Overclock on Demand?

[ArtistUSA]

I recently looked up the meaning of the mysterious "oc" suffix on many of the graphics card’s model numbers. I was surprised to find out it means "overclock". Until now I always thought of overclocking as something a tinkerer did with his computer to boost performance beyond factory specs. Now I see that overclocking is a feature can be built in at the factory, along with the necessary additional cooling overclockimg requires.

Is overclocking on such models continuously in effect? Or are they, or configurable to be, overclocking only on demand automatically when needed to reduce the electricity bill, and prolong the GPU’s longevity?

The model I am looking at acquiring is rhe "ASUS GeForce RTX 4080 Republic of Gamers Strix OC".

[Nate152]

Hello ArtistUSA

OC gpu's are factory overclocked out of the box,  OC gpu's will boost the core clock higher than the standard models.

As long as your gpu is cool enough and kept within the power limit, GPU Boost 3.0 will overclock higher than the factory specs for better performance.

For maximum performance, you can find the maximum overclock of your gpu with GPU Tweak III.

[ArtistUSA]

What I want to know is whether my Ubuntu 22.04's "Nvidia X Server" app's "PowerMizer" function can be configured to overclock only when needed during, for example, combat gaming, or rendering in Blender, when the performance boost is really needed, and not for example when running a word processor.

I am concerned more about the electricty bill than I am about GPU longevity, although I am an electrical engineer who has designed a lot of hardware. My experience is the cooler a component operates the longer it lasts, due to enhanced electromigration in the chip's metallization, and other efftects.

[Nate152 · Accepted solution]

At idle, your ROG Strix RTX 4080 should use less wattage than my ROG Strix RTX 3090 Ti.

I use a program called HWinfo to monitor temperatures, clock speeds and voltages, it shows wattage for most components too. At idle, my ROG Strix RTX 3090 Ti draws about 23 watts. Opening a web page or program can spike up the wattage, but only for a second.

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