AMD and nvidia, bad idea.

C418 · Nov 2, 2014

I recently "upgraded" to an nvidia gtx 970, from an HD 7870. I have an FX 8350 CPU at 4.3 ghz.
In battlefield 4, I get 60 fps, but frame skips, while my 7870 got constant 60 fps, it was perfect.
The only real difference that getting this card made was that I can run watch dogs at ultra now, but still, frame skips, on almost every game no matter what, I get frame skips.
I've tried everything I can do. Overclocked, multiple driver switches, removed AMD drivers (which didn't do anything performance-wise)
I even get frame skips on my emulators. I try to play super metroid, I'm gonna have frame skips.
I noticed in some demanding games, that the GPU usage is at 60-80 % but will randomly drop to 20-30 for a second and then go back up, but it's constant frame skipping every second. The only games that don't skip is halo 1 and 2.
Don't even get me started on GTA 4.
Minecraft is skip-city.
I wondered if it was anything else in my PC doing it, so I put my 7870 back in. No more frame skips, except gta 4, which is expected.
But I also tested the card in my friends system, who has an i7 3770s paired with a 40 dollar motherboard that he bought off of eBay, used my ram and PSU, and everything was smooth as could be.
I've also had some problems with my Firestrike scores.
In my PC, it's 8,500.
In his, it's 9,950.
So I've narrowed it down to one thing. It shouldn't be my motherboard, which is an MSI 970A G46, it can't be my ram, which is crucial ballistix, can't be my PSU, which is a Corsair GS 600. Can't be the GPU itself. So it has to be my CPU. My CPU just doesn't like an Nvidia card paired with it. My CPU temps never go over 35c, with the corsair h80i I'm using to cool it so no thermal throttling. GPU temps rarely break 70. So looks like I'm stuck with frame skips, unless anybody has some advice. But like I have said, I have tried everything that I can.

jaimelmiel · Nov 2, 2014

It is more likely a driver or card issue. I've run an FX 8350 with Nvidia and had no problem.

Alpha3031 · Nov 2, 2014

Honestly, I don't see how we could help. Maybe you can return the 970 and buy a R9 290 instead? It's a much cheaper card, and you won't lose much performance, even if the 970 worked perfectly.

Coolboy951 · Nov 2, 2014

actually the 8350 cant really support the 970 that great the 970 needs newer processors like i7's i read a couple of these threads on other websites like the overclockers

iron8orn · Nov 3, 2014

Coolboy951 :

Not sure how much since that makes.. probably more so a driver issue but I would like a real Tom's expert opinion

i7Baby · Nov 3, 2014

Try your card in another PC and see if gets the skipping.

Coolboy951 · Nov 3, 2014

iron8orn :

the 970 is a new card and the 8350 is an older processor from 2012 so it wont really be able to keep up with the card

iron8orn · Nov 3, 2014

Coolboy951 :

Well that is just not accurate. The r9 290x packs just as much horsepower. What we see in benchmark's is in single thread games the 8350 can be as much as 10fps behind Intel but when 2 or more threads are in use the difference is a few frames.

C418 · Nov 4, 2014

i7Baby :

I already did in my friends intel i7 3770s machine. It ran fine

jaimelmiel · Nov 4, 2014

If you have and overclock on the FX8350 go back to stock and try it. You said the clock on it is 4.3 Ghz. Stock is 4.0GHz.

i7Baby · Nov 4, 2014

C418 :

Then there's something NQR with your PC.

Post your complete and detailed build.

Download HWInfo and run Sensors. Post the results - usually 3 screenshots in TinyPic or similar.

Do a Checkdisk (Google it) and a Virus Scan (eg Avast, Malwarebytes).

jaimelmiel · Nov 4, 2014

C418 :

