Graphics Card Broken?

ExiledLife · Aug 30, 2014

I upgraded from a 570 classified to a 770 classified a few months ago. I noticed that the new card lags greatly when there is a great deal of smoke effects. Most notably in Battle Field 4. I gave my brother my old card and he uses the same settings that I do and does not have issues with smoke. This issue also occurs in Batman Arkam Origins and Company of Heroes 2. Other than the smoke issues the card has done much better than the 570. Why would this card lag horrible with only one specific effect and this not happening on my old card. Is it somehow broken?

NBSN · Aug 31, 2014

If you checked the drivers are all updated, then I would try uninstalling and then reinstalling the drivers. Also, double check that your power supply is properly providing enough power to your system. And that if the GPU needs any extra connections (which is should), then they are connected to allow better power flow. You can also check the GPU/CPU usage to see if you are getting any issues with that. I would assume that you already checked on bottlenecks before upgrading. Also, you may want to check the fan speed/cooling for the GPU to see if it is throttling itself due to higher temperatures.

ExiledLife · Sep 1, 2014

NBSN :

Reinstalled the drivers, did not notice much difference. As for the voltage it should be getting enough power. My 570 came undervalued and crashed in any DX11 game. This one has not crashed and I have not messed with the voltage. The card jumps to 83c at max but still lags with smoke even at lower temps.

NBSN · Sep 1, 2014

What PSU do you have?

Danra · Sep 1, 2014

What is your screen resolution, this has a big impact upon performance.

1920x1200 http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page3.html

2560x1600 http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page4.html

Also, if the game detected your video card and increased the "eye candy" you may have to turn some of it down. Other than that it could be drivers, hopefully not a bad video card.

83c is on the warm side. AMD R9 290 series are famous for heat output, however, mine usually maxes out in the upper 60s using MSI Afterburner [ the fan is louder on my reference cooler, but I wear a good headset].

ExiledLife · Sep 1, 2014

NBSN :

Corshair TX750W. The card is connected using two 8 pin connectors.

I was told by a friend of mine that not having the voltage proper could lag. Any suggestions on what I should try for voltage settings?

EDIT: Added Correct PSU

ExiledLife · Sep 1, 2014

Danra :

I run at 1920x1080. My graphics card is only running hot right now due to me not cleaning it recently but I have seen no impact on frame rate due to this.

NBSN · Sep 1, 2014

ExiledLife :

So, just to clarify, your GPU has extra all of the extra PCIE power connectors from the PSU connected to it. For example if it needs 2 6 pin connectors, then is has both connected.

And have you checked the GPU usage while playing the game to see what the usage hit and/or fluxes to? For example the game may be having issues with the smoke, but whenever there is smoke on screen the GPU is only hitting 50% usage...then we know there is something causing the GPU to not hit a higher usage or it is not being utilized well for some reason.

Did you remove the older drivers from the 570 already...you may want to double check that to make sure that they are gone and not interfering with the 770 drivers.

ExiledLife · Sep 1, 2014

NBSN :

The card has an extra 2 pins to connect for power, the standard has 1x8 and 1x6.

When playing games like BF4 the usage hovers around 100% pretty consistently. I did notice however when looking at MSI Afterburner that the GPU was limited to 83C and when I pushed that up to 95C the card temp jumped to 93C indicating that it has been throttling it. I did take my card out and clean all the dust out of the case so the temps should be lower. This has not always been the case as only recently has my card gone over 80 degrees and when I got the card it ran around 60c-70c.

I also tried to test if upping the voltage helped but I could only up it by 12mV using Afterburner and did not notice any difference with that step. My 570 had to be upped from 1.012v to 1.088v for it to be stable on factory settings, though it was factory overclocked like my 770 is.

I had to reinstall windows with the new card due to the machine messing up for some reason when I put in the new card.

NBSN · Sep 1, 2014

I would suggest you to double check the manufacturer recommended settings to make sure that they are in alignment with what you are running it at. It sounds like either they are still off, and/or you could increase the fan speed to get it to run cooler and that should help a little.

ExiledLife · Sep 2, 2014

NBSN :

Not finding too much when I look for the recommended settings. I did notice that at the temp ceiling the fan was not at 100% so I will try messing with the fan settings using Afterburner.

ExiledLife · Sep 4, 2014

Recently did some tests and noticed that when I run a benchmark MSI Afterburner my card hit the voltage limit. I tried to Google if this means that the card is being throttled or anything but could not find any results related to that specifically. Could this be my problem?

NBSN · Sep 5, 2014

That may be doing it. You could also make sure the fan speed is set higher on the GPU so it will run cooler...which could help a bit. Otherwise I would recommend trying to reset the card to complete default and run the tests to see what you get and then try tweaking in Afterburner again to see what differences you can get while trying multiple settings.

ExiledLife · Sep 5, 2014

NBSN :

Raised the max temp limit to 95 and changed the fan settings to accommodate that. I was able to remove all limits that cause throttling. The last limit I have is the voltage limit. the VDDC of my card is 1.200V I can only raise this by 12mv until I hit the OV Max Limit. My last card which was a 570 classified had to be bumped from 1022 mv to 1088mv. Is there a way I can increase the voltage limit past the OV max limit? And if so would this harm my card?

EDIT: I under-clocked the card back to non overclock settings and did not notice any change

NBSN · Sep 5, 2014

Honestly it makes me think your card may be defective if you are having to do all of these changes to try and get it to run right. I could not really tell you about raising the OV max limit...but I would definitely suggest RMAing it if still under warranty. It just does not make sense at it is.

ExiledLife · Sep 6, 2014

NBSN :

There was one last thing I was suggested to due in order to determine if it is the card or the system. I need to swap out the card with a different card and test it as well as test the card in another machine. I should be able to try that.

NBSN · Sep 6, 2014

That would help if you can do that, then definitely try it.

ExiledLife · Sep 6, 2014

Was only able to test another card in my machine and not my card in another machine due to power issues. It looks like even with a different card the FPS still drops during smoke.

NBSN · Sep 6, 2014

It may be the game...if it is happening in certain game or games anyway. Also, you can make sure you are not using any beta drivers...or try rolling back the GPU drivers to before you started having that issue.

ExiledLife · Sep 7, 2014

NBSN :

I was able to fix BF4 by lowering effects down to High from Ultra, only drops to 60 fps instead of 35. Going to check the settings next time I play CoH2. Not sure why this card would lag so bad on those specific settings. After all of this I am going to go with it being the game settings. I will still check the card in another system when I get the chance. If I find anything else out I will post about it.

NBSN · Sep 7, 2014

Okay, good luck.

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