Fixing power limit throttles on Gainward RTX 5080 in Civ 7
The late-game rendering in this game is basically a stress test for your GPU, it's almost funny. Every time I zoomed out to see the global map, the power draw would spike to 420W, triggering the motherboard's transient current protection and slashing my clocks from 2600MHz down to 1100MHz. It felt like I was watching a slideshow. I tried the 'Power Saving' mode in the drivers, but that just halved my FPS—talk about a useless 'optimization'. I ended up using MSI Afterburner to lock the power limit at 90% and forced the fan curve to 85% once the card hit 75℃. In GPU-Z, the core clock stopped swinging between 1100-2600MHz and settled into a tight 2450-2550MHz range. The stuttering is gone. I had two driver crashes initially after capping the power, but adding a small +0.02V offset to the core voltage stabilized it. VRAM temps are 72℃ - 78℃, and fans are humming along at 1400-1600 RPM.
