Why does my 7900xtx use less power in some games?

In Tempest Rising, which I understand is more of a CPU based game, it uses hardly any of my GPU once you build up a small army and doesn't recover unless in the pause menu.

In other games such as Once Human or 007 First light it will play normally but randomly drop to these same low usage stats as seen in the picture but only for a few seconds up to a few minutes which will tank my FPS.

Atomic Heart is the worst one. It will play smoothly but every minute it will lose a little FPS and the power will also lower down as well. After 20 mins I've gone from 144fps to 14. Only way to get that FPS back is the restart the game entirely.

DDU'd and new drivers from the official AMD site.
Games are set to High Priority.
I even did the Registry tweaks.

GetTheClicker said:

View attachment 173379

In Tempest Rising, which I understand is more of a CPU based game, it uses hardly any of my GPU once you build up a small army and doesn't recover unless in the pause menu.

In other games such as Once Human or 007 First light it will play normally but randomly drop to these same low usage stats as seen in the picture but only for a few seconds up to a few minutes which will tank my FPS.

Atomic Heart is the worst one. It will play smoothly but every minute it will lose a little FPS and the power will also lower down as well. After 20 mins I've gone from 144fps to 14. Only way to get that FPS back is the restart the game entirely.

DDU'd and new drivers from the official AMD site.
Games are set to High Priority.
I even did the Registry tweaks.

Click to expand...

Are you asking why some games utilize the GPU differently than others? That question could take days to answer. In a nutshell, how a game is coded determines how it will utilize the GPU. Different game assets such as graphics, and physics will utilize the GPU differently.

@GetTheClicker


The two most important items in the following are to disable drivers included in Windows updates, and to disconnect and reconnect the internet as mentioned...






1. First, do Option #2, step #3 and onward, here...
2. This will block MS from including drivers in Windows Updates.
3. They'll still be listed in the Optional Updates, if you ever need them.


1. Get this program, here: Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) | Wagnardsoft ...get the latest version, and save it to your desktop.
2. Get your vid card driver here, use the Manual Search: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download ...save this to your desktop.
Unhook the internet completely.
3. Reboot into Safe Mode and run DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) choose the "Highly Recommend Option", and just do what it tells you.
4. After it's done, reboot to normal mode, then just double click the AMD driver to install. If it want's to reboot, let it.
Rehook the internet.





Many times, Microsoft will install drivers over top of the driver(s) you have installed.
A lot of the time, this will cause driver corruption.




If all else fails... (which it does sometimes), you can also block driver updates to a specific piece of hardware, by using that hardware's ID...


I had to use this tutorial to stop MS (or Nvidia), from updating my vid card driver, without my permission.
[Still waiting to see if this actually worked. It's been a month so far.]



Now if I could just get MS to start using DDU, when they wanted to install a vid card driver without permission, then we probably wouldn't have these problems.

HeavyHemi said:

Are you asking why some games utilize the GPU differently than others? That question could take days to answer. In a nutshell, how a game is coded determines how it will utilize the GPU. Different game assets such as graphics, and physics will utilize the GPU differently.

Click to expand...

No I'm asking why does my GPU look like it's slowing down from time to time. Some games it will trip and get back up. Other games it takes a nap. I am not even playing but for a couple hours a day. I don't think it's about optimization, it seems like Windows or maybe a feature is telling the GPU to hold back. It has a 1000watt LianLi PSU which is brand new.



Yes I did DDU in safemode and did a full cleaning. That did away with an error I had caused by stacked up drivers so I mean that is a win.

7900 XTX can generate a massive amount of heat and if it hits the temperature threshold it will thermal throttle until it cools back down to within thermal specs.

Run something like HWInfo or GPU-Z and monitor the GPU temps.

GetTheClicker said:

No I'm asking why does my GPU look like it's slowing down from time to time. Some games it will trip and get back up. Other games it takes a nap. I am not even playing but for a couple hours a day. I don't think it's about optimization, it seems like Windows or maybe a feature is telling the GPU to hold back. It has a 1000watt LianLi PSU which is brand new.

Click to expand...

There is an option that makes you choose which GPU is used per app/games.
Double check to see which GPU is chosen in System/Display/Graphics/ for each game.

KevTech said:

7900 XTX can generate a massive amount of heat and if it hits the temperature threshold it will thermal throttle until it cools back down to within thermal specs.

Run something like HWInfo or GPU-Z and monitor the GPU temps.

Click to expand...

It's not a temp issue. I never let my hotspot go above 99c. The max temp for hotspot is 110-112c. I use MSI Afterburner and Gigabyte Control Center.

OAT said:

There is an option that makes you choose which GPU is used per app/games.
Double check to see which GPU is chosen in System/Display/Graphics/ for each game.

