Gigabyte GTX 970 Optimization

[FivosG]

Good Evening,

I've received my Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 970 Graphic Card a few days ago and I'm kind of disappointed. I have a strong feeling that something doesn't work the way it's supposed to work. I'm also thinking that I have not optimized my GPU Correctly and I get low framerate.

I mean games like Minecraft with Optifine run at 700FPS on default settings while my friend who has a GTX 770 sometimes gets 1000-1500FPS.

Games like Watch Dogs run at 60FPS (which is fine) but when I start driving I get sudden fps drops to 49FPS which is horrible cause these lag spikes destroy the whole gaming experience.

And I should also mention that this is all in a 768p display, not even 1080p.

I also still didn't solve my problem with the first fan not spinning.

So do you guys know any good configurations for the NVIDIA Control Panel, or a good overclock for OC GURU II? Or do you know if my GPU is flawed or not?

Edit: I also did the Fire Strike benchmark test and I got a score of 9568 with Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 and Intel Core i5-4670K. Can you try this benchmark with your Gigabyte GTX 970s at default settings and tell me if your results are similar?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

AFAIK, the MSI 970 is the only one whose fans are controlled separately so if one's not spinning, I suspect a problem..

 

[FivosG]

Are you sure that Gigabyte's fans are supposed to spin at all times? Gigabyte doesn't seem to be replying to my problem so I'm not sure if I should return it or not.

 

[sla70r]

Watchdogs has been plagued by driving problems for its PC version.

 

[cowboydude99]

If you're using the "Ultra" textures, download TheWORSE mod. It will fix the stutter.

I had the same issue with my MSI GTX 970 (OC @ +200 and +250)

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Are you sure that Gigabyte's fans are supposed to spin at all times? Gigabyte doesn't seem to be replying to my problem so I'm not sure if I should return it or not.

I don't know..... looking at some reviews, the authors didn't seem to mention, or I didn't see, if the G1 had the passive cooling feature. MSI introduced this feature back in 2008 and Asus picked it up in their 9xx series whereby if the temps are below a certain point , the fans shut off. Looking at Guru3D review, I see the fans make 27 dbA at idle which tends to tell me the fans are running.

What I was referring to in previous post is that the MSI card is unique in that both fans run independently ....you have three possible situations ..... no fans running, 1 fan running and 2 fans running. The Gigabyte card does not offer independent fan control AFAIK, so it won't ever show a "normal" situation where just 1 fan won't run as was reported.

 

[photonboy]

Old post but:

1) Gigabyte fans can't turn off yet AFAIK. Possible update coming as I know EVGA is working on one.

2) Only get "700FPS" in Minecraft and friend gets 1000FPS to 1500FPS?
Uh.. I don't know what to say there but that doesn't sound like a repeatable comparison. I used max settings on my GTX680 setup (same as GTX770) and got around 200FPS at 1080p so I can't understand these numbers. That's AVERAGE.

Anyway, hardly a good comparison.

3) Watch Dogs.
As said likely, it has issues. You may want to force on ADAPTIVE VSYNC though to prevent stutterering when dropping below 60FPS (if you normally have VSYNC ON).

Summary:
I seriously doubt you have a problem with the card. You can easily monitor the GPU frequency so if it's managing to stay near where it should be then there's absolutely nothing wrong with your card (best tested in 3DMark or other benchmark for graphics).

 

[Borge80]

I'll be getting 65-85 fps in watch dogs but when I start driving fast it'll drop to ~51-55 range. 1080p Ultra settings 2x MSAA on watch dogs. It's pretty annoying but hardly noticeable on 144hz. I have the msi gaming 970 oc'd to 1556mhz (+215 core +600 mem). Try overclocking your card to atleast 1500MHZ, you will gain around 12-15fps. 1500 is a safe spot on these cards. Anything higher takes a lot of time to get stable.

 

[photonboy]

I'll be getting 65-85 fps in watch dogs but when I start driving fast it'll drop to ~51-55 range. 1080p Ultra settings 2x MSAA on watch dogs. It's pretty annoying but hardly noticeable on 144hz. I have the msi gaming 970 oc'd to 1556mhz (+215 core +600 mem). Try overclocking your card to atleast 1500MHZ, you will gain around 12-15fps. 1500 is a safe spot on these cards. Anything higher takes a lot of time to get stable.

Ummm..
1) No big deal, but you say you drop to mid 50's FPS which frankly is quite acceptable however you say "it's pretty annoying but hardly noticeable"?

How can it be really annoying and hardly noticeable at the same time? Not sure what the 144Hz part has to do with it either since your frame rate is what it is. Being set to 144Hz is just going to set the maximum frame rate.

2) *I do NOT think overclocking your card right to the absolute limit is necessarily needed just to gain a couple FPS. If there's any instability, or the fans or too loud (I don't own one) then just back off.

Personally, I'd suggest setting 60FPS with Adaptive VSYNC then simply adjust the quality settings so as to stay at 60FPS at least 90% of the time.

(If you are in 144Hz mode then use Adaptive HALF VSync which will synch to 72FPS)

 

[Borge80]

Annoying because I have sort of an obsession with 60+fps at all times.

Hardly noticeable because frames less than 60 on a 144hz monitor appears much different than on a 60hz monitor. Sometimes fps in the 40's looks much smoother than it would on a 60hz screen.

You're probably right about the OC but with max temps of 52c and this type of performance it's just so hard to not to crank it to the nearest artifact.

Anyways, as I was playing more I haven't seen this happen much. The area outside of your first hideout is probably the most demanding spot in the whole game.