670 FTW, NOT WINNING

[raithos]

Hey everyone. I am currently having problems with my setup, and I have Googled and tried just about everything. I know there are stuttering issues with the 600 series drivers, but I cant even seem to hold a steady 60fps (1080p single monitor) unless its a game that's not demanding. The main ones I am talking about is Skyrim and Battlefield 3. I am running a phenom II x4 965 (stock), the gtx 670 ftw, 16 gb ram, asus m5a97 mobo, and 600w ocz PSU (yes I know, but my old 2gb 6950 used more power than the 670 calls for and ran fine). Take bf3 for example, on ultra I can start out around 60fps or so, depending on map, and it ALWAYS drops. I mean it has went down to 30fps and below, not just for a few seconds like the driver issues, but for long periods of time. even on operation metro I see it drop below 40. Skyrim same thing, start out at 60fps or more then drop to 40 or below and bounces around just like in BF3. Temps are fine, I use fan profile and it never gets above 60c. I have tried lowering the settings to medium/high and same thing happens just not as often. gpu clock shows around 1160mhz while in game, gpu usage doesnt stay near 100%, sometimes it is, sometimes its at 50%, with varying performance. Vsync is off, ive tried everything. any ideas? I bought this card specificity to play these two game the way they were meant to be played. It bugs me that this is happening, when I used to get a solid 40fps in both with a 6950, which this card should demolish, and I cant. I tried to give as much info as I can, I am new to this, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[pezonator]

Very interesting. I hope someone has some tips for you and it gets sorted out. I myself just bought the 670 FTW and going to install it tonight, specifically for BF3 as well and I really hope it's trouble free...

Are you using GPU-Z to get that info?

 

[-Fran-]

I have almost the same set up as yours, but I have the 965 at 4Ghz and the GTX670 with it's fan in 40% when it starts heating up (35ºC) all the way to 100% when it reaches 60ºC. I try to keep it below 60ºC so it has more headroom for the Clock Boost nVidia introduced with Kepler.

So, by that, adjust the fan of the video card and make it that they're always keeping the card below 60ºC at every use %, so the boost kicks in. To do this, you have EVA Precision and MSI Afterburner. Don't know if other brands have those sort of utilities. Maybe Asus has one as well.

Also, the beta drivers seems to work better for me than the WHQL ones (official release), so give them a try (or the other way around if you haven't).

Cheers!

 

[esrever]

try an OC on your CPU

 

[smorizio]

also check..change in nvidia control pannel the power and monitor set up for more speed. the default is muilt monitor in nvidia control panel. the other setting is balaced power...letting the gpu declock itself. on my older 550ti i change that to performace mode.

 

[raithos]

Very interesting. I hope someone has some tips for you and it gets sorted out. I myself just bought the 670 FTW and going to install it tonight, specifically for BF3 as well and I really hope it's trouble free...

Are you using GPU-Z to get that info?

No I am using precision x that it came with. Some people have great luck with these, others do not. I hope you get a good one that doesnt bug out like mine is.

 

[raithos]

I have almost the same set up as yours, but I have the 965 at 4Ghz and the GTX670 with it's fan in 40% when it starts heating up (35ºC) all the way to 100% when it reaches 60ºC. I try to keep it below 60ºC so it has more headroom for the Clock Boost nVidia introduced with Kepler.

So, by that, adjust the fan of the video card and make it that they're always keeping the card below 60ºC at every use %, so the boost kicks in. To do this, you have EVA Precision and MSI Afterburner. Don't know if other brands have those sort of utilities. Maybe Asus has one as well.

Also, the beta drivers seems to work better for me than the WHQL ones (official release), so give them a try (or the other way around if you haven't).

Cheers!

Yeah I have my fan profile setup to its fan speed is always 5% higher than the temp, it never gets above 60c this way even under full load. so I know its not from heat issues. Which beta driver is it that works better for you? I will try them, its worth a shot thats for sure. My CPU isnt at 4Ghz tho, it would be helpful, but 3.4 should be more than enough for the 670 from everything I have read. that will be a last resort for me. thanks

 

[geofelt]

On civ4 with a GTX680, I would get a steady 60fps, which is the cap. But then the fps was reduced to 30 when not much was going on. When the whole image needed to be moved quickly, it stuttered.

I found that the default power management mode setting is adaptive. That reduces the power when there is not much demand for performance. For your game, check that, and change it to prefer maximum performance.

It solved my problem.

 

[raithos]

also check..change in nvidia control pannel the power and monitor set up for more speed. the default is muilt monitor in nvidia control panel. the other setting is balaced power...letting the gpu declock itself. on my older 550ti i change that to performace mode.

Yeah I changed that day one, single monitor and max performance power setup. I figured that would have something to do with it, but sadly no change

 

[kyraiki]

I have almost the same set up as yours, but I have the 965 at 4Ghz and the GTX670 with it's fan in 40% when it starts heating up (35ºC) all the way to 100% when it reaches 60ºC. I try to keep it below 60ºC so it has more headroom for the Clock Boost nVidia introduced with Kepler.

