GTX 480 SLI performance

[rubenhak]

Hi,
I recently got my second gtx 480. So running in two way sli configuration. Using evga x58 sli mono, intel i7-930, mushkin redline ddr3 triple channel memory x2 (12gb total) and corsair hxt-1000 psu.

I'm not very happy with the SLI performance. In Hitman Absolution it does not produce much increase. In Crysis 2 it is running below 15fps when lots of objects/aliens are visible, getting to 25fps when not many objects are visible. This was with Geometric Details set to ultra. Other settings did not make any difference. Changing Geometric Details to low increases the FPS to about 25-30 in the same scene.

Tried with running the physics on GPU and then on the CPU but this does not improve the performance.

Why is the performance so poor? Ow can't diagnose this? Which settings would produce the best quality and performance in my case?

P.S. I'd prefer to ru under 2560x1600 resolution if possible. 1920x1200 is still acceptable.

Thank you,
Ruben

 

[Sunius]

^
Umm why? GTX 480 SLI is as good as GTX 590...

@OP: Did you try overclock your CPU? Did you check the GPU usage in the games listed?

 

[samuelspark]

Driver version?

 

[rubenhak]

Driver version?

Drivers are recent: 306.97.

 

[rubenhak]

^
Umm why? GTX 480 SLI is as good as GTX 590...

@OP: Did you try overclock your CPU? Did you check the GPU usage in the games listed?

I look to the Task Manager and the CPU is not used much at all. So the OC should not improve much.

How can I diagnose what is the bottleneck?

 

[maxalge]

Hi,
I recently got my second gtx 480. So running in two way sli configuration. Using evga x58 sli mono, intel i7-930, mushkin redline ddr3 triple channel memory x2 (12gb total) and corsair hxt-1000 psu.

I'm not very happy with the SLI performance. In Hitman Absolution it does not produce much increase. In Crysis 2 it is running below 15fps when lots of objects/aliens are visible, getting to 25fps when not many objects are visible. This was with Geometric Details set to ultra. Other settings did not make any difference. Changing Geometric Details to low increases the FPS to about 25-30 in the same scene.

Tried with running the physics on GPU and then on the CPU but this does not improve the performance.

Why is the performance so poor? Ow can't diagnose this? Which settings would produce the best quality and performance in my case?

P.S. I'd prefer to ru under 2560x1600 resolution if possible. 1920x1200 is still acceptable.

Thank you,
Ruben

First, update to the newest beta drivers, should be 310.70 as I write this, they should help with hitman.


Then also go here:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=371865



Good luck!

 

[Sunius]

I look to the Task Manager and the CPU is not used much at all. So the OC should not improve much.

How can I diagnose what is the bottleneck?

I meant GPU usage, not the CPU. You can check it with MSI afterburner.

 

[rubenhak]

First, update to the newest beta drivers, should be 310.70 as I write this, they should help with hitman.


Then also go here:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=371865



Good luck!

Still does not help. My second GPU is only used for about 10%. SLI settings set to default.

 

[rubenhak]

I meant GPU usage, not the CPU. You can check it with MSI afterburner.

Well, when I overclock the GPU the FPS does increase a bit but this is not my complaint. I don't like the fact the my second card is not in use. Hitman Absolution benchmark produces 23 - 35 FPS 1920x1200, MSAA 4x, Quality: Ultra. Disabling SLI produces almost same result. Running beta nvidia driver which was supposed to use SLI profile for hitman.

 

[Sunius]

Man, can you check for the GPU usage? How do you suppose I can help you if you refuse to do even do the basic troubleshooting?

 

[jaideep1337]

Yes download afterburner and check your GPU usage.

 

[rubenhak]

Man, can you check for the GPU usage? How do you suppose I can help you if you refuse to do even do the basic troubleshooting?

That is what I meant. The usage of second GPU does not exceed 10%. Checked with afterburner and nvidia inspector. Should have been more clear about this.

What else can I check to troubleshoot this?

 

[Sunius]

Try disabling hyperthreading in BIOS. Then, check the CPU usage again in task manager. Hyperthreading doesn't allow windows correctly detect CPU usage.

