Bottlenecking: I know i Shouldn't have lol

[Gekko Shadow]

Hey guys - not sure if this goes here or in CPU - cuz i'm more than certain it's an issue with bottlenecking my cpu with my gpu, but if so feel free to move the topic mr.moderator x) (or ms.? O-o)

Anywho - so i go to my local Fry's Store and was all dandy and happy for i was about to purchase a 1TB Green hard drive for $69. (for backups use xD) and then when i go look at the graphics card i see the EVGA GTX 460 for $200. I was like OMG! (this is the 1GB SC version - the one in my siggy lol). I purchased the prvious version for about $260 xP. SO i've been wanting to go SLi again ever since i got rid of my old skewl Sli cards. Sooo i bought this card in a spontaneous attempt to just have more gpu power xD.

NOW the issue here - is that maybe i made a mistake in buying the second card xD. I'm setting up two GTX 460's in SLi in my old 775 system (Check my siggy has all my specs xD) along with a Q8300. I feel that i am seriously bottle-necking my system here. I never actually planned on doing GTX 460 Sli in this rig (originally i just wanted two GTS 250's or maybe GTX 2xx cards).

So now i'm not sure if i should try to see if i can change my settings to decrease the bottleneck or if it will be in vain as my CPU is already iffy (same the ram). The farthest i've been able to puch my cpu was 3.4Ghz (on air) but wasn't stable enough. The FSB was pushed to 1600mhz.

I guess i'm asking for ideas or advice on a way to work with this. I might just return the card and get my money back lol xD
Or i could always keep it for my next build. Tho i kinda wanted the 480's. or the 580 >:3

ANYWHO, any help would be greatly appreciated mates! and sorry for the long post xP :lol:

 

[Andon48]

I'm sure you are being bottlenecked by the cpu, but it might not be as bad as you think. There is a well known issue with Nvidia drivers and the GTX 460 causing low gpu usage. My i3 @ 4ghz should be plenty to max out 1 460, but in some games I've seen my gpu usage @ 20-30%, and the game runs like I've got my old 9600gt back in it. Some games I maxed out on my 5750 are almost unplayable, and others are fine. Could be your cpu but it's something to keep in mind.

 

[Gekko Shadow]

I'm sure you are being bottlenecked by the cpu, but it might not be as bad as you think. There is a well known issue with Nvidia drivers and the GTX 460 causing low gpu usage. My i3 @ 4ghz should be plenty to max out 1 460, but in some games I've seen my gpu usage @ 20-30%, and the game runs like I've got my old 9600gt back in it. Some games I maxed out on my 5750 are almost unplayable, and others are fine. Could be your cpu but it's something to keep in mind.

lol I know it's the cpu xD it's not hard to figure that one out. I recently updated the drivers for it - and usage doesn't really go over 75% when i'm running metro 2033 on full high settings (1920 x 1980). But when i ran the #DMArk benchamark - the score came out to 18,800. Course i only ran two tests - but that kinda seemed a bit low to me for the cards they are. Maybe i'm wrong? lol

any bottle neck you currently have would be minor with your CPU OC to 3ghz. keep the card.

Do you think if i tried pushing farther it would help decrease the bottleneck? Or maybe just upgrading the cpu? :lol:

 

[Andon48]

Pushing it farther would help, but if you want to upgrade don't buy another 775 cpu, you will have to spend way too much to get a noticeable increase, and by then you might as well upgrade to a new platform. BTW there aren't any drivers out yet that fix the low usage issue. Which 3d mark are you using? 3DMark 06 my card scores much lower than it should, but in Vantage it is right where it should be.

 

[Gekko Shadow]

@ ct1615 Lol - yeah that's actually my issue right now. I'm already starting on my new build: i7 980x + EVGA Classified 3 w + DDR3 (still looking for ram) + 3-Way GTX 4xx.
Of course it's not done yet - i like to do long research before i make up my mind xD but i'm getting these parts for sure. I'm just finishing up on my HAF case which i'm currently still painting x). Bu anywho - yeah i keep messing with my 775 rig when i'm already working on a new one. I told myself i'd stop but i can't help it! T-T

@ Andon48 lol yeah i figured. a 2.8 C2Q will cost me about $200. That's like a fermi right there lol. Oh snap - i actually can't remember. I think - i THINK - it's Vantage lol. I always forget silly me :lol:

 

[Andon48]

In Vantage 18,800 is low for 2 460s, I'm in the 17,000s with 1. That's strange, download afterburner and see what the gpu usage is on both cards when you run 3DMark.

