Expected OC performance?

[SmallHero]

Hi, this is my first post on this forum. Hopefully its posted in the right place! So, here goes.
I recently built a new gaming PC. My specs are as follows:
Motherboard: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/G9X2FT/msi-z270-sli-plus-atx-lga1151-motherboard-z270-sli-plus
Processor: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/dQM323/intel-core-i5-7600k-38ghz-quad-core-processor-bx80677i57600k
Memory:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/6ntWGX/corsair-vengeance-lpx-16gb-2-x-8gb-ddr4-3000-memory-cmk16gx4m2b3000c15w
GPU:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/YpH48d/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-1070-8gb-g1-gaming-video-card-gv-n1070g1-gaming-8gd
PSU: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/FxDwrH/corsair-power-supply-cp9020051ww
Monitor: http://www.trustedreviews.com/samsung-c24fg70-review
CPU cooler:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Ztp323/cryorig-cpu-cooler-h5ultimate

After running OC tool I ended up squeezing another 150 mhz out of my GPU. But that was on 100% PSU load. My conclusion is that my PSU probably is bottlenecking my potential OC performance? Read somewhere that the max OC on the 1070 was roughly 450mhz.

I am "only" getting 90 FPS in BF1 on ultra settings with this setup. Was hoping for 144 FPS and fully utilize my samsung screen.

My Q is, should I get a new PSU? Or do I have to upgrade to a GTX 1080 G1 Gaming aswell?

Thanks in advance for any potential replies.

Update, got a cm storm trooper tower with 2 140mm front fans, 1 240mm top and exhaust fan. Running max 64 celcius on GPU stress testing and 36 celcius on my CPU. I

 

[euphoria4949]

Wait wait wait, Stop! Before we cover anything else my friend.
Your PSU is way more than you actually need, your setup will only pull 300-350 watts max. You could even run 2x 1070s from a 650w PSU. It wouldn't be recommended on the PSU you have but it could do it, if it had to.
Where on earth did you get the idea your PSU was maxed out???

[Edit] This is a Guru3d review and test of 2x 1070 in SLI, Guru3d are professional in-depth tech experts and very wildly regarded. Even 2 1070s only pull 330 watts, your CPU and everything else adding on would equal less than another 100 watts: http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/geforce-gtx-1070-2-way-sli-review,4.html

 

[SmallHero]

Hello, thanks for the reply. I'll try to respond properly 😉 as you probably understand, English is not my main language.

I was running an OC setup yesterday, where I increased mhz by 25 pr run. Stress testing with 3D mark, Heaven, Valley, FurMark and OCCT(memory clocking). With GPU-Z running in the background and monitoring.
I peaked at 150 mhz (stable oc)
At 175 mhz, my screens started flickering (I run dual monitors with an old BenQ as screen nr 2) and my Samsung blacked out. At this point I noticed that GPU-Z showed PSU load of 99-102%, Therefore I came to the conclusion that my PSU might be the problem. Since my screen blacked out at 175 mhz OC, which is far less than 450 mhz OC that people are getting. Using the same card, and a less expensive setup than what im running.

 

[sizzling]

High fps are very CPU dependent and bf1 is ridiculously cpu heavy. Are you running the game in DX11 or 12? Try 11.

Monitor your cpu and gpu usage and tell us which one is maxing out in the game.

 

[sizzling]

That PSU load measurement is the maximum wattage the gpu will take to stop people damaging it. It has nothing to do with the amount of power your PSU can actually deliver.

However the VS range of PSU's are very low quality, its a liability to a gaming pc and trying to overclock with it just increases the risk of failure. Overclocking needs a high quality PSU, you need a psu that can provide a very smooth and clean voltage under load. It is possible that your PSU may limit overclocking potential, I have witnessed the difference between a low end PSU (better than VS though) amd a tier 1 adding about 200mhz to a CPU overclock. Not sure how much it would impact the gpu.

Your PSU is under tier 4 "not for gaming rigs or overclocking"

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html?_ga=1.45879201.444711102.1480286851

 

[euphoria4949]

Your PSU is NOT at 100% load, I can guarantee that. Your PSU is not the best on the market, it's pretty cheap and low-end, but 650w is more than enough to run your system.

So let me go through your questions one by one:

After running OC tool I ended up squeezing another 150 mhz out of my GPU. Read somewhere that the max OC on the 1070 was roughly 450mhz.

Firstly, what tool was you using to achieve this OC? Are you OC'ing manually or is it some silly auto OC app?

Secondly, no two PC components are made alike. You could take ten 1070s all from the same manufacturer, all the same model, even sequential serial numbers so they are all from the same batch... yet every single one of them would run differently, at different temperatures, different clock speeds, different overclocks... etc.
It's commonly called: "The Silicone Lottery", because that is what it's like, a lottery. Your 1070 might only OC 150MHz, my 1070 might OC 500MHz, another guys 1070 will get 600MHz, and another only 10MHz...
There is no such thing as, a "Normal" overclock. You can look at the average, but that is only a very rough idea of potential.

