Sudden performance drop with GeForce GTX 970

Gruffaluf

Honorable
Jun 10, 2013
2
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10,510
I purchased a GeForce GTX 970 about 4 months ago (EVGA), and have been incredibly happy with the performance. This card has been an absolute dream, really. I have a (somewhat) old CPU and MOBO and plan on upgrading both soon, but really haven't felt pressed to since my graphics performance has been so solid with the 970.

Earlier today, though, I tried running Wolfenstein: The New Order, and immediately experienced some horrifically choppy gameplay -- with frames all over the place, dropping to 20, spiking to 40 to 60 then dropping again. I have had minor stutters in the past, but they seldom occur and I typically run Wolfenstein with the settings maxed at an almost-constant 60 FPS. I tried restarting the game, rebooting, a clean install of driver software with DDU and still had no luck. Finally tinkered with settings and changed Physx to CPU (have had problems with Physx with previous GPUs), and that helped it significantly, making the drops more infrequent, but I'm still encountering random drops (as low as 42 or so, then spikes back up to 60, only to randomly drop again moments later).

I also tried running Mad Max as well as this is a game I've been playing a lot lately. Like Wolfenstein, I generally run that game with everything maxed out and have no problems whatsoever -- getting a constant 60 FPS. Also suddenly having frame drops/stutters in that game too. To a lesser degree and more infrequent than Wolfenstein, but still readily noticeable.

On the bright side, I am still able to run Final Fantasy XIV with everything maxed out (using DX11), and even with all the aforementioned issues my card is not running any hotter than normal. Also, I have not applied any system updates recently to my knowledge.

Any ideas on how to fix this? I have loved this card and had no problems previously so this is super frustrating.

My Specs:
CPU: i5 3570 @ 3.40GHz
MOBO: AS-Rock Z77 Extreme 4
RAM: 16 GB DDR3 RAM @ 1633MHz
PSU: SeaGate S12G 650W (ATX 12V)
 

KLawinger

Reputable
Jan 7, 2016
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4,960
Im assuming that this is #970Ramgate rearing its ugly head again.

what i think is happening is that once you begin to use more than the 3.5gb a vram on the card it resorts to the slower partition of vram which results in a heavy frame drop
 

Gruffaluf

Honorable
Jun 10, 2013
2
0
10,510


:( Bummer. I'm not horribly tech-savvy, so is this a pretty common issue? Just confused as to why it would suddenly be doing this when I've had no issues previously and have not made any changes.
 

Minecarrot

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2015
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18,690
It is possible that your CPU could be bottle-necking your GPU, this means that your CPU isn't powerful enough to keep up with your GPU as the CPU is what sends frames to your GPU to render, as all of these frames start to stack up your CPU usage goes up and ends up lagging your PC; this can be fixed by simply getting a better CPU. I have had the same problem with the same card with it suddenly under-performing even after using it for a while. Unfortunately I haven't gotten much further than this so far and i'm not 100% that this is the problem however if I get any further I will make sure to tell you.
 

Swinginking

Reputable
Apr 17, 2015
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4,710


Don't give misguided information man.
That CPU will NOT bottleneck your GPU, some people are running the 980 with it, no issues.

You have stated that you have not applied any updates, but the games might have (especially with steam).
Try doing a full system update and also update your GPU drivers
 

Minecarrot

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2015
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Then what is the problem? Anything you've told me to do so far hasn't fixed it? And a lot of evidence is pointing towards this being the problem.