Is my PSU holding back my GTX 690?

[mancsoulja]

I recently bought a EVGA GTX 690, but so far i've been less than impressed with it's performance. although on some games like Crysis 2 and BF3 i get a nice constant 100+ fps on max settings, on others i struggle to maintain a constant framerate. and it can vary from 60 - 120 and leads to alot of stuutering and jerky gameplay.

The card requires 2 x 8Pin PCI-E power cables, and my PSU, the OCZ 700w ModXStream Pro only had, 1 x 6+2 & 1 x 6 power connectors so i had to use a 6 to 8Pin adaptor to power the card. Now i know an 8pin cable can pull more power from the PSU, than a 6pin, so is this my problem? Do i need to upgrade my PSU to unleash the power of this card or couls something else be causing this problem?

Thanks

 

[maestro0428]

What are the rest of your system specs? You are getting really close to that wattage usage (according to power supply calculator using a fairly basic system + your card) and may be passing it if you are overclocking. I prefer Seasonic power supplies and think a 850w unit should be sufficient.

 

[mancsoulja]

My system specs are:

I7 2600K (Overclocked to 4.6GHZ)
8GB Ram (1600mhz)
GTX 690
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w

Windows boots of 32GB SSD and i have 2 additional 4TB HDD's connected.

 

[maestro0428]

I am guessing you are hitting a wattage wall from your psu then. You could buy a new power supply like I suggested previously or you could add a vga power supply separately.
They can be somewhat difficult to find, but FSP and Thermaltake have made them in the past and you can probably find some on eBay. Although its more expensive, I suggest the previous and here is one from Seasonic http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151102&name=Power-Supplies

 

[Kamen_BG]

Well to be honest your power supply probably can't deliver enough power to your graphics card but you don't seem to be facing any power related problems.It's fairly normal to see a FPS drop when you're looking at explosions or your FPS can rise dramaticly when you're looking at a wall.

 

[mancsoulja]

So would the symptoms of a lack of power be a erratic framerate like im getting? i have no problem buying a new PSU if that is the case.

 

[mancsoulja]

Well to be honest your power supply probably can't deliver enough power to your graphics card but you don't seem to be facing any power related problems.It's fairly normal to see a FPS drop when you're looking at explosions or your FPS can rise dramaticly when you're looking at a wall.

I've had some freezes and crashes. But no more than i did with my old system. I cant O/C my graphics card though. Doing that just a little bit will lead to a full system crash an i'll have to pull the plug.

I understand what your saying, but what i mean is, before i was trying to play borderlands, and i was using the on screen FPS monitor that comes with the EVGA Precision X software. now just stood in the open with no enemies or anything about, swingning the camera round makes the FPS go man, o second it's a 120 FPS then its down to 83 then back up to the 90's before going back to 120 when i stop moving the camera. I would expect an £800 graphics card to give me a better framerate than that.

 

[mancsoulja]

The PSU came with the Case when i bought it It was enough for my old Setup wth a Gigabyte Radeon HD 6870. Guess i'll buy a new PSU and hope it solves my problem Thanks for the replies guys

 

[ahnilated]

You do understand that anything 50 fps or more will give you fluid unlaggy graphics, don't you?

BTW, FYI:

Thermal and Power Specs:
98 CMaximum GPU Tempurature (in C)
300 WMaximum Graphics Card Power (W)
650 WMinimum System Power Requirement (W)
Two 8-pin

Right from Nvidia

 

[mancsoulja]

You do understand that anything 50 fps or more will give you fluid unlaggy graphics, don't you?

BTW, FYI:

Thermal and Power Specs:
98 CMaximum GPU Tempurature (in C)
300 WMaximum Graphics Card Power (W)
650 WMinimum System Power Requirement (W)
Two 8-pin

Right from Nvidia

Not for me, i dont get lag Per-sa, just a very juddery experience on most games.

 

[ahnilated]

Not for me, i dont get lag Per-sa, just a very juddery experience on most games.

That could have to do with the game loading data off the hard drive. This will cause some issues until it is loaded into ram.

 

[samuelspark]

Why are you using a cheapo power supply with a $1000 GPU and a heavily overclocked CPU?

That PSU is garbage for what you're asking it to do, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's your problem:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2008/11/12/ocz_700w_modxstream_pro_power_supply/9

You should upgrade to something high quality like a corsair AX/HX850. Both have 10% off + MIR right now on newegg and are decent deals.

Wrong. They tested the PSU at 50C which is why it did not match up to specifications. They retested at 40C and it was pretty good.

The PSU is not the problem. I believe the stuttering problem is due to a problem known as micro-stuttering. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-stutter-crossfire,2995.html

This is caused by having GPU's in SLI.

 

[samuelspark]

Either way, he needs to make a significant upgrade on his PSU... you can only problem solve one step at a time, and his PSU is absolutely a problem.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/03/03/ocz_modxstream_pro_700w_40c_update/

 

[mancsoulja]

Wrong. They tested the PSU at 50C which is why it did not match up to specifications. They retested at 40C and it was pretty good.

