nvidia-smi commands and behaviours in low fps

[Faltskog]

Hi everyone,

I noticed a strange behavior with nvidia-smi commands and wanted to share CapFrameX results in order to have a better grasp and possibly a good explanation on what's happening here.

So this result is with nvidia-smi -lgc 2100 (since my 3080ti goes up to 2040mhz/2050mhz, you can just put -lgc 99999 and it will go to it's own max it seems)

1.png (255.27 KiB) Viewed 1159 times

And this result is with a nvidia-smi command that i didn't knew it existed

nvidia-smi -lgc tdp

2.png (299.78 KiB) Viewed 1159 times

Which is clearly and noticeably feels better in-game, but here's the catch

with -lgc 2100 sits around 2040mhz remember? But with -lgc tdp goes up til 1365mhz and stays there...
The question is, why i have better results with lower mhz?
Is it an engine drawback or could something with my GPU?
I honestly doubt it because I applied thermal paste and thermal pads like 2 months ago,
so basically i can discard a GPU problem (i checked temps multiple times and stays below 40c/50c)
Or maybe something else, what do you guys think?

PS: The game is Quake Live.

Thanks!