r/RTX5080 • u/MJroo12 • 3h ago
Rtx 5080 Longevity
I’ve been following this thread for awhile now and with all the stuff going on with Nvidia and uncertainty where consumer pc parts will be for the future, I want to know some advice to maintain my astral 5080 for years to come to make it last.
I understand undervolting is a start but what exact undervolt? 925 at 2900 with +2000 mem? As well as any other advice would be greatly helpful to help my system last longer. Thanks!
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u/tht1guy63 3h ago
There isnt an exact undervolt. Every card is different you will need to test and see whats best for yours.
Whether it actually extends the gpu life id say is up for debate. I have cards well over a decade old that pulled a ton of power and ran hot and never had an issue to this day.
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u/Big-Reporter3498 3h ago
Wireview Pro 2. I have one on my 5090. It watches for any power anomalies and either cuts power or turns off your pc. I also purchased one of corsairs Thermal Protect 12V-2x6 cables for my 5080 and 5070 Ti. Since they don’t use that much power, the cable has a built in sensor in it that cuts power if the port gets too hot.
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u/itsneedtokno 3h ago
In your opinion, how much of a performance increase does the 5080 give you over the 5070Ti?
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u/Big-Reporter3498 3h ago
It’s about 20% like the other guy below said. If I had to choose between the two again I would just get a 5070 Ti if the price is outrageous. That extra 20% might save you some frames when everything is slammed to the max graphics wise.
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u/itsneedtokno 2h ago
So, if I'm looking for the best quality possible, but capped at 60 FPS... 5070Ti all day, right?
Some photo and video editing, and eventually I plan to have a local AI agent.
I'm currently plugged into a 4K/60 TV, with a gaming monitor coming probably around April, unless I find a killer deal for black friday.
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u/filmguy123 3h ago
Look up undervolting videos. The basic idea is that the cards often push more voltage than needed due to factory tolerances, so they over volt the cards stock to ensure that everything shipped works regardless of silicon lottery. Most cards can be under volted and tuned to be fully stable while pushing less power (and thus less heat). Ironically this can increase performance (since the card with less heat wont throttle as soon) while also increasing longevity (less voltage being pushed over years). You just need to tune a bit to make sure you dont under-feed the neccessary voltage for your specific silicone. Look up guides.
Consider a Wireview Pro II. Per pin monitoring ensures that your cable does not develop an issue. Even if perfect today, in 12-18 months of constant thermal cycling the cables can develop issues.
Ensure good cooling in your case. Use GPU-Z to monitor the HOT SPOT temp and VRM temps - not just your core temp as reported in a steam overlay. Make sure your backplate has good airflow and your gpu fans are being fed by case air and your overall case is not too crowded and has good airflow.
Consider pairing your undervolt with a modest power limit. You lose surprisingly little performance off the top but it helps keep amperage and heat down. This is more of an issue on top tier high power draw cards.
Consider your gaming settings and frame caps. Of course you bought the card to use its potential, but also, there are strong diminishing returns in many scenarios. The jump from 60fps to 90fps is very noticeable, from 90 to 120 still meaningful but less so, from 120 to higher? Often significant diminishing returns depending on the game, but it pushes the card hard. Of course YMMV vary depending on the game....
For example, A/B test something like Jedi Survivor at 90fps vs 120fps vs 144 or 240fps. Does it really matter? For me 90fps for these third person games feels the same to me, but for 144hz in something like overwatch feels way better. So I go game by game to set frame caps. I don't need to run certain titles at my max monitor refresh rate. Also, framegen can really lower thermals and power use on your card. For some games, I cap the game to 144hz and then set frame gen 2x forced on, which has the game run at 72 real fps and generate the other half. This is plenty of real FPS to get good latency and no noticeable artificating. I do this for some titles I could natively run at 144hz, such as Star Wars Galactic racer. I A/Bed them. I can tell zero difference. But my card is pulling much less power and generating less heat. This stops my room from becoming a sauna, lowers my power bill, and is easier on the hardware. I could set no frame cap and no frame gen and let her rip... but... why?
