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?