 

[rubenhak]

Try disabling hyperthreading in BIOS. Then, check the CPU usage again in task manager. Hyperthreading doesn't allow windows correctly detect CPU usage.

Will do that in the evening, but this still will not explain why second GPU was not in use.

 

[Sunius]

If the CPU is near maxing out, it isn't fast enough to give instructions to the graphics cards.

 

[rubenhak]

If the CPU is near maxing out, it isn't fast enough to give instructions to the graphics cards.

Ok, will provide some screenshots today. Should I use Hitman Absolution Benchmark or you can recommend some other test to check the performance?

 

[rubenhak]

If the CPU is near maxing out, it isn't fast enough to give instructions to the graphics cards.

Ok, will provide some screenshots today. Should I use Hitman Absolution Benchmark or you can recommend some other test to check the performance?

 

[Sunius]

Hitman Absolution Benchmark will do nicely. Just don't forget to disable hyperthreading.

 

[rubenhak]

Turned off the HT. CPU usage around 65%. GPU1 usage: 100%, GPU2 usage: 20%. Here is the screenshot attached.

 

[Sunius]

Just what I thought. Looks like the CPU is unable to cope with the load. I'd suggest overclocking it, and doing it will help significantly.

 

[BobCharlie]

I'm getting a regular 39-40FPS with Hitman Absolution with a GTX 550Ti with couple settings lowered. DON'T go off the built-in Benchmark numbers as they seem to be way off from what MSI Afterburner's Riva Tuner shows. Riva Tuner shows a constant 40 FPS during the bench mark test while the bench mark's numbers claims it was 20! Also running the Beta driver 3.10.70 since yesterday which helped with a crash in the 1st mission when you use instinct and press "X" (360 controller) to slow-mo kill the 4 guys.

Here's my settings from the benchmark file:
Graphics Settings:

ResolutionWidth = 1920
ResolutionHeight = 1080
Refreshrate = 60
Fullscreen = 1
ExclusiveFullscreen = 1
VSync = 0
Monitor = 0
Adapter = 0
Aspectratio = 0
WindowPosX = 320
WindowPosY = 180
WindowWidth = 1280
WindowHeight = 720
Stereoscopic = 0
Stereo_Depth = 2.000000
Stereo_Strength = 0.020000
WindowMaximized = 0
FocusLoss = 0
UseGdiCursor = 0
Gamma = 1065353216
MSAA = 1
ShadowQuality = 4
TextureResolution = 1
TextureFilter = 2
SSAO = 1
LPV = 1
Tessellation = 1
MirrorQuality = 3
FXAA = 1
LevelOfDetail = 4
Bokeh = 3
QualityProfile = 5

 

[rubenhak]

Just what I thought. Looks like the CPU is unable to cope with the load. I'd suggest overclocking it, and doing it will help significantly.

Could you please explain this. The CPU usage was around 70% with short peaks in the beginning and the end of the benchmark. At the same time the seconds GPU was almost not in use. Why do you say that CPU is the reason of the low FPS? All I see is that SLI is not used optimally.

 

[Sunius]

Let's say it like this. The game uses 3 cores at most. The graph looks like it uses all of them, but it is due to windows distributing the tasks among the CPUs.

70% of 4 is 93% of 3. That means your CPU is almost maxing out. If it's maxing out indeed - overclocking will certainly help.

 

[rubenhak]

Let's say it like this. The game uses 3 cores at most. The graph looks like it uses all of them, but it is due to windows distributing the tasks among the CPUs.

70% of 4 is 93% of 3. That means your CPU is almost maxing out. If it's maxing out indeed - overclocking will certainly help.

Ok, this is starting to make sense. How would you recommend me do to the OCing? using Dummy Overclock in the BIOS or manually dealing with bus, multiplier, uncore, vcore, memory core, etc? Its been a while I didn't to that and not sure I can handle this properly.

What would be the safe OC settings for my setup? Can I overclock from windows (vs from BIOS)? Some instructions would be extremely helpful!

 

[Sunius]

Don't use the auto tools: they set the voltage too high. As do it from BIOS. It's much better.

I am not really experienced at overclocking i7-9xx, but I suppose your multiplier is locked?

Do you have an aftermarket cooler?