Frame rates dip, could it be the motherboard?

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dansilveira2

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Sep 27, 2017
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I recently replaced my motherboard and since then it feels like the games don't play as smoothly as they once did. Before I switched out the mother board I could play Resident Evil 7 and Deus Ex no problem on my big screen tv. The games still play fine, it's just now there's these noticeable stutters here an there. I play on Steam and I use the frame rate counter and it does show the dips.

Here are the specs:

Windows 7
Motherboard: MSI 990FXA Gaming
GPU: Geforce nvidia 1070
Processor: AMD FX-8370 Eight-Core Processor
Memory: 16384MB RAM

If i missed anything let me know. I took my computer to a shop to get fixed (Hard drive was broken). The old motherboard was a MSI too, it was 10 years old so I thought I would get it replaced while my computer was getting fixed. I used a website that lets you pick parts and lets you know if they're compatible, it said the new motherboard was compatible so I picked it up. I remember when I picked my computer up from the shop the guy who fixed it said "Well this was an interesting rig to work on". The way he said "Interesting" didn't seem like good thing.

If anyone has any ideas or opinions please let me know.
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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1) open DEVICE MANAGER to see if there are any indications of errors or MISSING drivers

2) verify your memory is setup in DUAL CHANNEL (if memory slots are not fully occupied)

3) run MEMTEST86 for a full pass or until errors www.memtest86.com

4) Use Prime95 and Task Manager (CPU Performance-> show all eight threads) to verify that you can process about 100% usage at the expected FREQUENCY under load (depending on overclock)... 4GHz?

5) run UNIGINE HEAVEN using an OSD (i.e. EVGA Precision, MSI Afterburner.. )...
- setup the OSD so it shows BOTH of these:
a) GPU usage, and
b) GPU frequency

You should expect the GPU frequency to be 1800MHz+ while also being about 95% GPU usage (except between scene transistions)... it's a GPU-intensive benchmark so unlikely to have a CPU bottleneck.. the point is to see if the GPU can be fully utilized.

That's a good START to evaluate the computer.

I would expect any STUTTERS to be most likely related to the DDR3 memory and/or the CPU somehow; possibly as a direct result of the motherboard. I don't think it could be GPU related.
 
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dansilveira2

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Sep 27, 2017
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I've downloaded and installed the programs on your list, I have to go to work now but when I return I'll preform the tests. Just curious though if you or anyone has a preference or suggestions to the setup I have now. I did some research and apparently the CPU I have now isn't great for gaming. When I first got it I thought it was okay, I checked it out on System Requirements Lab and it seemed like it would preform well but now I'm reading things to the contrary.
 
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dansilveira2

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Sep 27, 2017
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So I took my rig to some friends to look at, I showed them the issues I've been having with my games and they said it's just common frame rate stutters, in particular they said XCOM 2 was a bad port to PC. So I let it go but then I played XCOM 2 on a different computer and it ran smooth as silk so I came back and tried the list of things recommended.

1. All the drivers are up to date, but when I tried installing drivers for my CPU using a the AMD client that automatically downloads the required drivers it gave me this message:

Error 175- AMD Installer cannot continue due to unsupported AMD Graphics Hardware.

Could my graphics card not be compatible? I could have sword I've seen builds using the same motherboard and GPU.

2. All the ram slots are occupied.

3. I ran one full pass of the Memetest and it said there where no errors.

4. the instructions said it would take 6 to 24 hours to run but after 2 hours I got a message that each core passed.

5. Using Ugingine and Precision on extreme settings it clocks in at 1942 MHz/4007 MHz but the chart for GPU usage % never goes above 70% don't think it's hit 100 at all. It does dip allot and mostly stays between 40 and 55% and just dips hard to like 20 and 30, doesn't really stay consistent.


 
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Satan-IR

Satan-IR

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Some EVGA cards have had heating issues sporadically since few series back. They said in the Pascal series mainly FTW cards were affected but apparently SC cards were as well. They provided a "fix" which involved adding thermal pads to VRMs by the user.

After a the issue was discovered I think they sold the cards with the pads in place.

If your cards was made/purchased prior to the change in production process and if you have not added thermal pads yourself, chances are your card's VRM section gets too hot and this adds to ambient heat in gpu area and gpu core temps go higher than they should and maybe the card throttles under load. Maybe.
 
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dansilveira2

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Sep 27, 2017
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Running Unigine on extreme settings and it's keeping between 65 and 75 degrees. Then I played Xcom 2 and it kept at the same temp, the frame rates were still pretty inconsistent. Besides heating issues where there any other problems with the earlier models of the EVGA cards?

Just want to reiterate that the frame rate issue isn't really horrific, it's just like noticeable skips here and there. The games function just fine, it's just that with the rig I have I feel like it should be running smoother than it's running now. Over the weekend I'm probably going to switch back to the old mother board to see if it fixes the problem. B
 
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Satan-IR

Satan-IR

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I would say those temps are good under load and there's nothing to worry about.

No it was basically heating issues as all heat pipes didn't touch GPU or spacing between VRM components and memory chips and so on.

Some frame rate fluctuation is OK (as long as it's nothing drastic as you said too) as the load changes during game play due to number of objects rendered and lighting and post processing etc. If you load monitoring software before playing even GPU-Z you can see that GPU load and even core and memory frequencies fluctuate and are not at constant values.

Some of it is due to less than perfect optimization of the game engine or the port by the game maker for certain cards. Sometimes even driver upgrades actually degrade the performance of cards in certain titles.

If it's not that bad as you said I'd say don't concern yourself with it too much.
 
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dansilveira2

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Sep 27, 2017
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I mean the games play perfectly on other computers that have more or less the same specs as my computer. I know occasional frame rate dips are common (like while the game is loading.) but what I'm experiencing is kind of almost frequent.While it doesn't affect the game play much it does affect my enjoyment of the games knowing they could be running smoother than they are right now. If I ever find the cause or this gets resolved I'll definitely give an update.
 
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