Help, poor 460 SLi performance

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
Oldirty

Oldirty

Distinguished
Dec 15, 2009
126
0
18,680
I posted a recent thread, http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/296647-33-help , where after about a day of trouble shooting I found out I got a faulty SLi bridge. I called up MSI and what do you know, I got a bona-fide person who said; "Really? We'll just have to fix that, address please?" In under 5 minutes they sent me a new one. ( MSI Costumer service rocked ) So I am setting here without a bridge atm, waiting for the one in the mail, but still trying to benchmark compare, the comparisons are to this thread, right here on tom's ( the reason I got to 460 fermi's ) http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-sli-geforce-gtx-480,2694.html and so far, they have been bad... about ten frames less then the 480 on avg and around 20 to the SLi set up in that link I am comparing to.

I built my PC to overclock, normally I don't but to match the threads PC I did,
specs are: 955 Deneb, OC to 4ghz
8gigs ddr3 @ 1600 7-7-7-21
in SLi : GIGABYTE GV-N460OC-1GI GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 <( No OC. )>
MoBo MSI NF750-G55 AM3 NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

I am getting 20645 in 3dmark, Thomas Soderstrom's Benchmark Results: 3DMark Vantage, gpu score 24642
(link: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-sli-geforce-gtx-480,2694-3.html )
Dirt 2 I am averaging 77fps in 1920 x 1080 ultra quality 4xaa, Thomas Soderstrom's Benchmark Results: DiRT 2 (DX11) avg 105.4 4xaa
(link: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-sli-geforce-gtx-480,2694-7.html )
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat I received 76.1 in day, 72 in night, rain 76.2, sun shafts 51.4, total avg = 76.1+72+76.2+51.4/4= < 68.92 > 1920 x1080 ultra EFDL (dx11)
Thomas Soderstrom's Benchmark Results: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat (DX11) avg 81.9 Ultra EFDL 1920 x 1080
(link: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-sli-geforce-gtx-480,2694-8.html )

So I was thinking it's my not having an SLi bridge thats causing me do get poor avg's, just be patient.... Then I read this,
quote
"If you are running drivers 182.xx or newer, the bridge is no longer needed.
That said, who doesn't like the look of the bridge anyway? I like the bridge because it keeps the cards uniform and they don't slouch as much in the slots."
on this thread, (link: http://www.evga.com/forumsarchive/printable.asp?m=100770827 )
So since I am running driver version 258.56, I am a little worried lol... I spent $560 on the MoBo and cards and with these results i clearly could have got more bang for my buck...
Bottom line, I am asking if it's the lack of the SLi bridge, or something I am doing wrong?
a little worried here lol.
 
Solution
nforce4max


Welcome to the internet its a place of ware egos clash and people learn but at their own peril.

A 10min google search and a wiki would have answered your question and with little effort but that shouldn't stop you from asking questions that some basic research couldn't answer. Such as hardware issues like corrupted display but frame capture such as fraps produces a proper frame...
Sort by date Sort by votes
decode

decode

Distinguished
Jun 6, 2009
579
0
19,060
Yes the bridge is definitely the problem as PCI-E express slots can only do so much with current generation cards, after a certain point of computational power you just lose performance radically
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Oldirty

Oldirty

Distinguished
Dec 15, 2009
126
0
18,680



Here are my results without the bridge, I did one overclocked:

3dmarkresultsnoSLiOC.png




and one with factory preset, no SLi bridge aswell:

3dmarkresultsnoSLi.png


On a side note, my CPU OC was only @ 3.8ghz during those benchmarks.

And I would go out and buy a bridge but right now, well long story short and no drama, I really can't afford it right now, so I am just going to wait it out for the replacment in the mail. * I called around and the lowest priced bridge in my area $15.99, couldn't believe it, I may look some up on e-bay or amazon, only found one on newegg and it was like $19.99*
I will re-post my benchmarks, ALL my benchmarks when I have a working bridge, not too many Gigabyte gtx 460 SLi benchmark scores floating around on the net, might as well post mine ^^

btw I read the max GPU temp for the GTX 460 was 105c is that correct? if anyone knows and could provide a link, I would love to know for sure.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Oldirty

Oldirty

Distinguished
Dec 15, 2009
126
0
18,680
Sweet so even with a high overclock these cards run cool, good job Gigabyte. I would love to see some other GTX 460 SLi overclocks! And thank you Helltech for that link! :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Oldirty

Oldirty

Distinguished
Dec 15, 2009
126
0
18,680






Here are my results with a bridge,
I am getting 21517 in 3dmark, Thomas Soderstrom's Benchmark Results: 3DMark Vantage, gpu score 24642, and it's only about 1000 more than it was before.
Dirt 2 I am averaging 81.4 fps in 1920 x 1080 ultra quality 4xaa, Thomas Soderstrom's Benchmark Results: DiRT 2 (DX11) avg 105.4 4xaa, thats still a pretty big difference, and only a 4.4 difference without the bridge.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat, 88.7 in day, 87.2 at night, 93 in rain 56.1 with sun shafts, new average 81.25, thats a 12.33 difference, and about the same as the benchmarks I compared to by Thomas Soderstrom's thread.
With the AvP I got, Average Frame Time: 18.4ms Average FPS: 54.4, Thomas Soderstrom's results where 46.3. ( I won that one! SWEET. lol >.> )

Now I also posted poor peformance on SCII, I was averaging around 20 frames on the mission "Smash and Grab!" well, I found the "Sweet spot" that was eating up my frames and got it down to 15fps!!!!!
Here are some pics with the FPS,


SC22010-09-0216-54-26-44.jpg

SC22010-09-0216-48-37-22-1.jpg


Now, lets try disabling SLi...


