My Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 7900 XTX sometimes draws around 350–450W while playing certain Roblox experiences. The power use changes depending on the area, but it still seems unusually high for a game like Roblox. I'm playing at 4K on a 120Hz display with Roblox capped at 120 FPS and graphics quality set to maximum. One example showed 81% GPU utilization, 384W board power, a 54°C GPU temperature, a 79°C hotspot, and fan speed around 1818 RPM. The browser and app versions behave about the same. Lowering the graphics settings reduces power consumption, but I'd prefer to keep the visual quality. Some of my 4K Steam games use considerably less power, so I'm wondering whether certain Roblox experiences are poorly optimized or whether there's another setting I should check. Would limiting the game to 60–72 FPS or undervolting the GPU be worthwhile?
2 Answers
The 4K resolution and 120 FPS target are the important factors here, not just the fact that it’s Roblox. If the GPU is rendering a demanding scene at a high refresh rate, it can consume a lot of power. Try capping the game at 60 or 72 FPS; that should reduce the workload while keeping the image quality and resolution unchanged.
A 120 FPS cap still allows the GPU to work hard, especially in poorly optimized experiences or scenes with lots of effects. Lowering the frame rate is probably the least noticeable way to reduce wattage compared with lowering resolution or graphics quality. Undervolting can also help reduce power and heat, but I’d first test a lower FPS cap and make sure the GPU driver and monitoring software are reporting board power correctly.
It is already capped at 120 FPS, so I’ll test 60 FPS next and see whether the power usage drops significantly.
I didn’t expect the frame-rate limit to make such a large difference in Roblox, but I’ll try 60 FPS and compare the power draw.