So, by that, adjust the fan of the video card and make it that they're always keeping the card below 60ºC at every use %, so the boost kicks in. To do this, you have EVA Precision and MSI Afterburner. Don't know if other brands have those sort of utilities. Maybe Asus has one as well.

Also, the beta drivers seems to work better for me than the WHQL ones (official release), so give them a try (or the other way around if you haven't).

Cheers!

Yeah, same here. The ones that came with the card caused my middle monitor to go blank for a second whenever UAC would prompt for anything... No problem with the newest drivers though (at least for now.)

OP: I would definitely try the beta drivers as I seem to have better performance with those than the ones provided by the vendor. Same for my old 570...

Also, iirc, there was an issue with Adaptive V-Sync on some cards... that may be the cause of your problem if your fps dips from 60 to 30. I don't know if this issue was ever resolved as I never experienced it.

 

[raithos]

Yeah, same here. The ones that came with the card caused my middle monitor to go blank for a second whenever UAC would prompt for anything... No problem with the newest drivers though (at least for now.)

OP: I would definitely try the beta drivers as I seem to have better performance with those than the ones provided by the vendor. Same for my old 570...

Also, iirc, there was an issue with Adaptive V-Sync on some cards... that may be the cause of your problem if your fps dips from 60 to 30. I don't know if this issue was ever resolved as I never experienced it.

Which beta driver are you using? I am going to be looking for them tomorrow for sure because you are the second person to mention this. But no I have vsync off in game and in the nvidia cp.

 

[smorizio]

nvidia just dropped new drivers today... 302.80

 

[17seconds]

nvidia just dropped new drivers today... 302.80

Windows 8 only.

 

[17seconds]

If Skyrim is dropping down to 50% GPU usage, that is a symptom. It should be running at 99% GPU at all times with VSync turned off. I'm thinking your CPU is not keeping up with your fast new GPU.

 

[raithos]

If Skyrim is dropping down to 50% GPU usage, that is a symptom. It should be running at 99% GPU at all times with VSync turned off. I'm thinking your CPU is not keeping up with your fast new GPU.

idk if this helps or not but this is what I get in unigine 3.0 (its free, all I could find for a quick test) the min fps was captured when the camera transitions to a black between sections. everything else seems good to me. idk why a lot of game are having problems. in unigine I get 99% gpu usage, and 92-98% power usage as well, so its not the psu from what I can tell, its only a few months old. and doesnt seem like the cpu is holding it back at all. maybe I need to try to over clock the cpu, but I know others have similar cpu's and dont have any problems at stock. but I may have to just to see anyway

 

[nuprotocol]

Had the same issue.

asus sabertooth x79
i7 3930k
corsair dominator gt
corsair h100
corsair 400r
corsair tx750v2
gtx 670ftw

I uninstalled the normal driver and anything nvidia related. Restarted, cancelled any windows auto installs. downloaded and installed nvidias current beta driver. Restarted and disabled v-sync in nvidia control panel then made sure v-sync was off in BF3, now it runs smooth as butter with no stuttering.

 

[raithos]

Best answer selected by raithos.

 

[bystander]

idk if this helps or not but this is what I get in unigine 3.0 (its free, all I could find for a quick test) the min fps was captured when the camera transitions to a black between sections. everything else seems good to me. idk why a lot of game are having problems. in unigine I get 99% gpu usage, and 92-98% power usage as well, so its not the psu from what I can tell, its only a few months old. and doesnt seem like the cpu is holding it back at all. maybe I need to try to over clock the cpu, but I know others have similar cpu's and dont have any problems at stock. but I may have to just to see anyway

http://i1064.photobucket.com/albums/u362/JEDI-SCUM/gtx670unigine.png

That benchmark is very light on CPU usage. It's designed to test the GPU only, for the most part. That shows your GPU is doing good, which leaves the CPU holding you back in games which are CPU intensive. Skyrim is a known CPU bound game, and multiplayer BF3 is also known to be CPU bound. You may try to OC it, replace the CPU, or just live with a few games having low FPS.

 

[raithos]

That benchmark is very light on CPU usage. It's designed to test the GPU only, for the most part. That shows your GPU is doing good, which leaves the CPU holding you back in games which are CPU intensive. Skyrim is a known CPU bound game, and multiplayer BF3 is also known to be CPU bound. You may try to OC it, replace the CPU, or just live with a few games having low FPS.

Sorry forgot I had this thread going. It ended up being a driver issue. Regardless of what people think, the 965 does not bottleneck the 670 in any way, and is more than enough for Skyrim. Once I uninstalled, re seated and re installed the GPU everything working great, 60 fps on skyrim (everything maxed including 8xAA and the card doesn't even have to boost) and bf3 without breaking a sweat. I had done this a few times already so it was definitely a driver issue because it would stay boosted 100% of the time before, now it works like it should. I did end up OC'ing the 965 to 4.2, but am in the midst of upgrading to a 3570k anyway. found it for 190 at microcenter so I could not pass it up. Just trying to pick a mobo at the moment.

Thanks anyway for the response bro