What method is used to determine the throttle temperature?
What method is used to determine the throttle temperature?
Hello all,
I'm using MSI Afterburner to attempt a slight boost in FPS for CS GO on my GeForce 635M. I know it's not ideal to overclock laptop GPUs, but previous users have done it successfully. The issue arises when adjusting the Core Clock: temperatures rise between 70-85°C (85 is usually the max during games), causing the core clock to drop to 662 MHz while the memory clock stays the same. This suggests thermal throttling is occurring, reducing speed.
Question – how can I accurately determine the temperature at which throttling happens? The in-game monitoring via Afterburner isn’t very precise, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact moment the clock changes.
Thank you in advance.
There's always a delay. It's unavoidable. Intel cpu's poll the temp every 256ms, 4x a second. If you were to try and read those exact temps, all you'd see would be the digital '88', nothing but a blur. So there's a natural pause of a few seconds between a polled temp, the reported temp and the next polled/reported temp. Just to allow you to visibly see it. Only graphing will show everything and even that gets confusing with multiple cores as the reported temp is almost always the hottest core, which can change with loads.
Because of the silicon, the way its made, it's impurities etc, you will inevitably end up with stronger and weaker cores and cores with slightly different characteristics. So while one core might throttle at one temp...
There's always a delay. It's unavoidable. Intel cpu's poll the temp every 256ms, 4x a second. If you were to try and read those exact temps, all you'd see would be the digital '88', nothing but a blur. So there's a natural pause of a few seconds between a polled temp, the reported temp and the next polled/reported temp. Just to allow you to visibly see it. Only graphing will show everything and even that gets confusing with multiple cores as the reported temp is almost always the hottest core, which can change with loads.
Because of the silicon, the way its made, it's impurities etc, you will inevitably end up with stronger and weaker cores and cores with slightly different characteristics. So while one core might throttle at one temp, another core might throttle at a slightly higher or lower temp. I don't believe there's an exact measurement of exactly what temp the cpu as a whole will start to throttle. Intel says it's guaranteed to throttle at Tjunction afaik, could be wrong, but for sure it will throttle at right around that temp. How exactly nvidia calculates throttle temp is anyone's guess, I'd assume they'd follow something similar to Intel as the chips are supplied from the same manufacturer.
But you be much healthier keeping gpu temps below 80, it's easy to get high fps in CSGO, well beyond refresh, so there's really no advantage to it. You'd only be looking at 5-10fps gains at most, depending on Which 635M you have, there's like 4-5 different versions. That's chump change and not going to affect your game play at all.
Download and execute Gpu-Z:
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/
Navigate to the Advanced section, select the drop-down menu, and choose Nvidia Bios.
This displays the present, lowest, and highest temperature thresholds.
Thanks for your response. It's challenging to stay under 80 with CS GO. The laptop cooling pad might be reducing the temperature by 1-2°C, possibly helping. A vacuum could also assist, though it seems to cap at around 85 degrees during peak times. I plan to replace the thermal paste soon, which might improve things. The small gain of 5-10fps will be significant for 1080p, especially since I experience lag below 30fps. Currently I'm playing at 720p, which is okay but resolution isn't ideal.
Does this make sense?
Current: 90C
Min: 0 C
Default: 90C
Max: 90C
I believe I found a reference in the specs stating the maximum temperature should be 105C. If 90C is the real limit, then I’m definitely experiencing cooling problems.
Another point – GPU-Z shows the GPU Clock and Default Clock at 475Mhz. Memory is at 1015 while the default is 900Mhz, which aligns with my overclocking. The boost is 855Mhz and default is 800Mhz, which also makes sense since I adjusted it. Shouldn’t the core clock be shown alongside the GPU clock/default clock? The specs mention the default clock as 660Mhz, so why is it displaying 475Mhz? I expected the GPU clock to be around 715Mhz and default to 660Mhz.
There are various temperature readings involved. Junction temperature, maximum allowable temperature, case temperature, etc., each will differ based on the value you observe. Junction temperature refers to the point where transistors begin to lose stable operation, typically around 5°C below TjMax, where throttling starts. TjMax marks the threshold for permanent damage; once exceeded, shutdown is triggered after a set time. Exceeding TjMax leads to thermal runaway, causing irreversible harm if the CPU cannot be turned off quickly enough. This results in internal burning of the processor. If you see a reading of 105°C, it’s likely TjMax, which would place Tjunction at 100°C ± Tcase. Tcase represents the maximum safe temperature at the interface, but this is mainly useful for testing samples with sensors and not for production units where such measurements aren’t possible. The actual critical temperature lies deeper inside the core, requiring heat to escape through the heatsink and into the mounting point. This internal temperature is essentially what matters. For a detailed understanding, it’s best to keep distance from these critical thresholds as much as feasible.
The 475mhz is the guaranteed frequency in the worst case scenario.
The OC applies to the boost clock. There's no real reason to apply it at base speeds, as that just increases idle power consumption and reduces battery time.
If, and big IF, the actual TJ Max for the gpu direct from Nvidia is 105C, then the manufacturer of your laptop went into the gpu's vbios and lowered it further to 90C.
I checked the thread and found some useful information. It seems I might have missed the temperature details for the 635M. I probably mixed it up with my CPU, which is actually at 105°C. If GPU-Z is accurate, that's likely the case. I'm using the laptop GPU to its full capacity, but it usually stays between 85-86°C, not reaching the highs. Thanks for your assistance!
Understood on the speeds, thank you!
It looks like I remembered wrong on the temperatures. 105C is for my cpu not my gpu. So I'm pushing it real close to the 90C mark.
I'm waiting on Arctic mx-4 to come in, so I'll reapply the thermal paste to it. Ever since I got my laptop (2012) I haven't changed the thermal paste, so I hope that will help!
Thanks again!
P.S, I am in the process of building an egpu for my laptop with a GTX 950. Just waiting on the exp gdc beast to come in. That will probably boost my fps anyway. Just thought meanwhile I'll OC my dGPU so I can squeeze some more performance out of it. It looks like at about 80C is when it throttles and goes back to stock clock speeds. So unless I can control the temperature somehow, overclocking won't do much anyway.