picture from Piroko). This typically does not happen with RX480 (e.g. if you increase power target slightly it will stay at 1266MHz boost clock).
 
hsjj3 said:
I'd be damned but I've never seen an Nvidia card running below the rated boost clock speed when playing a game or running a benchmark. Ever. Not when it is both power and temperature throttled either.
Click to expand...

I don't know about that. Good cooling and increased power limits is the reason those cards can stay at those high boost speed. Those blower coolers start to reach based clock (or very close to it) at stock settings within 10-15 minutes. It happens on almost every reference designed card.
 
Um, no. Out of the box, my 1080 FE actually goes to higher speeds in gaming than the advertised boost clock.
Click to expand...

Sure, it should go up to 1886MHz if you are within power and thermal boundaries. You can raise this with overclocking 🙂
 
Silverforce11 said:
Witness the miracle "premium" reference 1080 throttling in action:

https://youtu.be/OXUo1S55ZUM?t=4m29s
Click to expand...

Probably a good reason why you should avoid the reference version. I think the same will be true with the 480 where it's going to take third party cards to get the best performance considering a few reviewers had cases where the card would throttle at stock settings, though the update may fix some of those problems.
 
AMD's GCN will drop their clocks if the scene isn't demanding. An 290X custom cooled won't stay at 1ghz for example if it's hitting the frame rate limit, vsync or CPU bottlenecks.

The same applies for every GCN card so far. The clocks are dynamic. In RX 480, there's 7 stages of clock speeds. It will hit different stages based on the game load, power load and temps.

My RX 480 for example, playing World of Tanks with vsync 60 FPS, it stays at around 1120mhz. If I remove vsync, it goes to 1300mhz. Playing Fallout 4, it's constant 1300mhz. Different game load and CPU bottlenecks or not.
 
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