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Latest NVIDIA Driver Fixes RTX 3080 Crashes…at the Cost of Minor Performance Hit

The latest graphics drivers from NVIDIA (456.55) have reportedly fixed most of the crashes that users were having while playing games. As already explained earlier, the crashes were due to GPU power spikes driven by the aggressive behavior of GPU Boost 5.0 wherein the core would become unstable, resulting in crashes. This is similar to overclocking a GPU when you push the clocks past a certain point without increasing the power limit. However, in this case, the crashes were due to sudden spikes in power as GPU boost tried to extract every bit of performance by allowing clock bursts as high as possible and running into a power shortage very (very) briefly.

As you can see in the above graphs (courtesy of IL), with the older drivers the total system power consumption as well as the PCIe power draw was came very close to the 600W limit, while the newer drivers limit it to just above 500W. Of course, a lower power consumption (and GPU boost) mean lower performance as well. (homefortheharvest.com) Thankfully, Igor tested that as well:

As you can see, although the average frame rates aren’t affected by much, the lows and frame times do take a notable hit. This makes sense as reducing the power and voltage mean a less time spent at the boost clock and more throttling which usually affects frame times.

Areej Syed

Processors, PC gaming, and the past. I have been writing about computer hardware for over seven years with more than 5000 published articles. Started off during engineering college and haven't stopped since. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Divinity, Torment, Baldur's Gate and so much more... Contact: areejs12@hardwaretimes.com.
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