Unofficial NVIDIA Tool Allows Users Power & Memory Management on GeForce GPUs

Unofficial NVIDIA Tool Allows Users Power & Memory Management on GeForce GPUs 1

A third-party power management tool known as NVIDIA GPU Power Management enables lots of fine-tuning for GeForce GPUs in applications.

Modern games such as Cyberpunk 2077 require a lot of graphical prowess to run and can make cards such as the RTX 4090 sip over 450W when path tracing is enabled. However, there are also older games that don't require the extra power and all the extra performance is going to waste if the same cards are sipping over 400W power while producing frames beyond the monitor's refresh rates.

Some of the most common applications to limit power or locking framerate include MSI's Afterburner application (one of the top GPU applications available) or NVIDIA System Management Interface command lines (NVIDIA-SMI). The latter must be altered manually, but a new application allows users to control the power with an easy user interface called NVIDIA GPU Power Management.

This new tool is not a product of NVIDIA. It utilizes the NVIDIA GPU driver application and allows users to individually change each application's power management and memory settings so that all titles can be tailored for the user without needing to be in the game or application. This new graphical user interface (GUI) tool does the work of what would usually only be available through command lines.

The NVIDIA GPU Power Management application, created by developer Simon Macer, is available via Sourceforge. Macer has also created an AMD Radeon Setup Tool Project specifying the components and other options before installation.

The NVIDIA GPU Power Management tool offers users the ability to:

Automatically apply Power Limit after booting the system: Automatically apply GPU Power Limit after booting OS.

Power Limit Profile Management (NVPL Profile): You can define power limits for your application on NVIDIA Power Management. The range of power limit depends on your graphics card. Usually, GeForce RTX 4090 has more power max/min range.

Adaptive VRAM Clock Control: Adaptive VRAM Clock. App whitelist automatically adjusts the minimum VRAM Clock to prevent GPU from deep power saving.

NVIDIA GPU Performance State Monitor

Since this is not an official NVIDIA application or tool, there are risks to downloading anything that alters the user's system. It is always a good option to measure any risks or issues with installing new software and do a system backup before installing software such as the NVIDIA GPU Power Management tool. The tool appears to be safe through virus detection software, but that does not mean the risk is eliminated. Always be cautious before installing software from 3rd party sources.

News Sources: NVIDIA Power Management tool, AMD Radeon Setup Tool Project, NVIDIA Developer Site, VideoCardz