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Thread: Boost States

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    Boost States

    It seems to me that cards that use GPU Boost often use this boost at wasteful times and then have to throttle back when the power is actually needed. Would it be worth cards throttling back based on FPS and thus conserving headroom for the more challenging situations?

    It seems ridiculous that cards will boost up to above 100 FPS and yet at other times dip below 30 FPS, surely if power was rationed more sensibly you could smooth this out better?

    Much like you might put money aside for a rainy day.

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    Re: Boost States

    It does make me think whether the GPU Boost is more for making cards look better in normal benchmarks during reviews.

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    Re: Boost States

    Quote Originally Posted by Willzzz View Post
    It seems to me that cards that use GPU Boost often use this boost at wasteful times and then have to throttle back when the power is actually needed. Would it be worth cards throttling back based on FPS and thus conserving headroom for the more challenging situations?

    It seems ridiculous that cards will boost up to above 100 FPS and yet at other times dip below 30 FPS, surely if power was rationed more sensibly you could smooth this out better?
    You can do that to - frame rate limiters in the drivers conserve power when it's not needed. The choice is yours

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    Re: Boost States

    Hmmm, going to have a look at that and do some testing later

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    Re: Boost States

    GPU boost is mainly there to get around the fact that different chips have different capabilities.

    Without boost you have to set your cards to run at worst case settings.
    With boost you aren't guaranteeing anything to the consumer, but most cards will benefit and some more than others.

    How does a frame limiter work? Does it actually downclock the GPU to achieve the required fps or does it just throw away some frames?

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    Re: Boost States

    Quote Originally Posted by Willzzz View Post
    GPU boost is mainly there to get around the fact that different chips have different capabilities.

    Without boost you have to set your cards to run at worst case settings.
    With boost you aren't guaranteeing anything to the consumer, but most cards will benefit and some more than others.
    It means squat if it leads to an inconsistent experience. Most cards sold use reference coolers/cheap ones,and if the GPU starts overheating after a few minutes of gaming,what is the point??

    Most reviews tend to focus on very short time period benchmarks with open test benches,and many sites use built-in game benchmarks. Just boosting to high clockspeeds for short periods only really improves the impression of these benchmarks especially with non-deterministic boost.

    Only HC has bothered to look at this even briefly,and none of the other sites have actually looked at the boost over longer gaming periods with both AMD and Nvidia cards.
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 18-12-2012 at 04:00 PM. Reason: Added more info.

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    Re: Boost States

    Quote Originally Posted by Willzzz View Post
    GPU boost is mainly there to get around the fact that different chips have different capabilities.

    Without boost you have to set your cards to run at worst case settings.
    With boost you aren't guaranteeing anything to the consumer, but most cards will benefit and some more than others.

    How does a frame limiter work? Does it actually downclock the GPU to achieve the required fps or does it just throw away some frames?
    I presume that new frames aren't rendered unless a minimum of X time has passed (16ms for a 60fps cap). That alone will reduce power draw, but combined with fast power gating can give an even greater effect. Adaptive V-sync is more or less the same thing.

    I don't really mind either way for boost - I just see it as automatic tuning for your specific thermal situation, and effectively the same thing as having a controlled TDP limit such as powertune that throttles back the card when it gets too hot/draws too much power. They're both natural evolutions of reducing clock speed on idle/2d etc. and both allow the card to be set up closer to the thermal/power edge thus give the customer greatest value for their bit of silicon.

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    Re: Boost States

    But it seems that boost logic frequently boosts at the exact opposite times as it ought to in order to provide a good experience.

    When you are in a less demanding section of the game, the card realises that it has spare headroom and then uses this up. Surely it should be saving this headroom and only apply boost if frame rates drop.

    Just because the card is cool doesn't mean that NOW is the best time to boost. Try to keep it in a cool, low power state for as long as possible until extra ooomph is actually needed.

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    Re: Boost States

    Quote Originally Posted by Willzzz View Post
    But it seems that boost logic frequently boosts at the exact opposite times as it ought to in order to provide a good experience.

    When you are in a less demanding section of the game, the card realises that it has spare headroom and then uses this up. Surely it should be saving this headroom and only apply boost if frame rates drop.

    Just because the card is cool doesn't mean that NOW is the best time to boost. Try to keep it in a cool, low power state for as long as possible until extra ooomph is actually needed.
    So you mean a GPU load based metering system as opposed to a pure thermal based system??
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 18-12-2012 at 04:23 PM. Reason: More info.