I recently "upgraded" to an nvidia gtx 970, from an HD 7870. I have an FX 8350 CPU at 4.3 ghz.
In battlefield 4, I get 60 fps, but frame skips, while my 7870 got constant 60 fps, it was perfect.
The only real difference that getting this card made was that I can run watch dogs at ultra now, but still, frame skips, on almost every game no matter what, I get frame skips.
I've tried everything I can do. Overclocked, multiple driver switches, removed AMD drivers (which didn't do anything performance-wise)
I even get frame skips on my emulators. I try to play super metroid, I'm gonna have frame skips.
I noticed in some demanding games, that the GPU usage is at 60-80 % but will randomly drop to 20-30 for a second and then go back up, but it's constant frame skipping every second. The only games that don't skip is halo 1 and 2.
Don't even get me started on GTA 4.
Minecraft is skip-city.
I wondered if it was anything else in my PC doing it, so I put my 7870 back in. No more frame skips, except gta 4, which is expected.
But I also tested the card in my friends system, who has an i7 3770s paired with a 40 dollar motherboard that he bought off of eBay, used my ram and PSU, and everything was smooth as could be.
I've also had some problems with my Firestrike scores.
In my PC, it's 8,500.
In his, it's 9,950.
So I've narrowed it down to one thing. It shouldn't be my motherboard, which is an MSI 970A G46, it can't be my ram, which is crucial ballistix, can't be my PSU, which is a Corsair GS 600. Can't be the GPU itself. So it has to be my CPU. My CPU just doesn't like an Nvidia card paired with it. My CPU temps never go over 35c, with the corsair h80i I'm using to cool it so no thermal throttling. GPU temps rarely break 70. So looks like I'm stuck with frame skips, unless anybody has some advice. But like I have said, I have tried everything that I can.

He may have this overclocked on a board that is really not for overclocking. MSI 970A G46
He should restore defaults in bios and run the card if that is the case.
As well as the other things reconebded

C418 · Nov 7, 2014

Tried stock clocks, scores went down a bit. Others are getting same scores as I am. This CPU just is not good for this GPU. If anyone tries to get this same hardware combo, please warn them of this.

Alpha3031 · Nov 7, 2014

For anyone trying to get a 970, my advice will always be at least i5.

Mousemonkey · Nov 7, 2014

C418 :

I recently "upgraded" to an nvidia gtx 970, from an HD 7870. I have an FX 8350 CPU at 4.3 ghz.
In battlefield 4, I get 60 fps, but frame skips, while my 7870 got constant 60 fps, it was perfect.
The only real difference that getting this card made was that I can run watch dogs at ultra now, but still, frame skips, on almost every game no matter what, I get frame skips.
I've tried everything I can do. Overclocked, multiple driver switches, removed AMD drivers (which didn't do anything performance-wise)
I even get frame skips on my emulators. I try to play super metroid, I'm gonna have frame skips.
I noticed in some demanding games, that the GPU usage is at 60-80 % but will randomly drop to 20-30 for a second and then go back up, but it's constant frame skipping every second. The only games that don't skip is halo 1 and 2.
Don't even get me started on GTA 4.
Minecraft is skip-city.
I wondered if it was anything else in my PC doing it, so I put my 7870 back in. No more frame skips, except gta 4, which is expected.
But I also tested the card in my friends system, who has an i7 3770s paired with a 40 dollar motherboard that he bought off of eBay, used my ram and PSU, and everything was smooth as could be.
I've also had some problems with my Firestrike scores.
In my PC, it's 8,500.
In his, it's 9,950.
So I've narrowed it down to one thing. It shouldn't be my motherboard, which is an MSI 970A G46, it can't be my ram, which is crucial ballistix, can't be my PSU, which is a Corsair GS 600. Can't be the GPU itself. So it has to be my CPU. My CPU just doesn't like an Nvidia card paired with it. My CPU temps never go over 35c, with the corsair h80i I'm using to cool it so no thermal throttling. GPU temps rarely break 70. So looks like I'm stuck with frame skips, unless anybody has some advice. But like I have said, I have tried everything that I can.

That alone points to a weak CPU, Futuremark's 3D benchmark has always been CPU dependent even though it's supposed to be a graphic benchmark.

C418 · Nov 7, 2014

But the FX 8350 isn't weak, it just doesn't like Nvidia cards. My dad had an old phenom II x4 with a 290x and he's getting much better scores, whereas in most benchmarks, the 970 tops 290x.
8350 beats some i5s and i7s too, remember.
But if anyone is getting an Nvidia card, I would recommend an intel CPU, which is the very first time that I have ever done that in my lifetime.

i7Baby · Nov 7, 2014

Post your complete and detailed build.

Download HWInfo and run Sensors. Post the results - usually 3 screenshots in TinyPic or similar.

Do a Checkdisk (Google it) and a Virus Scan (eg Avast, Malwarebytes).

C418 · Nov 8, 2014

PC has never had an internet connection. I've always used a different PC to download the files and transfer through an external hard drive. I've never put anything sketchy on it. The only things that I have got from the internet for it was windows updates from Microsoft's website, driver updates from the vendors actual website, (AMD, Nvidia, MSI) I should note, I know a virus when I see one, and something like this, isn't a virus. It's hard to explain, but I've learned from the best.
Here's what I'm going to do. I forgot to mention, my ram isn't all the same type, I have 4 gb of crucial RAM, but I also have another 10 gb of Hynix in my PC, but as I monitor it, it never gets used.
I'm going to see if it has to do with that by removing the Hynix portion tomorrow. It worked fine with the Hynix ram in my friends PC, so I doubt it is that. We will just have to see tomorrow. I'm also going to reset my CMOS, and update my motherboards drivers, as they haven't been updated in a great while, and I'm sure there are chipset updates by now. I'll keep everyone informed!

C418 · Nov 8, 2014

Oh by the way, my friend offered to trade me his 3770s for my FX 8350 and motherboard. He said he would buy a z87 board to go with it, all of this, just in case I can't stop my issue. Extra generous...
But would I notice any CPU performance loss in CPU intensive tasks? And can the i7 3770s boost all of it's cores up to 3.9 ghz? He said that only 1 core gets boosted. Thanks.

Alpha3031 · Nov 8, 2014

1. The 3xxx Ivy Bridge chips are only compatible with Z77, H77, other x7x series (other than X79) motherboards and some x6x motherboards after BIOS update.

2. The Turbo Boost multipliers for the 3770 should default to 39x (1 core), 38x (2), 37x (3) and 37x (4). Install Intel XTU and you should be able to bump it up to 41x one core.

3. The i7 is the better CPU. So no.

C418 · Nov 8, 2014

So if I do that, will the CPU actually be at 3.9 ghz?

genz · Nov 11, 2014

Have a look at enabling MSI (Message Signal Interrupts), it sounds to me as if your having IRQ related stutters. Switching to MSI has been the way around that since EFI based BIOS pretty much universally supported it.

I would post in more detail if you wish but im just leaving for work. Let me know and ill try and fit it in my luchbreak

C418 · Nov 11, 2014

How do I enable that? I looked it up and it said something about the system registry and editing drivers but I'm not too familiar with editing drivers. I do know my way around the registry though.
Update: it seems as if everything in my PC lags. It's very high latency but high FPS.
Even moving my mouse pointer across the screen, I can see some stutter in the pointer here and there.
I noticed Halo 1 has some minor stutter but it's barely noticeable. Halo 2 is still perfect, no problems with it. But everything else stutters worse than Jimmy from South Park. I've tried resetting my BIOS, Taking out the Hynix ram, updating drivers, downdating drivers, re installing drivers, reseating every PC component, defragged all of my hard drives, and still, nothing. The only thing that worked was an intel CPU and different motherboard. The only thing that I haven't done was reinstalled windows. And I really hate to do this because it breaks all of my games and it's taken me a year so far to fix them and I still haven't fixed lost planet 3 and portal 2. I'm about to just buy an xbox one and give up, because I have put over 3,000 dollars in this PC, trying to get good enough parts to give me perfect 60 fps in all games. The 7870/FX 8350 was fine for a while, I hit the sweet spot. But these recent releases brought the fps down hard. And assassins creed unity says I wouldn't have been able to even run it, so I figured that the GTX 970 would have been the perfect card without having to buy a new PSU. Boy was I wrong. I guess That I should have just got a 290x and a better PSU, because now I'm stuck with having to buy an intel CPU and a motherboard for it.
Man I am stupid.

C418 · Nov 11, 2014

Something else that might be important, my hard drives are GARBAGE! They're hand-me-downs I found in old computers. All serial ATA 7200 RPM. But my main hard drive is a Seagate ST3160812As 150 GB which really only got a 5.7 in the experience index. I've read that bad drives can cause stuttering every few seconds which is exactly what is happening, but it never happened with the 7870, and I know it didn't go bad after I upgraded because I put the 7870 back in for a little and it went away. I have 2 other western digital hard drives which I use to store all of my games on since my main drive is only 150 GB.
Here are all of my drives:
Drive #1 - WDC WD3200JS-22PDB0 (298 GB) (First game drive, most of my games)
Drive #2 - WDC WD2500JS-08NCB1 (232 GB) (Second game drive, 10 or 11 games)
Drive #3 - ST3160812AS (149 GB) (My main drive)
Drive #4 - Toshiba Ext HDD (931 GB) (This is an external plugged into my USB port)
I should also note, I am using dual monitors.
One (which is the one I game on) is an HDMI LG TV 1920x1080 refresh rate 60HZ and the second one is a DVI Samsung Syncmaster 941BW 1440x900 refresh rate 75hz.

RandomAdam · Nov 11, 2014

I really doubt it's the cpu/gpu combination, simply because I have a FX8350 with a GTX 970 and it works perfectly, no frame stutter
Do you have AMD turbo core enabled on your CPU? Disabling that might help

AMD and nvidia, bad idea.

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