SC22010-09-0217-36-37-20.jpg

SC22010-09-0217-36-35-28.jpg


and thats just on the spot of the map, everywhere else I am averaging around 40-50, with SLi disabled.


Also my cards are stock 715 clock, thats faster than Thomas Soderstrom's cards where, Sparkle GeForce GTX 460 1 GB (x2 for SLI) 700 MHz GPU, GDDR5, so thats another thing that makes me go, whaaa? why am I doing so much less than those cards in 3dmark Vantage...


So all in all, I am not to happy with the 460 SLi, if I could go back and buy again, I would have got a GTX 480, bought another one when I could afford it and the newer version of drivers were out lol. I been all over the nvidia website and this performance could be do to bad drivers, and also it's do to the fact that some programs just aren't made for SLi, so far the Blizzard games I play, besides the older ones, run consistently better without SLi, so I am not unhappy with the hardware, at this point I am thinking it's just drivers and software, and I bet this small bout of buyers remorse will go away with some time.
Here is just one thread from nvidia http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=179056&st=20 , and if you look around there's quit a few more, again it may just be the drivers, hell it may be my settings, but I overall am not getting what I thought I was going to get. But they are still GREAT CARDS. Don't let my thread and my results hinder your buying or choices to much, it could be user error. They run VERY cool, so over clocking is easy and keeps well under the GPU temp threshold, on my cards at least.
Again most likely it's something I missed in the nvidia control panel, or just some software issue's or maybe the next driver will fix some of the shotty performance in SCII and WoW.


 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Oldirty

Oldirty

Distinguished
Dec 15, 2009
126
0
18,680
On the nvidia forums someone said maybe one of the PCI-E slots is 8x and causing the lower frames, i bought the board from newegg, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130235&cm_re=nf750-g55-_-13-130-235-_-Product , here is just part of the description, the only part containing info on the PCI-E slots,
"" The integrated NVIDIA GeForce 8200 chipset can be augmented with two PCI Express 2.0 x16 graphics cards to achieve SLI-linked performance at a fraction of the price. "" Then when you click on details, it says, PCI Express 2.0 x16: 2.
I went to MSI's site, and it says this,
• 2 PCI Express x16 slots with x16 operation (PCI Express Bus SPEC V2.0 compliant)
• When 2 PCI Express x16 slots are all installed, the PCIE x 16 lanes will auto arrange form x16/ x0 to x8/ x8.
I bought this board on the word of newegg that it was 16x on both in SLi.... wrong >,< Do you think thats a little false advertisement? Idk but I am definitely calling them tomorrow...

*edit for grammar
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Oldirty

Oldirty

Distinguished
Dec 15, 2009
126
0
18,680
I read around after the post, I am only losing like 2% to 4%, but at this time thats the only thing I can think of. If you have any ideas please reply, I still would like to know why the gpu scores are down from tom's bench's.
Right now I am trying to figure out why I can't up my voltages in MSI Afterburner so I can get theese stable at 900 mhz, theese cards run VERY cool OC ^^
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
notty22

notty22

Distinguished
Oct 8, 2009
2,958
0
21,160
You might try overclocking your gpu's , your can go right up to 825 core without touching voltage. That should give you a nice bump in performance.
Besides that:

Your not going to like the answer.
TH rig was a overclocked Intel X48 rig, VS your Nvidia chipset, which is probably just not as optimal right now.
Do you have the newest bios and motherboard drivers from the motherboard vendors web site ?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Oldirty

Oldirty

Distinguished
Dec 15, 2009
126
0
18,680
All the drivers are up to date and current, and it could be that < my mobo is a budget mobo >, but why would the gpu scores be higher, can the chipset help out that much and hinder gpu performance? I am always learning here ^^

And my highest OC right now is 850mhz stable, but thanks to some links by OvrClkr on some other posts of mine here at Tom's, I am now updating my v-cards bios to up the 1.087 volt lock to like 1.2... i am never going that high on the volts as I am air cooled, but will be going to try and mimic 920 MHz @1,150v, on my card with stock air cooled they should only reach about 78c max, plus I have a Coolermaster HAF case witch should help keeping these all ready cool cards cooler. At this point I am trying to reach the threads gpu score, at 850mhz the gpu still only scored 23465 in vantage, thats 150 mhz faster than Tom's Sparkles, and still not as high, you think it's the chipset?


*edited for clarification
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
notty22

notty22

Distinguished
Oct 8, 2009
2,958
0
21,160
I would not flash your bios either.
Artifacting is usually your memory clock. The most I can set mine is 1050 or 2100 on the Afterburner slider, stock is 900.
Do you have cool n quiet enabled or disabled in your bios ?
This has happened to a few users, when enabled, the system does not wake from saving energy and does not deliver full performance. You could try disabling that in bios and see if your performed picks up.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Oldirty

Oldirty

Distinguished
Dec 15, 2009
126
0
18,680
It is enabled, I will definitely turn that off, I am at this moment installing 2 new HDD's in raid 0 so I may be a day or two before I get back to tweaking on the GPU's
thank you very much for the tip notty22
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Oldirty

Oldirty

Distinguished
Dec 15, 2009
126
0
18,680
Well I am on the raid setup now, so after tonight I will have my benchmark tools re-installed and will do some more tests with the raid, that will NOT improve gpu scores, but this we will now know for sure, latest drivers, clean install. I am also going to make sure cool n quiet is disabled in the bios when i re-run.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom