Default GPU Frequency
Before we look at performance, we need to find out the actual real-world gaming frequency the video card performs. With both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs today, the GPU frequency is very dynamic. What may be quoted as the “Boost Clock” or “Game Clock” is not necessarily the performance it will actually run at. Typically, GPUs today can exceed these clocks dynamically. We need to find out what it actually runs at, in this way we can see how well things like cooling are working.
To do this we will record the GPU clock frequency over time while playing a game. We use Cyberpunk 2077 for this with a very long manual run-through at “Ultra” settings. We also record GPUz sensor data to look at GPU temperature, Voltage, and Power.
Keep these figures in mind as you look at the graph above. The quoted “Game GPU Clock” is 2424MHz. The quoted “Boost GPU Clock” is 2581MHz. If you look at our graph above, you’ll see the frequency is dynamically changing as we expect, but still quite consistent. It seems to fall along the line of 2569MHz. This means that the gaming clock speed is actually operating well over the 2424MHz “Game GPU Clock.” In fact, it is coming very close to the “Boost GPU Clock” while gaming.
Taking the average of the entire run of clock speed, the average comes out to be 2575MHz. Using that value, the actual clock speed while gaming is running 6% or 151MHz over the default “Game GPU Clock.” This is positive and shows the video card is not throttling and actually provides higher than quoted clock speed while gaming.
GPUz
Here is the GPUz sensor data at full-load. You can see the highest the clock speed hit was 2613MHz, of course only very briefly. The GPU temperature was 76c with a hot spot temperature of 96c. The fans operated at 48% on automatic. The GPU Chip Power Draw is 187W and the GPU Voltage is 1.200V.