How to reduce afterburner CPU usage?

Hi there! G3-572 owner here!

I successfully undervolted my cpu and gpu, and noticed that both XTU and ms afterburner have some cpu headroom. Not a big deal when using it with charger plugged, but when running on battery, these both apps are such power drainers.

XTU takes 1~2% cpu usage while running, which may seems little, but it is enough to keep cpu from reachind deeper c-states, thus heating and consuming power.

With xtu the issue is kinda easy to solve, I just let it run at boot, adjust core and igpu voltage offset, and close the program. The offset keeps while pc isn't turned off and the xtu doesn't take any cpu time.

With afterburner it was worse, it took 4~7% cpu usage. I toggled off all monitoring, and it reaches the same 1~2% cpu usage level, leading to same "almost inexistent" load, but heating and draining battery. But, unlike xtu, it seems the settings afterburner changes only have effect while the program is running.

Is there a way to keep the undervolt curve set when afterburner isn't running?

Accepted answers

sri369

@strider16

Do this.
Uninstall MSI --> Reboot --> Install the latest version 4.6.1 --> Set up graph the way you want --> Save Profile --> Enable start with windows and select profile you want and lock --> Pause all hardware monitoring --> Reboot

See if this helps. MSI on Windows 7 and Windows 10 - both 1803 & 1809 - barely takes any CPU or memory on my system.

All comments

sri369

strider16 said:

Hi there! G3-572 owner here!

I successfully undervolted my cpu and gpu, and noticed that both XTU and ms afterburner have some cpu headroom. Not a big deal when using it with charger plugged, but when running on battery, these both apps are such power drainers.

XTU takes 1~2% cpu usage while running, which may seems little, but it is enough to keep cpu from reachind deeper c-states, thus heating and consuming power.
With xtu the issue is kinda easy to solve, I just let it run at boot, adjust core and igpu voltage offset, and close the program. The offset keeps while pc isn't turned off and the xtu doesn't take any cpu time.

With afterburner it was worse, it took 4~7% cpu usage. I toggled off all monitoring, and it reaches the same 1~2% cpu usage level, leading to same "almost inexistent" load, but heating and draining battery. But, unlike xtu, it seems the settings afterburner changes only have effect while the program is running.

Is there a way to keep the undervolt curve set when afterburner isn't running?

Disable graph updates - simple. Even with your graphs off it would still apply the GPU curve.

Graph OFF - CPU pretty much at 0%

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/jz/a9m8q6t4e1ri.png

Graph ON - CPU between 0 and 2%, mostly at 0%.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/xi/ltn8lhzk5wrc.png

Yes, I am on windows 10 - I just installed windows 7 task manager since windows 10 task manager is a resource hog to plotting all unwanted details (to me).

strider16

I already have all of them disabled in monitoring tab > monitoring sensors, and it keeps that way. The panel where graphs would appear is blank. Is there somewhere else where I can togle off graph monitoring completely?

sri369

@strider16

Do this.
Uninstall MSI --> Reboot --> Install the latest version 4.6.1 --> Set up graph the way you want --> Save Profile --> Enable start with windows and select profile you want and lock --> Pause all hardware monitoring --> Reboot

See if this helps. MSI on Windows 7 and Windows 10 - both 1803 & 1809 - barely takes any CPU or memory on my system.