Frame drops and unstable FPS.

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cityinahill

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Sep 25, 2017
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I'm getting some weird frame drops in games and sometimes generally lower performance than what i expected from my system.
I was wondering if my motherboard was bottle-necking my system since it is a bit older than the other parts.

Specs:
CPU:Intel Core i5-2500K Processor
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (Core:1,316 MHz, Memory:1,753 MHz)
Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P8Z68-V LX
RAM: 2x 4,096 MB Corsair DDR3 @ 1,336 MHz
2x 4,096 MB Team Group Inc. DDR3 @ 1,336 MHz
PSU: RASURBO PSU Silent & Power DLP65.1
OS: Win 10

The graphics card is connected to the PSU via a direct 8-pin connector and a 6-pin connecter which is connected to the PSU with a (2x)4-pin to 6-pin adapter. (is this an issue?)
I've run 3DMarks Firestrike and scored 8749.
There is no thermal throttling from what i can see.
Any Ideas?
 
Solution
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Gsync only does anything if you have a compatible monitor. I would take a look at...
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LORDPrometheus

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Oct 3, 2014
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a motherboard will not throttle a system unless it is partially broken or does not support enough PCIe lanes, an i5 2500k is a bit of an older chip but shouldn't be much of a problem, first things first update any graphics drivers and install any windows updates and report back
 
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cityinahill

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Sep 25, 2017
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I'm using a "Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB" for my OS
and a "ST1500DL003-9VT16L" for most of my games and software.

My issue is that the framerate is rarely stable in my games. Even with lowest settings, games don't run smoothely on 60 fps (Vsync enabled)
There is always some kind of stuttering and framerate going up and down.
Games: ArcheAge, Terraria, Path of Exile or Warframe
 
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LORDPrometheus

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Oct 3, 2014
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hmmm. You said you ran a fire-strike test?what did the output from the test look like? was it smooth or choppy? I'm beginning to think it may be a hardware related issue with either your ram or possibly your CPU or GPU. Though i'm not sure if you are not having thermal issues, the max safe operating temp for both the CPU and GPU are around 85 degrees, try running HWMonitor while playing a game and see if you are getting rapid temperature fluctuations on either card, this would be indicative of an improperly working cooler. while doing this also open up task manager and watch your ram utilization particularly your paged and non-paged pool memory utilization. if they are rapidly climbing then the cause could be a memory leak.

Lastly i would also recommend following this quick guide http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_13955.html
this will let you remove all your graphics drivers and set the card back to factory default so you can reinstall them. improperly installed drivers can also cause this.
 
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cityinahill

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Sep 25, 2017
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I used Nvidia inspector to check on the Temperature during gaming and the Temp never exceeded 72°C.
During Firestrike the Temperature max. was 77°C. The copper heat pipes on the GPU are very hot though.
Here's the Firestrike results(standard settings):

I don't think it's anything out of the ordinary? While it ran it wasn't really smooth due to the varying framerate but I didn't see the usual stuttering I experience during games. So maybe it really is a memory thing...

I will do a stress test and check on the temperatures over a longer period of time, check on the ram usage during that and gaming. Also I will reinstall the drivers following the guide you provided and then report back.
Thank you so much for the help! I really appreciate the effort.
 
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cityinahill

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Sep 25, 2017
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Alright, after the stress test (20 min Firestrike) the max. temp. was still around 74°C, memory did not change much. GPU Load was always at 99% during Benchmarks.
Did not have time to play many games so I didn't check that yet.

I reinstalled the drivers and saw a minor performance improvement (8888 score in Firestrike now)
I've read that G-sync can cause stuttering issues sometimes so I checked Nvidia Control Panel and couldn't find the option for it. While I reset the Driver profile in Nvidia Inspector I saw that G-sync is enabled in there. Could disabling it from Inspector cause problems seeing as there is no "official" option to toggle it?
 
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LORDPrometheus

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Oct 3, 2014
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Gsync only does anything if you have a compatible monitor. I would take a look at changing your ram frequencies as we discussed earlier. Since Firestrike is predetermined it is less hard on your ram so instability will be less pronounced
 
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Solution
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cityinahill

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Sep 25, 2017
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510


Ah okay that is not the case then.
I checked the ram during a few games and there was no sudden rise in memory allocated/paged nor did it ever come close to max.
 
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