I recently bought a Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 Gaming Edition 2 GB, I've been experiencing bad FPS. I've been running my pc on a 350 watt PSU. Is my GPU not getting enough power so it won't work well? Also, will I have a bottleneck if I ran that GPU with a Core 2 Quad Q9950 2.83 GHz processor, if yes, will it be a huge difference?
Is my GPU not getting enough power? And will I have any bottlenecks?
- Thread starter Logic669
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NBSN
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- Jun 2, 2014
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125770
The recommend 400 watts for a system using this GPU. The manufacturer page did not show (without a lot of digging I don't have the care to do) exactly the TDP of the GPU...but it is safe to say that you should have at least a 400 watt PSU with correct power connections to run it.
The CPU you have uses up to 95 watts...so once you factor in RAM, hard drives, case and cpu fans, etc etc...you are probably sitting at around 150 watts used...leaving 200 watts for the GPU. While that GPU probably does not need the full 200 watts you have left...the PSU probably does not put out exactly 350 watts.
The PSU efficiency rating may mean it is not pushing that much power though. So you should look into upgrading the PSU for sure.
Regarding a bottleneck, there should be no bottleneck with your setup.
The recommend 400 watts for a system using this GPU. The manufacturer page did not show (without a lot of digging I don't have the care to do) exactly the TDP of the GPU...but it is safe to say that you should have at least a 400 watt PSU with correct power connections to run it.
The CPU you have uses up to 95 watts...so once you factor in RAM, hard drives, case and cpu fans, etc etc...you are probably sitting at around 150 watts used...leaving 200 watts for the GPU. While that GPU probably does not need the full 200 watts you have left...the PSU probably does not put out exactly 350 watts.
The PSU efficiency rating may mean it is not pushing that much power though. So you should look into upgrading the PSU for sure.
Regarding a bottleneck, there should be no bottleneck with your setup.
NBSN
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While the PSU was surely contributing to the issue...and I don't think it could have permanently damaged the components by pushing too little watts to the components...it does make me wonder if it had any issues of surges or bad voltage that could have caused an issue then. For now we will brush that to the side and see what else could have/and could be contributing to it.
This does worry me though:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1875198/low-power-psu-damage-graphics-card.html
In the meantime I would go for trying the GPU in a different build.
And if you have another GPU to try in your build, then do that and see what happens.
After doing both of those if possible, it would worry me about the PSU having damaged the component a bit based on that thread. What is the specific model for your PSU?
This does worry me though:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1875198/low-power-psu-damage-graphics-card.html
In the meantime I would go for trying the GPU in a different build.
And if you have another GPU to try in your build, then do that and see what happens.
After doing both of those if possible, it would worry me about the PSU having damaged the component a bit based on that thread. What is the specific model for your PSU?
rcald2000
Splendid
- Nov 3, 2009
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Let's start from the beginning: What are the full specs of your computer? What game(s) are you playing? What resolution are you playing at? What settings are these games set to? What FPS are you experiencing? Most important: Did you download the graphics drivers or use the disk that it came with? What is the precise version of the drivers that you're using?
Specs :
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Processor : Intel Core 2 Quad Q9950 2.83 GHz
GPU : Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 gaming edition 2 GB
Motherboard : Gigabyte G-41
PSU : MediaTech 500W (ATX-500)
RAM : 6 GB Kingston
Games : Far Cry 4, Watch Dogs, Grand Theft Auto 5, Dying Light, Assassin's Creed Unity, Dragon Age : Inquisition, The Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt
Resolution : 1920x1080, 60 Hz
Settings games set to : I tried lowest setting while playing Watch Dogs, it was so laggy. But when I tried the max settings while playing Far Cry 4 it was much, much, much less laggy, almost no lag at all. When I try maxing GTA V it lags so much too.
Drivers : My drivers are up-to-date and I installed the disk (A fresh copy)
Drivers' version : 353.06
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Processor : Intel Core 2 Quad Q9950 2.83 GHz
GPU : Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 gaming edition 2 GB
Motherboard : Gigabyte G-41
PSU : MediaTech 500W (ATX-500)
RAM : 6 GB Kingston
Games : Far Cry 4, Watch Dogs, Grand Theft Auto 5, Dying Light, Assassin's Creed Unity, Dragon Age : Inquisition, The Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt
Resolution : 1920x1080, 60 Hz
Settings games set to : I tried lowest setting while playing Watch Dogs, it was so laggy. But when I tried the max settings while playing Far Cry 4 it was much, much, much less laggy, almost no lag at all. When I try maxing GTA V it lags so much too.
