Hello
I've recently bought a new computer, suitable for my needs, but not too expensive. With a new, and, when compared to my old system, quite powerful graphics card.
Thing is, this new card is acting really weird when playing graphically intensive games (tested with Crysis 3, Planetside 2, Mechwarrior Online, Dead Island Riptide and Bioshock Infinite). Let me explain the problem that I'm getting and write as much information and as many of my observations as possible:
Few moments after lauching a game, and starting to play it, performance jumps up and down, constantly and in fairly constant amounts of time. Every 15 seconds of good performance, it goes to low performance for about 5 seconds, then another 15 seconds of good performance and again 5 seconds of bad performance, and so on. Like the graphic card is "switching" between some sorts of usage modes. Loss in framerate is quite big (For example, in Dead Island Riptide from 150FPS to 40FPS, in Crysis 3 from 50FPS to 17FPS).
Grapthics card constantly "switches" between 70%-80% of usage (depending on the situation and the game) to 20%-30% of usage.
I was taking a look into graphs where I can view my graphics card status (software was provided with the graphics card) and noticed that Power usage, Core usage and Memory usage are the ones that are "switching". I will try to provide a screenshot of those graphs.
I thought it might be a high temperature problem, because card was running quite hot, above 70 degrees celsius (158 degrees fahrenheit). Manually rising the fan speed quickly lowered the overall temperature to about 58-60 (140 degrees fahrenheit), though, the problem still existed.
Another solution that I've stumbled across, was an idea of switching Power management mode from "Adaptive" to "Prefer maximum performance" in Nvidia control panel or Nvidia Inspektor, and doing so also didn't help. I've tried switch this in general settings, as well as settings for specific game. The problem still exists.
My system spec is:
OS:Windows 7 64bit (it's being updated as soon as any updates pops-in)
GPU:Gainward GTX660Ti 2GB
CPU:FX-8150 Black Edition 125W version
MOBO:MSI 760GM-P21 (FX) AM3+ Ready
RAM:1x GOODRAM 8GB 1333MHz
HDD:1x HITACHI 1TB Hard Drive
PSU:800W Tracer Highlander power supply
(Right after the purchase, there was an Akyga 600W power supply installed, which had a nasty failure after nearly 36 hours of work. I've noticed this problem before said failure, though, I didn't have time to look closley into it and I was thinking it was caused by said power supply).
Driver version installed:
314.22
I've tried dealing with this issue for three days now, on previous forum i've tried, I didn't recieve much help, so I would greatly appreciate any assistance or suggestions.
My observations:
-I was suggested to "download gpuz and check if the card is running in x16 mode". I've assumed it has to do with Bus Interface. It's showing that the graphics card supports and runs in PCI-E 2.0 x16.
-I've noticed that when the GPU "switches" to low preformance, the temperature of the card goes down quite significantly. So, I'm still wondering if this is a heat issue, or maybe a built-in protection, even though the temperatures aren't that high.
-Problems still exsist after lowering game's graphical fidelity quite significantly (Crysis 3 and Mechwarrior Online).
-Under very heavy load, core clock on the GPU tends to go above the value shown in boost mode:
Base clock: 915MHz
Boost clock: 980Mhz
It tends to go up to 1071MHz or even 1084MHz.
Even when I didn't touch any overclocking and such. I though that boost clock was the highest that the card will go? so I'm wondering, Is that normal behaviour?
-CPU doesn't seem to be overheating, the fan that came with the CPU seems to be efficient, but quite loud. Nonetheless, I don't think that I can measure this accurately (I use SpeedFan). I've read that shown temperatures aren't accurate on AMD CPU's, though, I'm not an expert and I may be wrong.
-During the time when the graphics card "switches" to low performance, the CPU usage rises by 20% or even 30%. I don't know what to think of this.
Things I've already did:
-Updated BIOS (helped in some games, like Bioshock Infinite or Planetside 2).
-Today, I've disabled GPU BOOST and assumed that the problem may have something to do with it. After very carefully reading a guide about this, I've briefly disabled this feature for a short test. Problem still exsisted. I've turned GPU BOOST back on after the test.
-The computer is new and very stable, I don't have any weird crashes, critical errors or Blue Screens. Though, I've ensured that system starts with only essential programs (Antivirus software, Audio menagement software, Nvidia tray) just in case. In both, my own "Selected" and "Normal" system launch modes, the problem exists.
-Briefly removed Catalyst software for the CPU (I think it helped with micro-stuttering that I've also noticed, though, I may be wrong). After noticing that the issue is still exsistg, I've installed it back.
At this point, I'm starting to think it has to be a hardware issue. Maybe a bad connection between the mainboard, GPU and CPU. Maybe it's a faulty GPU. But, as I wrote, I'm not an expert at this.
That's why, once again, I would greatly appreciate any assistance or suggestions for this issue.
Cheers,
Greg.