Visual Stuttering on high end machine

How are the temps while it is running? Also, have you updated all the drivers for all the components? Such as graphics card, updating motherboard BIOS, and etc.?

Sounds to me like your having hard drive cache lag.

Are you running a SSD?

Temps the CPU doesnt get above 65, and RARELy gets above 60, the the top card gets to about 60, and the second card gets to about 75(Dont think thats the issue because they never get this hot unless its a benchmark), The Bios has been updated and even completely reset before with no help, and all the drivers are up to date did a rollback once. I have tried Partitioning he HDD and doing a fresh install of windows, but that did not help any at all. I do not have a SSD, i think its Motherboard Bios related or Motherboard related, i was having the problem before i got my new CPU, and Both graphics cards have the problem alone, or in SLI, so im pretty sure they both cant be broken or damaged. I switched out my 8gb of ram for 4Gb of a different brand to test that, still no luck. So i know it isnt the Ram, or The GPUS, or the CPUS. If its possible it could be the Hard drive. But im thinking its a motherboard issue, about a month ago my integrated sound card randomly died so i don't trust the motherboard, however i have had a few friends tell me that it isn't my motherboard. They cant quite tell me what it is. It could be anything but after a fresh install it has to be hardware related and since im sure my hardware is good, since i have tested both cards alone and together, and the CPU was switched after it started happening, and i tried a different set of ram that makes me think its the motherboard but i am not good with troubleshooting.

I just upgraded to see if the new drivers would work, and even if the CPU is holding me back slightly that doesn't explain the random stutters, FPS isnt the issue here its the random FPS drops and visual stuttering im seeing in screen in any game i could go 60Fps 60 Fps to 12 for a second then back up. i was just in DA  and i was at like 130 fps but it randomly drops to 20-30 for a split second, Its not the overall fps im worried about, its the stuttering that its doing. It seems to not happen after a while of playing, anyways Like i said i dont think my CPU is holding it back it used to be overclocked but i undid it to see if that was the problem, it wasnt. The drivers are good i updated just yesterday, unless you are saying the 29xx Series is better than the 300s. Im thinking its the motherboard? Is that even possible?

From what I can tell, the only things that possibly could be affecting that would be some hardware interrupt, the unigine software, or background processes (like anti-virus, or whatever is open that is uneeded)

force Vsync on and see what happends.

I have tried a fresh install of windows so it cant be Unigine, i only ran Unigine because Skyrim, Batman, And Metro where having some huge lag spikes, from running good to just dropping, back to running good. I have fried all the little Vsync tricks and all that, i have been having this problem for months i have tried just about everything. Could the Motherboard cause a hardware interrupt like that? Like i said im pretty sure those are about the unigine scores i should get but i dont like the Split second drops that kill my game play like in SKyrim, Metro and batman just have poor FPS, but My Unigine shows im fine, My 3d mark scores are weird but im getting a 9000 in the Graphic section. Gotta be something hardware going on here. Or not i am still learning, this is what i want to do for a living so i need to learn whats happening here in case i ever see it again.

So overclock it?

Hyper N 520 Cooler Master, Thing could cool a volcano

An overclock didn't seem to help much, though i did see some very weird Artifact type look on a building in skyrim after the overclock, but after i turned away from the building it stopped. I really Doubt its the CPU, looks also like when in SLI games like skyrim dont eat over 60% and the % drops when i see the visual lag spikes.

It could be how the unigine renders. It may not necessarily be your hardware.

No it happens in Batman AC, Skyrim, and even metro 2033, Im still wondering what the main Hardware culprit could be. Ive done everything Bios and Software wise i know how to do.

I think I know what's the problem. As your friend said. It's could be a memory problem. In this case your gtx560ti with 1gb vram. You have the processing power, but your vram is holding back. Good example would be bf3, where 2gb 560gtx ti runs better than 1gb version. I am not 100% sure but the lack of memory causes lots of memory accesses between vram and ram. When gpu needs new textures, it have to acces main memory to get the new data, which could be new models or textures.

I have 560 gtx ti too and the only reason I have no sli is because I discovered than the vram is not enough. Another thing that comes to my mind is the sli and low memory combination or the mobo sli combination. My friend has the stuttering also and can't run bf3 in settings it could do, if it had more vram. Solution was to lower the settings.

I don't have stutterin and I'm running wit nvision 3d technology.
You could try to lower the texture sizes and see if it hat is the problem.

The FX series sucks and has tons of issues... why you went from the 965 to the 4100 is beyond me. You took a step back...

I'd chuck the CPU and get another Phenom II

The CPU is fine dude, and my 560s are 2gb each. Its hard to believe this problem is unsolvable. Is it even possible that the motherboard caused this issue? I paid 500$ to get both these cards so that i wouldn't have to turn down the settings. Common guys please have an answer for me its all riding on you. Seems skyrim acts better at night, but it did that before i got my new CPU i figured the shadows where a cpu thing. 100% CPU is not the problem here i promise.

Looks like GPU usage lowers when i have the spikes, that mean anything at all?

Temps are fine, Getting a new case soon this one is cramped with no air flow. A lot of times it helps to turn Direct X 11 and Physx off, again i have no idea why.