Drivers : My drivers are up-to-date and I installed the disk (A fresh copy)
Drivers' version : 353.06
rcald2000
Splendid
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Okay, I'm assuming that you're running DirectX 11 (windows button + r -> dxdiag -> system [tab] -> "DirectX Version 11") Shown on bottom of menu.
And I'm assuming that your CPU is an Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 and not an AMD Phenom X4 Q9950. No biggie, although I was shocked to realize that your CPU was under the minimum requirement for several of these games. Since you're not SLI'ing cards and you're only playing at 1080p, I wouldn't think this would be much of an issue.
I'll be honest, I initially wondered if your card was underpowered for games like Witcher 3 and GTAV, but it turns out that my assumption was wrong. You should indeed be able to play on that card. GTX 960 should play Witcher 3 on high/ultra settings, but with Hairworks Off (Witcher 3 menu -> options -> video -> graphics -> NVIDIA HairWorks [move slide all the way to the left]).
In GTAV I suspect that your card's 2 GB of VRAM may be hurting you. The options menu the game allows you to see how much VRAM it'll consume will your current settings. Try turning down both "population density" and "distance scaling" and then play the game again to see if that makes a difference.
The other thing that comes to mind is your 6 GB of system RAM, which is the minimum for many new games as well. I'd be curious to see if having 8 GB would help, but please don't spend money on new memory just based on my theory. Could you reboot your computer to clear programs out of memory and then run a couple of those games with nothing else besides Windows in memory. Don't even have a browser open when launching a game. 6 GB: Do you have tri-channel memory? three 2 GB DIMMS on your motherboard or is it oddly matched (e.g. one 4 GB and one 2 GB DIMM). FYI: Your drivers are good and power supply are good, so at least we no longer have to factor those into troubleshooting your problem.
And I'm assuming that your CPU is an Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 and not an AMD Phenom X4 Q9950. No biggie, although I was shocked to realize that your CPU was under the minimum requirement for several of these games. Since you're not SLI'ing cards and you're only playing at 1080p, I wouldn't think this would be much of an issue.
I'll be honest, I initially wondered if your card was underpowered for games like Witcher 3 and GTAV, but it turns out that my assumption was wrong. You should indeed be able to play on that card. GTX 960 should play Witcher 3 on high/ultra settings, but with Hairworks Off (Witcher 3 menu -> options -> video -> graphics -> NVIDIA HairWorks [move slide all the way to the left]).
In GTAV I suspect that your card's 2 GB of VRAM may be hurting you. The options menu the game allows you to see how much VRAM it'll consume will your current settings. Try turning down both "population density" and "distance scaling" and then play the game again to see if that makes a difference.
The other thing that comes to mind is your 6 GB of system RAM, which is the minimum for many new games as well. I'd be curious to see if having 8 GB would help, but please don't spend money on new memory just based on my theory. Could you reboot your computer to clear programs out of memory and then run a couple of those games with nothing else besides Windows in memory. Don't even have a browser open when launching a game. 6 GB: Do you have tri-channel memory? three 2 GB DIMMS on your motherboard or is it oddly matched (e.g. one 4 GB and one 2 GB DIMM). FYI: Your drivers are good and power supply are good, so at least we no longer have to factor those into troubleshooting your problem.
rcald2000
Splendid
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Update:
I completely forgot to ask you: Which anti aliasing are you using and what are they set to? That could make all the difference in the world, as they can be very taxing on your system. In Witcher 3, I believe you can only turn it off or on, but in GTAV and other games you can tweak it more precisely. Be sure to check it out in a couple of the titles. I apologize for my oversight.
I completely forgot to ask you: Which anti aliasing are you using and what are they set to? That could make all the difference in the world, as they can be very taxing on your system. In Witcher 3, I believe you can only turn it off or on, but in GTAV and other games you can tweak it more precisely. Be sure to check it out in a couple of the titles. I apologize for my oversight.
Well, I use 4x MSAA and I think the problem isn't in changing the graphics settings as I know people who have the same card and can run it on ultra settings. I bought an Intel I5 4440 3.10 GHz 3 days ago and upgraded to 8 GBs of RAM, also bought an H81 motherboard. I think my RAMs were bottlenecking the GPU. But now, it runs smoothly for about 15 seconds then there's a 1-2 second FPS drop. I used HWMonitor and found RAM working on about 75%, CPU on 70%, but the GPU works on 97-99% (Where the game runs good), then the GPU usage drops to 40-60%, thats when the FPS goes really bad for 2 secs. I tried changing the game's priority in the task manager to high but it'd still do the same...
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