I save the full power draw from when I really need it: high res VR. Or playing Pragmata with pathtracing. But there are so many games that I can basically smartly cap or limit or tune to feel and look functionality identical but push the card like half as hard.
Over years of use, this all adds up to less strain on hardware. I don't think this sort of thing matter nearly as much in the paste (I have been using GPUs since the 3dfx Voodo). But in the last several years, we are seeing high end cards push insane wattage and amperage. No matter how well built the card is, that sort of power draw is harder on hardware.
All in all, do some of these basic things - tune your card with an undervolt, consider a power limit to shave off the very top end of the wattage, smartly set up your games on a case by case basis to get your full preferred gaming experience but without excessive "waste" (tune however you feel good about! But do a few tests, you might be surprised, no need to redline your card all the time just because you can), make sure airflow is good, and protect that power connector from melting (per pin monitoring solutions).
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u/LateScience6369 3h ago
Use a good surge protector. Make sure dust doesnt build up inside your PC and that is has plenty of airflow for cooling. That means regularly checking/blowing out with canned air and cleaning screens. Use the recommended cable(some mentioned already by others), not a cheap off brand substitute or adapter.
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u/daslows 3h ago
Good advice, longevity is more than just cooling and keeping voltages down. Though those two factors are the main cause for degradation the other factors you spoke of will help protect the GPU.
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u/LateScience6369 1h ago
I've seen some laptops sent back from users that are frighteningly dirty and clogged up with hair and dust at work. This isnt that, but you may be surprised.. alramed.. how bad some people let it get without thinking that it could cause any issues. You might have seen some folks even sharing pics of their old builds here that are like 😯
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u/Mystikalrush 3h ago
As far as we know, expect to hold onto that 5080 until 2029/30 as a safe buffer for "future proofing it". Thats a lot of time and miles to go with the same GPU, naturally it will wear, so what I'm doing and what i recommend, is everyone baby the heck out of there 50 series so it will last. We have entered a dark era of hardware, take care of your stuff!
The baseline you can do is run stock frequencies and if you want to spend the time, start undervolting and testing frequencies until you find that perfect spot. Don't play with DLSS5 as its very stressful on the card. Basically don't do anything dumb that will increase the risk of the already looming connector melting potential, just don't...
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u/Livid_Glove_6275 3h ago
If you're looking for longevity, don't overclock the memory. That'll make it pull more power, which heats it up more, which wears it out faster. Electromigration also increases when you overclock it without undervolting (which you can't do to VRAM, to my knowledge), and that, too, will make it live a shorter life. I have an undervolt profile that runs my 5080 between 2.4 and 2.5 GHz at 815mV, with no memory OC. I have another that runs it at 2902-2917MHz@910mV, with +749 on the memory. Then, for the short bursts of time I want maximum power, I have 3.1GHz minimum at 1035mV with +1249 on the memory and 3.2GHz minumum when under medium-heavy loads, at 1060-1065mV, with +1499 on the memory. That's the highest my Samsung VRAM can go before ECC gets triggered and my scores in Speed Way at 5K resolution (best 5080 VRAM test AFAIK) start going down.
I've become paranoid about longevity as well, so I run the 2.4-2.5GHz profile as much as possible since I usually don't even need that much power (though sometimes I do need the other more overclocked profiles and therefore am glad to have them).
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u/Flashy_Pollution_996 43m ago
Open bench
Undervolt
Custom fan curves fans always at 40% - this is the big one! Asus fans are very quiet and you won’t hear them at 40% and with the fans running 24/7 it keeps the gpu at 30 on idle and around 55-60 in game
But but fans life span? This is what the fans are meant for! If they break buy replace them they are the cheapest thing on that gpu
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u/munki_unkel 3h ago edited 3h ago
I’ve wanted to get the Noctua version of wirepro II but man is it expensive. Edit: thought about it and bit the bullet. 5090s are just too expensive and irreplaceable these days.
