RTX 5090 FE undervolt clock at 850mV

[u/LordZoencoen]

Hey all,

I’m undervolting my RTX 5090 Founders Edition and noticed something interesting. At 850mV, my stock clock is about 1245MHz, but from what I’ve seen, other people’s cards' stock clock is around 1350MHz at this voltage point. The undervolt will increase 1000MHz from this base clock, so naturally mine will be around 2245MHz, while other people's clock will be 2350MHz.

Does this difference usually come down to silicon lottery and different chip quality? Or could it indicate another issue, like vBIOS limitations or software settings? My card runs stable at this undervolt, but I’m concerned it might be underperforming compared to the average.

Is this kind of lower undervolt clock at 850mV something common for RTX 5090 FE owners? Would appreciate any insights or shared experiences.

Thank you

Edit: I think I wrote it wrongly as other people misunderstood my points. I put my stock (base) clock as well as other ppl's stock (base) clock at 850mV

[u/Village666]

FE cards have lower clocks than custom OC models, run 3Dmark and link your result or compare with other 5090s

You should keep like most of the stock performance, or you undervolted too much

[u/LordZoencoen → u/Village666]

Indeed, stock models tend to run at lower clock speeds compared to other OC models. However, I’m wondering whether this could be a silicon lottery issue, as multiple Reddit posts mention users achieving 2350 MHz at 850 mV. My card, on the other hand, seems capped at 2245 MHz, and I’m unable to push beyond that point in the curve editor.

[u/Village666 → u/LordZoencoen]

If your performance in 3DMark or games is where it should be, I would not think too much of this. What is your 3DMark Time Spy GPU Score?

[u/LordZoencoen → u/Village666]

I think in most games, the difference would be barely noticeable. However, in Steel Nomad, it could be a different story. I scored 14,326 on Steel Nomad using an undervolt profile with +1000 MHz at around 890 mV. In the other post, the person with the same card achieved a slightly higher score, likely because their stock clock speed at 890 mV was a bit higher.

[u/mahanddeem]

Each model has a factory vbios which contains the voltage frequency table. Your FE given it's a stock edition has its own table. Obviously factory OC cards have their VF table shifted up, so each voltage point has a higher clock per voltage point. This is programmed by the vBIOS maker for their own cards. Your 850mv is assigned for example a 1250mhz clock, an Asus Astral OC migh have that 850mv at 1380mhz. My Aorus has 1440mhz for that 850mv point. For quality of silicon, no one knows for sure. But definitely GPU makers test their finalized cards to make sure their can reliabily sustain the higher clocks compared to a reference design. If one (core) fails they will disamble it and move it lower their tier list.

[u/Aaron1017]

https://imgur.com/a/lbPQBho

My stock clock is also 1245Mhz @ 850mV. Some other points for you to compare.

1583Mhz @ 875mV

1665Mhz @ 885mV

1920Mhz @ 900mV

2257Mhz @ 925mV

2595Mhz @ 950mV

2670Mhz @ 975mV

2760Mhz @ 1000mV

Everyone's 5090 VF curve are slightly different. Even between 5090FEs, Astrals, Aorus Masters, etc. Seems nobody is exactly sure how the curve gets generated as flashing another bios doesn't always change it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/comments/1lzcdfg/5090fe_stock_voltage_curve_looks_lower_than_others/ https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/5090-low-stock-default-curve-is-this-an-issue.3877598/ https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/comments/1jc5jau/5090_fe_clocks_in_msi_afterburner_curve_editor/ https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/comments/1j6tj9b/which_default_boost_curve_does_your_rtx_50_series/

[u/FurioGiunta2000]

I think at 850mV 2600 Mhz should be minimum

[u/LordZoencoen → u/FurioGiunta2000]

Apologies for the confusion. I have edited the post. What I am referring is the base clock not the undervolting clock

[u/Denders-NL]

Dont take this to harsh but. 1350 sounds like you dont know what you are doing.

Are you sure you are not just upping the mem clockspeed?

Did you set the coreclock speed in the volt graph on MSI afterburner?

Follow this guide and tell us again what is going wrong.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/1jaz2yq/5090fe_undervolt_guide_better_than_stock_at_450w/

[u/LordZoencoen → u/Denders-NL]

Apologies for the confusion. I have edited the post. What I am referring to is the base clock, not the undervolting clock.

[u/Denders-NL → u/LordZoencoen]

Ah ok, Well what I noticed is that FE cards clock lower than other vendors. I also have a FE card and mine already clocks lower than the guy in the post I mentioned.

I have a rather new 5090 (over a month old) and it seems like Nvidia tightened the boundaries a bit tighter. Its not much but I get 2827 @ 0.895 while some others claim 2827 @ 0.890 on a FE card.

Below that point it degrades hard (steep curve) on what clock you can get on what volt. I am at my working PC atm so cant check but my guess is that we have the same version.

What wattages are you getting @ 0.850? Because for me the sweet spot was 0.895 to keep stock performance with 2827 clock speed.

[u/LordZoencoen → u/Denders-NL]

Well, to my surprise, it looks like we have the same card profile. I’m also getting 2827 MHz at 0.895 V. At 850 mV, my card draws mostly below 400 W on Steel Nomad. I haven’t tested in games yet, but I’d expect this to affect performance by only around 1–5%.

Would you mind checking what your stock clock is at 850 mV?

[u/Denders-NL → u/LordZoencoen]

I can do later this evening. Steel Nomad asks a lot tbh. At 0.895 I pull about 500W on Steel Nomad, but on every other game its around 450W max (only Alan Wake 2 forest scene it also wants 500W).

[u/RavenK92]

My MSI Gaming Trio OC 5090 gets clocks of about 2545 MHz at 875 mV during gaming. If your FE gives 1350 MHz at 850 mV something is broken

[u/LordZoencoen → u/RavenK92]

Apologies for the confusion. I have edited the post. What I am referring is the base clock not the undervolting clock

[u/Aggravating_Ring_714]

1350mhz coreclock? Way too low. Some people on reddit claim they hit 2800-3000mhz at 850mv lol.

[u/LordZoencoen → u/Aggravating_Ring_714]

Apologies for the confusion. I have edited the post. What I am referring to is the base clock, not the undervolting clock