But that was on 100% PSU load. My conclusion is that my PSU probably is bottlenecking my potential OC performance?

No! What you are seeing is your GPU max power consumption, Not your PSU load. All this means is, every GPU has a *rough* average amount of power they need, when you started OC'ing your GPU needed a little more power, so it hit the 100% limit and that's why you got flickering on your monitors, the GPU needed more power to overclock more. This is completely normal, don't worry
So if you want to OC any further, you need to increase you GPU power limit and voltage. These are now built into all modern GPUs to allow everyone to OC their PC parts, there are lots of safety measures in place to stop you doing something silly, and as long as you stay within these safe maximum limits your manufacturer set for your card, you are safe and won't damage your card. Only if you start overriding the limits by installing custom BIOS, then you can cause damage if you don't know what you are doing.

I am "only" getting 90 FPS in BF1 on ultra settings with this setup. Was hoping for 144 FPS and fully utilize my samsung screen.

BF1 and many other games are CPU intensive, meaning they are limited by how fast your CPU is. Not more cores, but fast clock speeds. If you achieve a nice OC on your CPU, you will see your FPS go up in BF1.

Or do I have to upgrade to a GTX 1080 G1 Gaming aswell?

Well that's up to you, but BF1 is limited by your CPU clock speed, so a 1080 will result in almost exactly the same FPS.

Update, got a cm storm trooper tower with 2 140mm front fans, 1 240mm top and exhaust fan. Running max 64 celcius on GPU stress testing and 36 celcius on my CPU.

Your temps are great, nothing to worry about. Your GPU will happily sit at 80-85c all day while gaming. 94c is the maximum though, so be careful to safe 5c or more below that.

Your CPU is running cool, 36c under load is barely even working Again, your CPU will happily sit at 75-85c all day long while gaming or under load, so you have a lot of headroom.

Obviously, lower temps are better, but both your GPU and CPU are made and designed to run at 80-90c under load 24/7 and still last for years, so you have lots of room to OC

 

[sizzling]

If that PSU was in my own system I would change it immediately. Yes the wattage is way more than needed but wattage on its own is meaningless. The quality of PSU is equally if not a more important factor. I've seen one of these crap units die and take out a system and there are so many threads with people having issues with them.

 

[euphoria4949]

If that PSU was in my own system I would change it immediately. Yes the wattage is way more than needed but wattage on its own is meaningless. The quality of PSU is equally if not a more important factor. I've seen one of these crap units die and take out a system and there are so many threads with people having issues with them.

^^^^^ Completely agree with that.

SmallHero - take notice of this. I only covered the fact that you are nowhere close to using 650w, but as said here, the PSU you have is entry level, but your system is very nice and fairly high-end. Even though it's a Corsair PSU, Corsair do not make PSUs, they buy PSUs from manufacturers and rebrand them. The VS series is manufactured by a less than average company.

The PSU is the heart of a PC, if you have a dodgy heart and it has even slight problems, the PC dies!

 

[SmallHero]

Thank you guys so much for all your answers, feel like ivve learned alot today 😉. Currently at work, so I will write a better response when I get back home on Monday. My Corsair PSU is from 2010, so yeah, its probably well past its prime and ripe for a proper burial and a replacement PSU.

I just placed an order for a the following PSU: http://pcpartpicker.com/product/LCfp99/evga-power-supply-220g20850xr

I will do an OC of my CPU as soon as im done OC'ing memory on my GPU. And then see if im happy with my BF1 FPS. Considering the game is so CPU dependant, maybe im better off swapping my i5-7600k with a i7-7700k w/hyperthreading. Ivve seen OC benchmarks on both, and the i7 gives better results both OC and stock.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Btw. Using Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming to overclock.
Regarding the "Silicone lottery" since im maxing out on 150, im at the low-end of the lottery. My retailer has a 45 day open return policy. Maybe I'll return it, get a new one and see if im lucky?

 

[euphoria4949]

Thank you guys so much for all your answers, feel like ivve learned alot today 😉. Currently at work, so I will write a better response when I get back home on Monday. My Corsair PSU is from 2010, so yeah, its probably well past its prime and ripe for a proper burial and a replacement PSU.

Yes, definitely a good idea to send that one to the computer heaven in the sky 😉

I just placed an order for a the following PSU: http://pcpartpicker.com/product/LCfp99/evga-power-supply-220g20850xr

Well it's huge overkill for just one 1070, a single 1070 and i5 or i7, even if they are overclocked will still only pull around 300-400w from the socket, Maximum. But it's a very good PSU and an 850w gold rated leaves you with more than enough power to buy a second 1070 later.

I will do an OC of my CPU as soon as im done OC'ing memory on my GPU. And then see if im happy with my BF1 FPS. Considering the game is so CPU dependant, maybe im better off swapping my i5-7600k with a i7-7700k w/hyperthreading. Ivve seen OC benchmarks on both, and the i7 gives better results both OC and stock.