 

[Gekko Shadow]

It might be 06, like i said im not sure, but i will definitely check that when i get home. If It's not vantage i'll get it - and if it is i'll check the usage. I already have the afterburner. Speaking of afterburner, can you unlink your core & shader clocks on your 460? For some reason it won't let me. I can OC independtly with the nForce drivers - but otherwise i'm stuck with them being linked.

 

[Andon48]

Nope, the Core and Shader are locked at a 1:2 ratio on Fermi cards.

 

[Gekko Shadow]

Ahh lame >=P i suppose ill have to stick with the nForce then. That seems to be the only thing letting me clock them separately :lol:

What 460 version do you have?

 

[Andon48]

it's in my sig, but if you can't see it it's the Asus DirectCU GTX 460 768mb TOP and so far it sucks. It has the potential to be an awesome card, but until they get the low usage thing figured out, I wish I'd stuck with my 5750/9600gt setup.

 

[bystander]

What monitor resolution and at what refresh rate do you use? Your Hz might be your biggest bottleneck. If you are already getting over 60 FPS with most monitors, you are not gaining any visual benefit by increasing your FPS.

 

[Gekko Shadow]

Well i'm actually running prime95 right now - I OC'd my cpu to 3.3Ghz and seems to be stable so far, but.......*FROZE* :lol: *gets phone* Ok as i was saying xD (no it's still running x3) i'm hoping this might help at all =P

@ bystander res: 1920 x 1080 @ 60Hz. And on avg i get about 38 FPS. But it just seems a bit low. Might just be the res tho.

@ andon so then i'm assuming i have the same issue? lol. When i ran a benchmark in the afterburner it showed the gpu at 93% usage :O

 

[Andon48]

See what you get in Vantage. I ran it last night at the default performance settings with my 460 @ 900/1800/2000 and I got 18040. I think the GPU score was in the 14000s. From just looking around the net, your GPU score (not CPU) should be over 20000. If it's more like 12-13000 then I don't think your SLI is working.

 

[Gekko Shadow]

I didn't run Vantage (and i checked - i have vantage xD) i had prime95 running the whole time. But i think i might be running out of psu juice. I could load my rig to windows or linux only after i disconnected my dvd-burner, all my storage hard drives (leaving only the OS drive), and all my usb devices were disconnected as well. But as soon as my graphics went from a low load to like 50%+ load it would just freeze. As long as i didn't do anything gpu related - it won't crash (unless prime95 failed lol).

*sigh* I might have to get that 850w naw =P or i could use my old modded psu xD. Anywho - i'll run vantage after i get it to a stable clock. I want to see if i can reach 3.5ghz. At 3.3ghz temps wouldn't go over 60C with prime95. So i might be able to :lol:

And i'm afraid my SLi might be glitchy. I noticed it auto-disabled itself one time.

 

[Andon48]

The new 260.99 beta drivers boosted my performance quite a bit. Might want to give it a try.

 

[Gekko Shadow]

^ lol that's the one i have already xD i installed it yesterday night i believe.

What i'm gonna do is take out one card and run vantage then run it again with both. And i'll compare the scores.

 

[Gekko Shadow]

All right so i spent this whole weekend tweaking and testing and OC'ing :lol:

I managed to push my cpu to 3.3ghz. was stable-ish. And the reason i'm saying this is because i realized that at this clock my psu is running out of juice. It'll run fine up until my cards push over 60% load. Then it just goes "pffft".

And with that set and SLi running - they just wouldn't hold. It kept crashing. So i did something nifty to test a theory of mine. I bought a 24-pin extender, cut the green (power on + com) and black cabled - soldered those together and attached a modded 650watt i had lying around. Then i plugged that into my graphics (left everything else on my 750watt) and tried running vantage like that. And viola my cards held maybe a 60% usage streak and got a score slightly over 20k. But it would freeze on my if i tried OC'ing the cards.

So i then clocked the cpu to 3.1ghz. Runs much more stable here :lol: At 3.1ghz i hit 19k. Still off, but if i OC'd the cards just a tad bit it would hit 19,875. Almost back at the 20k mark. Only problem was i couldn't OC' anything much farther. My psu is barely pushing enough juice so i just bought another psu on newegg. I only got an 850watt. Even with the 650 plugged in - since it's secondary i don't think the voltage was being regulated properly so it couldn't push em that far.

I will probably keep the clock @ 3.1ghz. But i should be able to OC the cards to the speeds of a 470 and have them run at least at 95% load. I could always power my fans and lights off a modded 90watt psu xDD. Hopefully the 850 does the trick xD as long as i can hit the 21K mark (or 22K mar >:3) then i'll be happy. The average mark is 24K for the 460's in SLi. Course they would be stock clocks - but eh. I'm still going to have a bottleneck no matter what i do xP. *sigh* :lol:

Sorry for the long post - just thought i'd share my fun weekend :lol: