Default GPU Frequency
With both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, the GPU frequency is dynamic. NVIDIA has GPU Boost, and AMD has its Game Clock and Boost Clock quoted frequencies. Typically, GPUs today can exceed the “Boost Clock” dynamically. We need to find out what the GPU frequency is while gaming. 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 recording GPU-Z sensor data.
Note that the version of GPU-Z that we used, v2.51.0 does not currently support the new Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU. Therefore, take these readings with a grain of salt, we aren’t entirely sure which GPU frequency domain it is reading, the front side clock or the shader clock.
According to GPU-Z, the frequency starts off at a very high 2695MHz but then drops quickly to between 2487MHz-2675MHz. Taking the exact average of all the clock frequency, we come up with an average clock speed of 2605MHz while gaming. Technically the Radeon RX 7900 XT has a Game Clock of 2000MHz and a Boost Clock of up to 2400MHz. Therefore, if these readings are correct, our made by AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is clocking itself very high by default, well over the Boost Clock. This could be a product of the new 315W TDP, and that extra headroom on power allowing the clock frequency to boost higher. At an average of 2605MHz, the clock frequency is boosting higher than the 2547MHz average clock speed we experienced on the Radeon RX 7900 XTX.