by Nvidia’s RTX 4090 can tame power usage significantly, while still delivering most of the performance you get at default levels, according to some recent testing.
Quasar region (opens in new tab) tests run (as marked by Hardware Times) (opens in new tab)) The power limit has been gradually manually adjusted downwards to determine the frame rates the RTX 4090 manages across five game selections at 4K resolution (maximum detail) at out-of-the-box settings, and a power usage of 347 W before comparing it to what the graphics card hits.
Limiting power usage to 326 W (an 80% power limit setting) saw frame rates stay at 99.1% compared to default, and further lowering it to 305 W (70%) resulted in a performance level of 97.8%. resulted in its preservation. To be honest, most people won’t realize what a mere 2% difference is.
So the takeaway here is that if you have an RTX 4090, it’s very easy to set the power cap and lower it to 300W without really making a noticeable difference in your overall fps (frames per second).
Even at the 60% power limit level, which draws 268 W, frame rates were 93.9%, which isn’t far from speedy.
If you’re wondering what this applies to in 4K for the games tested, and what they are, Quasarzone used the following titles: Cyberpunk 2077, Forza Horizon 5, Lost Ark, PUBG, and Spider-Man Remastered.
Analysis: Won’t someone please consider adapters…
Those who own an RTX 4090 – and there are quite a few enthusiast buyers immersed in this high-end GPU – are no doubt reading this with interest, especially given the whole discussion about Nvidia’s Lovelace flagship and its cases. don’t melt power adapters.
If you’re a little paranoid because of this whole part – and admittedly it affects very few GPUs according to Nvidia’s stats, but any really much – power limitation can be a useful workaround to keep in mind. . Reducing this power usage somehow can help eliminate the danger of things going bad with an adapter.
Not only that, if doing so means less power usage for pretty much the same performance – realistically lowering 2% of fps won’t make a noticeable difference to your gaming experience – then why not do it? Also take a look at your energy bills. After all, there’s a cost-of-living crisis in full swing, and electricity bills are too high for some people, so why not keep the power of the Lovelace flagship to an acceptable minimum? Undoubtedly, it also helps to make your gaming PC easier to cool.
An interesting point all this brings up is that the RTX 4090’s TGP set at 450W certainly leaves a huge amount of headroom when you consider that the RTX 4090 can be run at 300W (two-thirds of that amount) and still deliver. excellent performance levels. Comparing an overclocked RTX 4090, not at default settings, to a power-limited flagship GPU will naturally be a different matter.
Still, looking at this test makes you wonder if it would be wise for Nvidia to lower the default settings a bit more.
Quasarzone also looks to underline the RTX 4090, which can deliver results even better than power capping, but while setting the power cap is a very simple task, it’s a much harder beast to deal with. So for most people, the convenience of being able to do this quickly and easily far outweighs the extra gains of the undervolt – and it should be noted that the difference isn’t huge either, power limiting still provides great results.
