BOINC downclocks my GPU's RAM by 500 MHz; doesn't happen with heavy gaming

Message boards : Questions and problems : BOINC downclocks my GPU's RAM by 500 MHz; doesn't happen with heavy gaming
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Nantes

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Joined: 9 Apr 17
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Brazil
Message 85934 - Posted: 19 Apr 2018, 2:38:13 UTC

I noticed my GTX 970's GDDR5 is downclocked from 3505 MHz to 3005 MHz when BOINC runs a GPU project, which doesn't happen when I run Furmark with 4K resolution and 8x anti-aliasing, for example, which ought to tax the memory heavily. I tested with both Milkyway@Home and PrimeGrid GPU projects, which have wildly different characteristics (the former draws 120 watts and uses almost an entire core, while the latter uses 0.1 CPU but 180 watts), and yet the memory downclocks in both cases.

Is this expected program behavior? I'm worried that this is hurting calculation performance/efficiency.
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floyd
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Message 85936 - Posted: 19 Apr 2018, 10:22:54 UTC - in response to Message 85934.  

This is likely not a BOINC issue. You could try Folding@Home for comparison.
There was a thread at Einstein a few years ago, when the 970 was new. I haven't read through it though.
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MarkJ
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Message 85937 - Posted: 19 Apr 2018, 11:01:33 UTC

I would expect the drivers have been coded to do this for compute workloads.

OpenCL apps generally require a CPU thread but CUDA apps usually don’t. It will vary from each science app and what language was used to code it.
MarkJ
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Nantes

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Brazil
Message 85938 - Posted: 19 Apr 2018, 12:26:38 UTC - in response to Message 85936.  

This is likely not a BOINC issue. You could try Folding@Home for comparison.
There was a thread at Einstein a few years ago, when the 970 was new. I haven't read through it though.


Yeah, here's the thread you mentioned: https://einsteinathome.org/content/low-memory-clock-maxwell2-cards-960970980-probably-titan-x?page=2

Following Extraterrestrial's first comment on that second page, I solved the issue. I should be getting a 10% performance increase now according to their comments.

Thanks!
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Nantes

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Message 85939 - Posted: 19 Apr 2018, 12:36:03 UTC - in response to Message 85938.  

Also, the last comment on that page shows how to make that change permanent, because otherwise you'll have to set it manually again after each reboot. (this info is for future generations of people who see this thread)
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mmonnin

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Message 85941 - Posted: 19 Apr 2018, 14:46:49 UTC

The driver recognized the application as compute and set your RAM to P2 compute clocks, which is at that speed. Games run in a different state and different clocks.
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Message boards : Questions and problems : BOINC downclocks my GPU's RAM by 500 MHz; doesn't happen with heavy gaming

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