The PSU is not the problem. I believe the stuttering problem is due to a problem known as micro-stuttering. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-stutter-crossfire,2995.html

This is caused by having GPU's in SLI.

Ive ruled out microstutter as it happens when i disable SLI

 

[mancsoulja]

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/03/03/ocz_modxstream_pro_700w_40c_update/

I know the PSU meets the minimum power requirements. But my point was as the card needs 2 8pin power connectors my PSU only had one, so i had to use a 6 to 8 pin adaptor. Now if an 8 pin connectors can pull more power from the PSU my card is only getting the power fromone 8 pin and one 6 pin. Is that enough?

 

[cats_Paw]

Mancsoulja, you most likely dont notice the diffrence between 50 fps and 100 fps, but notice the change from 50 to 100. Try setting a maximum FPS for those games (better GPU or PSU might not help if the games are badly coded... Let me guess... Those are games developed originally for consoles then ported to PCs right?).

If so, its probably dirvers having trouble not GPU performance.

 

[mancsoulja]

Mancsoulja, you most likely dont notice the diffrence between 50 fps and 100 fps, but notice the change from 50 to 100. Try setting a maximum FPS for those games (better GPU or PSU might not help if the games are badly coded... Let me guess... Those are games developed originally for consoles then ported to PCs right?).

If so, its probably dirvers having trouble not GPU performance.

Ive tried using a fps cap. say i set it to 60, the fps will jump from 58 to 63 and lead to just as bad performance. i've been using the fps limiter build into the Precision X software. are they any better ones you can recommend?

 

[cats_Paw]

Unfortunatelly i cant, i dont use one myself (but im sure you can google out what ones are the best). The reason why i suggest this is because many movies actually run on 24 to 30 FPS, but since its steady FPS the brain gets used to it and you feel like its smooth.

If there are changes, then your brain picks up that something is wrong, therefore giving you a bad feeling.

 

[djscribbles]

I would agree that you should replace the PSU. If it isn't currently your problem, it could easily become one soon with all the heat and power your pulling (and it being a mediocre PSU at best). Seasonic, XFX, PC Power & Cooling, and Corsair are generally good brands. This is a helpful list for PSU shopping: http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx

The framerate dips could be a number of things. Your on screen FPS is showing you a running average, and when it dips a significant amount (even though the number is still in a range that would be smooth), it is often an indication that one or two frames were extremely slow to render. This can be caused by many things (primarily storage/memory).
If you have an SSD, try putting the laggy game there to avoid loading files from the HDD, see if the situation improves. Alternatively, you could setup a ramdisk and try running the game from there.

To move a game, cut and paste it to a new location, then use mklink /d to create a link between the original location and the new location (you'll have to run command prompt as administrator to do this).

 

[paddys09]

Obviously upgrade your PSU as soon as...

The 690 won't overclock that well anyway, definitely not on that PSU....You should also revert the overclock on your CPU for the time being as thats probably going to add around 50w seeing as you are operating above the comfort zone of your PSU...

I still have doubts though that your PSU is causing the stuttering in game, BF3 is probably going to draw the most power from your system, yet it plays fine?

Sorry but have to ask.... your monitor is capable of displaying 60+fps? Just a thought as you said you jumped from a 6870 to a 690

 

[mancsoulja]

Obviously upgrade your PSU as soon as...

The 690 won't overclock that well anyway, definitely not on that PSU....You should also revert the overclock on your CPU for the time being as thats probably going to add around 50w seeing as you are operating above the comfort zone of your PSU...

I still have doubts though that your PSU is causing the stuttering in game, BF3 is probably going to draw the most power from your system, yet it plays fine?

Sorry but have to ask.... your monitor is capable of displaying 60+fps? Just a thought as you said you jumped from a 6870 to a 690

Yeah i have a BenQ 1080p 120htz 3D ready monitor lol. It's funny tho, when i first played BF3 and it was silky smooth, that was before i overclocked my CPU. I tried it earlier with the overclock and it was jerky as hell, So i'm going to revert the bios to optimised defaults ASAP. And i've just bought this XFX 1050w PSU here - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-010-XF

That should handle anything i throw at it, hopefully it will solve some of my issues.

 

[cuecuemore]

Good choice, now you have enough power for 2x 690s.

 

[mancsoulja]

Good choice, now you have enough power for 2x 690s.

I had trouble fitting the one in my MATX case the reservoir for my water cooling is in the way of my first PCI-E slot anyway, i could prob fit a small card in there but not another 690 lol

 

[bigshootr8]

Yea dude your 690 is amazing and you wont need to do a thing to your system with that new power supply quad sli looks great on benchmarks just not great in reality. Hopefully things work out for ya!

 

[cuecuemore]

I was just kidding about an additional 690. And you're running a loop off the PSU as well? No wonder you had issues with your 550w psu.