Its in one of the pictures the newest one, but this issue has been going on for close to a year and there is nothing more i can do you know. I have rolled back and forward and even tried Using driversweeper with a complete reinstall. Looks like when i switched my Graphics cards place, Reversed the order, i got a better FPS

Yes, CPU... Lower GPU usage is indicative of a CPU bottleneck esp. for 2-way SLI/CF since drivers are optimized.

As far as Skyrim? It's heavily CPU dependent... and using an FX chip = stutter. And I'm not trying to be a dick.

You can use Aida64 or HWinfo64 and configure either of them to use Rivatuner OSD (MSI AB) to display CPU usage, clocks and temps. A good thing to use to check for bottleneck... 100% CPU usage and say, 60% scaling = bottleneck.

^^+1
the fx 4100 even when clocked to 4.4ghz will bottlenceck even a single enthusiast card let alone a sli setup.
I should know i had one then went back to PII...... shoudl have kept that 965 in and overclocked it...

Another vote for CPU. I'm seeing a similar issue of visual stutter (in particular, shadows "march" rather than flow, in Unigine) on a machine with an i5/650; a hyperthreaded dual-core.

But what about the fact that this was happening back when i had a 965?

Looks like guild wars 2 has a horrible framerate, this even bottlenecked should run fine.

did you recently upgrade to the nvidia card form ati? this may be a driver conflict easily resolved with driver sweeper.

Im sorry but if it isnt the CPU what else could it be, i stand firm that it isnt the CPU so please humor me

Check for background processes, in particular anything that might be regularly polling, like monitors of any kind, or [disconnected] [network] devices.

Im still waiting for an answer to the question I asked in order to help you earlier
Did you upgrade from an ati card? It could very well be a driver issue. It is always best to list entire system specs and also recent changes in your system helps get around alot of blind assumptions and unhelpful advice. Please list your system specs

Im sorry Flint! I never had an ATI card, new Development, looks like when i take the other card out completely instead of using "Single gpu" mode it doesn't stutter like that. My system specs are listen above as you can see. But yeah seems when im only using one card the issue us gone, but when using the first card i bough there are some issues, maybe its a Bad motherboard, bad SLI bridge, or bad Secondary card?

Some issues are known with Sli or Crossfire setups such as microstuttering.

^ Yes I have read about sli microstuttering.

http://www.overclockers.com/micro-stutter-the-dark-secr...

Have you tried using a single card?

what mobo are you using? also have you tried rolling back drivers? also what power supply are you working with?

I would like to know what power supply you are using if you wouldnt mind.

please list your full system specs so our attempts to help arent just shots in the dark please

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... this is my PSU. Looks like when its only one card with the other one removed completely the stuttering stops. PSU? Sli bridge? Mobo? Second card?

please excuse me,
FULL SYSTEM SPECS
i only know that you have 2 560ti's, a 4100 and a psu.
i am sorry but my patience is beginning to wear when ive asked this question 3 or 4 times now.

as I asked full system specs please

Don't know if you read my post, but sli and crossfire are prone to microstuttering. Don't know what the real cause of it would be.

it has 54 amps on the 12v rail... that should be enough for everything unless he is overclocking the piss out of the cards and cpu.

http://i.imgur.com/8qLMf.png Ive had these at the top of the page for a long time now, it shows my full specs, i guess you cant see them for some reason. BUt i came prepared! Yeah they care prone to stuttering i do know that, it looks like most the lag comes from the usage dropping from 100% on one of the cards, i think one is failing me. It seems that if its even in the PCI socket the problem is there, but its gone once the second card is. Mal i have some benchmarks to show you http://img.inpai.com.cn/article/2011/11/11/9d50954d-b18... now the Fx-4100 isnt that bad and its got some real overclocking value! My 965 was in a box because i was one of the rare people testing the fx series when it came out, but my friends CPU died so i gave him my Phenom. I am not overclocking the Cards yet, i have a cramped mid sized case, when i get my Thor case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... i will be doing some nice overclocking on my cards, the CPU is not overclocked as of now but again when i get the better air flow case i will take it up to 4.5Ghz at least

That isnt a list of system specs thats a bunch of pretty pictures nobody will want to sift through to get the info when yo u can list them plain as day
My suggestion is overclock the phenom to 4.0 g
And lose the fx

UPDATE I KNOW THE PROBLEM but the solution i dont know, When in single GPU mode my GPU usage drops heavily randomly, Well i opened up task manager and found out that the CPU and Memory usage wasn't going over 50% EACH i have no idea what could cause this but im not using 100% of pretty much anything, CPU usage actually dropped to 7% once

I dont understand, whats the solution lol what could cause 50% usage of ram and CPU, and extreme GPU usage drops

Fx

That's what me thinks...

Im not getting through to you here. It was happening with a 965 BE before, i thought the CPU was the problem, so i got a new one.

Ok so im going to buy me a new CPU, one other thing. If i said it had slowly gotten worse over time.. would you say a failing power supply?

I don't have money to throw out the window, im in college and broke. That is why i am so upset about this as i don't have enough money to throw at it to fix the problem.
Like i said if it slowly got worse would you say it was a PSU issue? I have no problem buying something. I need to know for a fact first before i buy, as it is now i can test but i need to know what to test so i can ask who i need to to borrow stuff.

Test each card individually and in different PCIe sockets... something like Kombustor or Furmark.

How about try it all out both cards if everything is nominal with both cards individually but not both possibly could be a psu issue and the fx isnt helping being more power hungry than the 965