View attachment 173393

Click to expand...

Did all that. Made no difference.

GetTheClicker said:

Did all that. Made no difference.

Click to expand...

Keep in mind, that it could also be the games themselves.
If you haven't already... check those game's forums. See if it's a known issue.

There may be patches for those exact problems?

Hi @GetTheClicker

First, I'm a RX 7900 XTX user myself, my GPU is listed below and I've in over 3 years never had my 7900 XTX exhibit the behaviour you're describing. So, have these behaviours you're with your GPU, just started recently or is it a long-term issue?

Just wondering if the issue is hardware related and not a driver issue.

Ghot said:

Keep in mind, that it could also be the games themselves.
If you haven't already... check those game's forums. See if it's a known issue.

There may be patches for those exact problems?

Click to expand...

Seems like almost any game I play has its own issues. Some slowly put the GPU to sleep, some it's a little nap, and others it's not too noticeable like Forza Horizon 5.

Marcus Vinicus said:

Hi @GetTheClicker

First, I'm a RX 7900 XTX user myself, my GPU is listed below and I've in over 3 years never had my 7900 XTX exhibit the behaviour you're describing. So, have these behaviours you're with your GPU, just started recently or is it a long-term issue?

Just wondering if the issue is hardware related and not a driver issue.

Click to expand...

It has gone on for a while, I just started to notice it more because I'm playing more types of games now that I'm on vacation from work. It's a reference model from Gigabyte. About 5 years old.

I dust the computer regularly with the Inland Compressed Air 3.0. I've never taken the card apart mainly because I spent $1800 back then and have no other GPU or display device if something goes wrong.

I keep up to date with the drivers using DDU every 5 updates. I've noticed if I update 6 times without DDU I get GPU related crashes and BSOD's.

It's paired with a 5950x on an Aorus X570S Master mobo. SAM is enabled along with XMP running all 4 16 gig sticks of ram at 4000mhz. I could not afford the 5800x3d let alone find one to upgrade to that wasn't almost $900. There doesn't seem to be a bottleneck. It feels like a power saving option somewhere. I have looked everywhere, tweaked all the settings, disabled ULPS within MSI Afterburner, followed the Registry Edit tutorial seen here...
I did NOT download the Boost Pack, seems sketchy but if anyone can verify it does what it claims I'd like to give that a try.

Almost entirely due to the way the Game is written without going into a vast array of complicated programming.

You have some control with the game's Graphics settings. That means an understanding what each item does, is the effect actually visible, etc. No good wasting GPU/CPU on something that cannot be seen.

GetTheClicker said:

I'm asking why does my GPU look like it's slowing down from time to time. Some games it will trip and get back up. Other games it takes a nap. I am not even playing but for a couple hours a day. I don't think it's about optimization, it seems like Windows or maybe a feature is telling the GPU to hold back. It has a 1000watt LianLi PSU which is brand new.

Click to expand...

That is far too simplistic view, particularly with modern CPUs, memory management and so forth.

GetTheClicker said:

It's not a temp issue. I never let my hotspot go above 99c. The max temp for hotspot is 110-112c. I use MSI Afterburner and Gigabyte Control Center.

Click to expand...

Again a simplistic assumption.

OAT said:

There is an option that makes you choose which GPU is used per app/games.
Double check to see which GPU is chosen in System/Display/Graphics/ for each game.

Click to expand...

That is only applicable to Optimus type of Laptops with iGPU and dGPU MUX switching etc, not Desktops.

Helmut said:

Almost entirely due to the way the Game is written without going into a vast array of complicated programming.

You have some control with the game's Graphics settings. That means an understanding what each item does, is the effect actually visible, etc. No good wasting GPU/CPU on something that cannot be seen.


That is far too simplistic view, particularly with modern CPUs, memory management and so forth.


Again a simplistic assumption.



That is only applicable to Optimus type of Laptops with iGPU and dGPU MUX switching etc, not Desktops.

Click to expand...

Unless I assume you have the iGPU (onboard) enabled in the BIOS along with the discrete GPU. But, even then, the discrete GPU should be used by default because it is much faster. So I don't think it's such a setting the culprit. I would make sure that I set maximum performance in graphics settings and prevent sleeping when idle. I would also select maximum performance over best quality to boost graphics as much as possible. Besides in a very fast action game you wouldn't notice the difference between best quality and standard quality.

Ghot said:

View attachment 173427

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That's true. We might have paid a little more for an nVidia card but we get better performance than same range AMD card. Don't argue, you know I am right...

spapakons said:

That's true. We might have paid a little more for an nVidia card but we get better performance than same range AMD card.

Click to expand...

I think Nvidia is just better at making drivers.