alt Hacker News> When thermal throttling occurs you can perform faster by running slower.
This is not true unless the throttling algorithm is so broken that it's oscillating between extremes.
The parts have a curve of clock speed versus voltage. More clock speed means higher performance. That goes further up the voltage curve, meaning more power.
Throttling just moves the card further down the voltage to clock speed curve. It reduces clock speed, reducing performance.
The cards don't "perform faster by running slower". If you run the card slower, it performs slower.
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with a lower power cap set, it runs cooler, which sometimes allows the GPU to reach higher boost speeds. This is a real effect on gaming GPUs - however I have no idea if it applies to datacenter GPUs
>This is not true unless the throttling algorithm is so broken that it's oscillating between extremes.
That algorithm is doing exactly the task I described. If it could temporarily run faster but in a way that would cause occilation, that literally means it can run faster but it is choosing not to to preserve overall performance.