Is my GPU bottled necked or something? (Frame drops on GTX 680)

dominicwild

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So I got a GTX680 and I would have thought the it can pretty much run anything on high graphics no problems. But it's not. Games such as: Tera online, Portal 2, Natural selection 2, Star conflict etc Drop below 60 frames for no real reason. Sometimes I get like 15 or 30. I expect it to be much better for what I paid for.

My CPU is an AMD Phenom II X6 1100T. I don't understand why I get there drops

I've tried overclocking that does something, but not much, sometimes it does nothing. It's not over heating or anything. GPU load is not at 100%. Drivers are fully up-to-date.

Any ideas?
 

dominicwild

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MY resolution is 1920x1080 RAM is 8.0GB Corsair DDR3 1600mhz DHX CL9 (4x2GB) HDD is 1.5TB S-ATAII 3.0Gb/s. According to everyone right now, it's probably a bottle neck. So what CPU should I get in order to actually run this card to its potential?

 

dominicwild

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It is? I thought the AMD Bulldozer was better than my current, but if the bulldozer is up to not bottle-necking is another question.
 

notea

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Your Phenom X6 1100T will only bottleneck in a few games, and that too wont be significant, furthermore, it is a better CPU than the bulldozer if its for gaming only - read : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120.html
note: HD7970 is used here which is comparable/equivalent to GTX 680 in performance
the Bulldozer is better than your phenom only in heavily multi threaded applications such as video encoding/ transcoding etc
AMD haven't quite caught up to intel, your 1100T is comparable to core i3 2100 in terms of gaming
best bet is to get an i5-3570k or wait till the intel haswell/AMD Steamroller desktop chips are released and buy whichever is the better performer, right now, intel is the clear winner (do note that i am not a fanboy of intel or AMD)
 

dominicwild

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You say it will only bottle neck in some games, and it won't be too significant. But I'm getting drops that are about 30 or even 45 frames dropped. Running at 30 or even 15 FPS. The games I stated have these drops for me, some more dramatic than others. But if it is bottle necking in some situations in terms of FPS it's making a big difference!

If I get a bull dozer. Will that eliminate the problem? If it indeed is the problem.
 

notea

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if your CPU bottlenecks your GPU, your frames will drop a bit, like maybe 5-20 fps, which will vary in different games, and when you say its 15fps, does it run constantly at 15 fps?? does this happen in other games such as BF3, Starcraft2?? and moreover the games which you mentioned are bound to be CPU intensive as they tend to load large maps, but then you shouldn't get that much of a fps drop.. im using a 670 with i5 2500k oc'ed and my fps drops sometimes to 30-ish on GW2 when switching maps but then it goes back to normal after a second or two.. and as the others suggested, id swap the cpu and mobo for an intel setup.. also how high is your CPU and GPU usage in the said games, if GPU usage is low, it means that something is bottle-necking your GPU (prolly the CPU), you can check the usage with MSI afterburner, and if your CPU usage is unusually high even when the system is idle, some background application is slowing it down.

here's a list of things you can do:
1. complete uninstall of video drivers and reload the latest drivers - 314.22 nvidia drivers
2. Run disk defrag
3. Scan the PC for virus
4. Check CPU temps and apply thermal paste if necessary - could be CPU overheating
5. Check your temps on GPU, it will throttle down when it reaches 70degs (this doesn't actually affect FPS that much)
6. Check CPU load and memory usage while gaming and on idle to see if any background processes are slowing it down, if your CPU usage is 100% while gaming, you are cpu bottle-necked
7. Full re-install of windows

If after doing all the above, your fps still drops.. id suggest upgrading the CPU+ Mobo combo to an intel setup, and do not get the bulldozer, its a good CPU that i know, but in terms of gaming, you will get better performance out of a core i5, so get the best intel cpu+mobo combo you can afford
 
Run Afterburner and check your GPU usage. If you are running at 99% GPU usage in that particular game, then you have no bottleneck. If you are running at less than 99% GPU usage, particularly if its closer to 50% or less in that particular game, then you have a CPU bottleneck.
 

notea

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yea.. check it and if its so.. check your CPU temps, overheating can seriously lower CPU performance and is quite easy to fix

 

david cassar

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The i7 3770k is wasted money if you are a gamer. The i5 is currently the best processor for gamers.
The i7 are for those who edit videos.
 

dominicwild

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My GPU is never usually at 100% while playing games. My CPU is at 57 degrees is it over heating? At what heat is it over heating? I'll probably just buy a new mobo and an intel CPU.
 

maxalge

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Any game that puts an extra burden on the cpu, and only uses less than 4 cores WILL bottleneck any amd processor.


Most online games do JUST that sadly.

 
No your temps are fine but i think you should try what i said. ;)