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    Re: Boost States

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    So you mean a GPU load based metering system as opposed to a pure thermal based system??
    I got your PM, but i'm not too sure what to say.

    As for the metering, i don't think it's TDP based for the most part as even with a monster overclock (150-170MHz) it will rarely go over 100% TDP - never going above 105%. You could lower the limiter to 85% or so with a stock GTX 680 and not notice any difference to one that's at 100%.
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    for all intents it seems to be the same card minus some gays name on it and a shielded cover ? with OEM added to it - GoNz0.

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    Re: Boost States

    Quote Originally Posted by Terbinator View Post
    I got your PM, but i'm not too sure what to say.

    As for the metering, i don't think it's TDP based for the most part as even with a monster overclock (150-170MHz) it will rarely go over 100% TDP - never going above 105%. You could lower the limiter to 85% or so with a stock GTX 680 and not notice any difference to one that's at 100%.
    So how much is actually boosting now?? I remember you talking about the boost states not being as high as they used to be a while back. Have the recent revisions bumped them back up again??

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    Re: Boost States

    Quote Originally Posted by Willzzz View Post
    But it seems that boost logic frequently boosts at the exact opposite times as it ought to in order to provide a good experience.

    When you are in a less demanding section of the game, the card realises that it has spare headroom and then uses this up. Surely it should be saving this headroom and only apply boost if frame rates drop.

    Just because the card is cool doesn't mean that NOW is the best time to boost. Try to keep it in a cool, low power state for as long as possible until extra ooomph is actually needed.
    There isn't the headroom in the most demanding sections or it would be boosting there as well - that's why they're demanding

    It will only boost when there's a 100% demand on the GPU - ie the game is effectively still calling for more oompf. The card is responding by giving it the most oompf it can for the thermal/power envelope. If you want different behaviour then you can set it up for different behaviour.

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    Re: Boost States

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    So how much is actually boosting now?? I remember you talking about the boost states not being as high as they used to be a while back. Have the recent revisions bumped them back up again??
    I haven't really been keeping track

    The main issue was that it wouldn't, or very rarely, boost over it's maximum average (so 1058MHz from 1006MHz at stock) even though there are no thermal barriers being hit - temps absolutely fine, power draw way under 100%, GPU usage at 100%. Even at stock, certain boost scenarios should have you over 1100MHz.
    .
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    for all intents it seems to be the same card minus some gays name on it and a shielded cover ? with OEM added to it - GoNz0.

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    Re: Boost States

    Quote Originally Posted by Terbinator View Post
    I haven't really been keeping track

    The main issue was that it wouldn't, or very rarely, boost over it's maximum average (so 1058MHz from 1006MHz at stock) even though there are no thermal barriers being hit - temps absolutely fine, power draw way under 100%, GPU usage at 100%. Even at stock, certain boost scenarios should have you over 1100MHz.
    .
    It's a combination of power and temperature. If you remember from CPU/RAM/GPU etc. binning there's a matrix you can derive for each chip - frequency on one dimension and voltage on another. High performance chips can achieve either higher frequency for a given voltage, or lower voltage for a given frequency.

    Boost states allow you to shift around the matrix according to the situation the GPU finds itself in, both thermally and estimated power draw wise - some tasks are just more power demanding than others. A high quality chip will have more room to boost than a lower quality one, and by allowing this variability to be managed by software, manufacturers can release a wider range of chip qualities for the same part.

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    Re: Boost States

    Not load based, as I should imagine that load and thermals are closely linked.

    I'm suggesting that you have a FPS target and the GPU boosts or throttles back in an attempt to get as close to that target value as possible.
    You have to dynamically calculate a target value, or perhaps have a database of values like "GeForce Experience".
    Obviously you'd have to stay within TDP and thermal limits, but by limiting load when above your FPS target you should be able to create headroom to use boost when it is most needed.

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    Re: Boost States

    Quote Originally Posted by Willzzz View Post
    I'm suggesting that you have a FPS target and the GPU boosts or throttles back in an attempt to get as close to that target value as possible.
    Effectively the same as the FPS limiter that's there already, yup.

    You have to dynamically calculate a target value, or perhaps have a database of values like "GeForce Experience".
    Obviously you'd have to stay within TDP and thermal limits, but by limiting load when above your FPS target you should be able to create headroom to use boost when it is most needed.
    But the headroom isn't there when you need it. You can't store up headroom - you either have it at a given moment or you don't.

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