- Joined
- Feb 7, 2013
I don't know any numbers, but the card allows itself to draw a certain amount of power. Which is likely below the TDP of 150 W (as far as you can trust the power readings from afterburner).
If you raise that limit the card actually can draw more power. If you are gaming or running a benchmark and the card would actually need more power that the 0% limit it will throttle. Increasing the limit will avoid that throttling. This does not mean that the card will automatically draw more power, but, if needed it can. And only in full load applications. You eliminate a wall there.
Most likely, yes. But again, only when at peak performance.
Bottom line: The card may throttle when hitting either the power limit or the temperature limit (temperature target). Increasing both does give you more headroom and thus better performance. Note: On my RX480 setting the temperature target to 75 °C results in temperatures about 75 °C (76 maybe 77 are possible). If I set the target to 80 °C I also see no temperatures above 77 °C. So this does not mean that setting the target to 80 °C that the card will actually hit that temp but it leaves more headroom.
What you can try to see for yourself:
Run a benchmark with default temp target and default power limit.
Run a benchmark with temp target +5 °C (Only if the resulting is within the specs / your comfort zone! Monitor temps while benchmarking!) and +50 % power limit.
Log power draw, temps, clock speeds and compare the logged data and results of the benchmarks afterwards. You should see a slight increase in FPS without a too notable increase in power draw / temp, except for the peaks.
That is my understanding so far, maybe someone else has more detailed input.
