Undervolting tells your GPU to do the same work at a lower voltage. Less voltage means less heat, less fan noise, less power, and a longer card life. The trade-off is usually a small (often 3-8%) reduction in hashrate, which for home Malairte miners is more than offset by the electricity savings.

Before you start

  • Note your current power draw at the wall (see the Kill A Watt guide).
  • Note your current Malairte hashrate from the miner output.
  • Make sure your GPU drivers are up to date.

NVIDIA on Windows (MSI Afterburner)

  1. Download and install MSI Afterburner (free, works on all NVIDIA cards regardless of brand).
  2. Open Afterburner, press Ctrl+F to open the voltage/frequency curve.
  3. Find your current clock speed at stock voltage. Drag that point down and to the left - aim for the same clock at roughly 100mV lower voltage.
  4. Click Apply, then run your miner for 15 minutes. If the system is stable and hashrate is close to before, you have a good undervolt.
  5. If the miner crashes or the screen goes black, bump voltage back up 10mV at a time until stable.

AMD on Windows (Radeon Software)

  1. Open AMD Radeon Software → Performance → Tuning.
  2. Switch to Manual tuning and enable GPU Tuning.
  3. Lower the maximum voltage by 50mV. Apply.
  4. Run the miner, watch for stability, repeat in 25mV steps until you find the floor, then back off one step for safety.

Expected results

A typical RTX 30-series card drops from ~220W to ~150W with a properly tuned undervolt, losing only a handful of percent on Malairte hashrate. That is roughly 30% less electricity for 95% of the work - one of the highest-leverage tweaks a home miner can make.