Simple answer, No.
You can count on one hand how many games are designed to use and actually gain noticeable benefits from Hyper-Threading. i5s are always the recommended CPUs for gaming, an i7 with more cores *might in a few games result in higher FPS, but still 95% of games only use 1 to 4 cores. It's not core count or threads, it's clock speed that matters.
An i7 would benefit you if you wanted to stream at the same time, or video/photo editing work. But for normal day to day gaming, it work make a difference.

Btw. Using Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming to overclock.
Regarding the "Silicone lottery" since im maxing out on 150, im at the low-end of the lottery. My retailer has a 45 day open return policy. Maybe I'll return it, get a new one and see if im lucky?

Use a manual and well-known overclocking app, like MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision. It doesn't matter if you have a Gigabyte or ASUS card, they both work with any and all cards. MSI Afterburner is the most popular and easiest to use, just read or watch a basic tutorial on what the different things do and then do it slowly and surely yourself.
It's Extremely easy, like Really easy and very safe.

As for 150MHz only, well you don't know that for sure. You might be able to bump up the power limit and voltage and overclock a lot more, you don't know until you try.

Regarding returning your card, well as said, you don't know if the card will overclock further until you use a decent overclocking app and push the power and voltage limits up. It's a bit like having a sports car that has: Normal and Sport mode. Turning the dial to sport bumps up the horsepower and speed. Well GPUs have power limits and voltage limits, they are set to one level in the box, but you can turn the dials up and increase the power.
Also, just remember there is No guarantee, literally Zero guarantee you won't return your card and get another one that overclocks even worse, or doesn't overclock at all! That does happen from time to time.

 

[SmallHero]

After a lot of testing back and forth, different OC programs, reinstalling windows, low- medium- high- ultrasettings. My card still underperfoms, I did overclock my cpu to 4800 mhz, running stable and enjoying that. Did see an FPS boost after that. But BF1 still draws 100% cpu capacity.

After alot of testing im leaning towards that something might be wrong with my Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming card. In BF1 im getting from 90-23 fps on ultra and high. Today I re-installed my old Asus r9 hd 7970 3GB card. And it runs stable at 70-90 FPS on high. AND my CPU is varying from 80-100%

Now, im not sure how to troubleshoot what might be wrong with my GTX 1070. Maybe I'll just RMA and get a new model.

 

[euphoria4949]

After a lot of testing back and forth, different OC programs, reinstalling windows, low- medium- high- ultrasettings. My card still underperfoms, I did overclock my cpu to 4800 mhz, running stable and enjoying that. Did see an FPS boost after that. But BF1 still draws 100% cpu capacity.

After alot of testing im leaning towards that something might be wrong with my Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming card. In BF1 im getting from 90-23 fps on ultra and high. Today I re-installed my old Asus r9 hd 7970 3GB card. And it runs stable at 70-90 FPS on high. AND my CPU is varying from 80-100%

Now, im not sure how to troubleshoot what might be wrong with my GTX 1070. Maybe I'll just RMA and get a new model.

Few questions:

• 
  ■ What resolution are you running natively??
  
  ■ Are you 100% sure and double checked to see if Nvidia is set to downsampling the resolution (AKA Dynamic Super Resolution)??
  
  ■ Are you running an SSD, and is BF1 installed on an SSD?
  
  ■ Do you have any other PCIe lanes being used, i.e. PCI SSDs/M.2, NIC, Physx card, RAID controller... etc???
  
  ■ What PCIe slot do you have the 1070 installed in, i.e. top, middle, bottom... etc??

 

[SmallHero]

Now, im not sure how to troubleshoot what might be wrong with my GTX 1070. Maybe I'll just RMA and get a new model. [/quotemsg]

Few questions:

• 
  ■ What resolution are you running natively??
  
  1920x1080
  
  ■ Are you 100% sure and double checked to see if Nvidia is set to downsampling the resolution (AKA Dynamic Super Resolution)??
  
  no, but switched on and off every single option in nvidia geforce experience, nvidia 3d (something).
  
  ■ Are you running an SSD, and is BF1 installed on an SSD?
  
  installed and running on SSD
  ■ Do you have any other PCIe lanes being used, i.e. PCI SSDs/M.2, NIC, Physx card, RAID controller... etc???
  
  no
  
  ■ What PCIe slot do you have the 1070 installed in, i.e. top, middle, bottom... etc??

[/quotemsg]

top (got an MSI z270 SLI PLUS motherboard, top to slots are x16 and SLI).

 

[euphoria4949]

Well, nothing is wrong there, so I can't really say any more. You would need to speak to some other people that run a 1070 with a 7600K or lower that play BF1, and see what sort of FPS there get. I haven't played BF1 so I can't really say what is good or bad FPS at which graphical settings.

I would highly recommend The Official 1070 Owners Club over on OC.net, as there are hundreds of members and every single one of them owns a 1070: http://www.overclock.net/t/1601546/official-nvidia-gtx-1070-owners-club

 

[SmallHero]

Again, thanks for the replies. Ivve seen people with gtx 1070 and lower CPU's running the game smoothly at 144 FPS. Even on 1440p monitors they get roughly 90-100.

Looking like an RMA is the best choice atm. I even get spikes a couple of times when I play Heroes of The Storm on Ultra.