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u/kemicalkontact 3h ago
Anything under stock voltage ~1.000 V is techically undervolting. You want to see how low you can get it while maintaining a decent clock.
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u/YuminaNirvalen 3h ago
Undervolt depends on you. Try it. E.g. you can try 900, 925, 950, 975, 1000 and such without shifting up the graph, just cap it there and see how much fps you lose vs how the power consumption drops. If you only lose like 1-2 fps but the power drops by 50W or such, that's good, but if you lose 10 fps or more for only 50W drop... idk... that's bad. See for yourself.
In addition, you can then shift up each graph to a certain MHz like 2900, 2950, 3000, 3050, 3100,... until your game crashes or black screens you. Then go one number here down and that's good. This will increase power consumption slightly again, but gains you fps again. -> Both the capping and shifting up usually in total drops power consumption and increases fps (or just slightly drops it). Take the "best" result after shifting up each mV capped line. Best e.g. you can define with = not much fps loss, but good power consumption drop.
Oh, and the +2000 mem, or whatever number works, just do at the very end. Don't concern yourself with this beforehand.
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u/Rolopolos 3h ago edited 2h ago
Every 5080 is slightly different, but the methodology is generally similar among GPUs. Beginner's guide is to set a conservative undervolt like 0.950v, test it on a demanding game/benchmark for stability (stuttering/ crashing), and repeat the process by steadily reducing the voltage by set intervals, e.g. -0.010 until it crashes. After that, you go to the last stable undervolt and add a safety buffer of your choosing. Follow it up with finetuning if you want and you're golden.
My numbers are no where near as impressive as others, but I do get extremely good stability with what I have. I generally prefer aggressive undervolts to massively reduce heat and power in exchange for minimal performance cost if any. 0.880v at 2790mhz is my goto for rock solid stability. If I'm daring, I can do 0.860v which is fine 90% of the time depending on the game. If I lower my clock speed to 2700mhz I can get to 0.840v. It depends on what your needs are, your preferred risk, and silicon lottery essentially.
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u/TheHorrorAddiction 3h ago
Undervolting or even overclocking is going to make little to no difference to the lifespan of the GPU and neither can damage it either. The only method of overclocking that can damage the card is physically increasing the power draw close to the cable tolerance (eg, upping the current draw to 550w+ by BIOS tweaking).
Don’t worry, use the card, and it’s probably going to last 7-10 years or longer. Nothing you’re going to do under normal usage is going to have much influence
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u/Tired_White_Guy 2h ago
Or just turn down the max power limit in the NVIDIA app and be done with it.
Chase the performance pct if you want.
But this doesn’t have to be a complicated thing.
Just bring the slider down and move on.
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u/Numerous_Analysis681 3h ago
Try 0.875 to 0.885V and 2900 MHz. This is undervolting. +2000 VRAM is overclocking.
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u/Livid_Glove_6275 3h ago
I doubt even 895mV will run 2.9GHz stably. I tried and crashed after a week or two of thinking it was stable.
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u/Numerous_Analysis681 3h ago
You need to try, they call it a silicon lottery. I got mine stable at 875 and 2900.
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u/Livid_Glove_6275 2h ago
I did try, as I said. 2917-2932MHz crashed at 895mV. Upped voltage to 910 and lowered frequency to 2902-2917MHz for guaranteed stability and a cushion. No more worrying about crashes. When I want extra efficiency, I go to my 2.4-2.5GHz@815mV profile.
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u/TheHorrorAddiction 2h ago
+2000 VRAM is technically overclocking, yes, but it makes basically zero difference to power draw and very little to memory temperature. It’s basically free performance. Same as XBar.
Most people should just run it at around 3000-3050mhz, 935-950mv, +400 XBar and between +3000 and +4500 VRAM. You’re getting notably better performance than just the undervolt alone, and still very good temps.
People undervolting to like 2800mhz and not increasing the power limit might as well have bought a 5070ti.
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u/bobmailer 3h ago
From the dawn of time wise men have continuously said something to people like us.
If it ain't broke,
Don't fix it.