[SOLVED] GPU underperforms, but clock are fine?

[Nosfer]

Hello everyone! I stumbled upon some strange problem and I'm not even sure if that's my paranoia or if I really have some hardware problem.
First of all, my setup is:

• Intel i7 8700k
• Gigabyte Z370 HD3P
• Crucial Ballistix Sport LT BLS2C8G4D240FSB 2x8 GB
• RTX 2080 SUPER
• 1440p 144hz monitor
• Corsair RM1000x 1000W

Recentely I stumbled upon RDR2 benchmark with the same CPU + GPU + 1440p combination and the guy had like 10 fps more average than me with the same settings. I decided to download 3DMark and ran TimeSpy benchmark. My graphics score is 9754, which seems pretty low. If I compare my results to people with same rig and clocks I'm at the bottom 1%. But my clocks and temps are fine, there's no bottleneck or throttling. Here's graph. I also checked TDP and GPU is taking 240-250W as it should.

It looks to me like my GPU is underperfoming. But why are my clocks and temps looks right then? What am I missing? What can cause such trouble? I tried older Nvidia drivers, I tried setting BIOS to default, I even reinstalled Windows because I thought some update might be the problem, but nothing helps.

 

[alceryes]

Remember that posted benchmarks/gaming FPS scores are usually the top .1%. They are not the norm - they are the outlier.
No one's going to post 'meh' benchmarks/gaming FPS videos. Benchers/reviewers tweak, bench, tweak, bench, tweak, bench, etc., until they get a score that they deem 'worthy' and only then does it gets posted. These are usually people who work with technology for a living and know the ins and outs of settings and components. Many of them also know how to 'cheat' the system by running the benchmarks with unrealistic settings. They change everything from CPU priority, to benchmark config changes, to doing borderless/alt tab crap. In short, don't worry about hitting published benchmark numbers.

With that said, please run a Userbenchmark and post a link to the results.
Also, note that older versions of RDR2 ran faster than newer patched versions on some hardware. I was pissed when they released an update that tanked my RDR2 FPS by over 15 in the benchmark.

 

[Billowleaf]

I had things like that happen a lot, I found that for me it was the half dozen malware programs running crypto mining on my card. I was running like 10-15 frames in really easy to run games like minecraft, so I wiped my drives and bought a new drive, but I think I was an extreme case of stupid. I think that for most things within 10 frames is pretty good, all things considered, it's when you start getting 20+ frames less that you should start getting worried

 

[Nosfer]

With that said, please run a Userbenchmark and post a link to the results.

Here it is:
https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/43982444
Yeah, I understand that these results are not perfect for showing a real picture, but in comparison I capped max clocks to my numbers and I'm still in bottom 1%? Not even average?

I had things like that happen a lot, I found that for me it was the half dozen malware programs running crypto mining on my card. I was running like 10-15 frames in really easy to run games like minecraft, so I wiped my drives and bought a new drive, but I think I was an extreme case of stupid. I think that for most things within 10 frames is pretty good, all things considered, it's when you start getting 20+ frames less that you should start getting worried

Sadly, I'm running a clean windows install now

 

[alceryes]

What is the exact model of your 2080S. Those clocks don't seem right. Are you overclocking it?
Also, your system drive performance is horrible. This could be slowing everything down.

 

[Nosfer]

It's GIGABYTE RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING OC 8G
Yeah, while running 3DMark I forgot to close AORUS app and it's slightly overclocked. Without it results are even worse.
UserBenchmark was running on stock clocks
Will check out about SSD performance, not sure what can be wrong.

 

[Nosfer]

Yeah, SSD works pretty slow and it's like 10 years old, so maybe it degraded over time.
But it's still working faster than HDD, right? What are the chances of SSD being a reason?

 

[alceryes]

What are the chances of SSD being a reason?

Pretty high. At least as a contributing factor.

Be sure to remove all GPU overclocks while testing. Disable the AORUS app start up. Those overclocks could be leading to your GPU downclocking - another possible contributing factor. Run HWiNFO64 (sensors only, logging on) while your system loops Unigine Valley demo. Let it run for a good 20 mins and see if there are any anomolies in the file. Also, give us a link to the video you saw showing the same system but better performance.

 

[Nosfer]

Here's a video:

View: https://youtu.be/_x1IvtD75i8

The only difference is that he has higher clocks (that's why I overclocked it a little, to test out - no result though, I gained like 1-2 FPS) and RAM that runs on 3200 speed (mine works on 2400).

Thanks for advice about HWiNFO64 + Unigine Valley. As far as I can tell, I see nothing unusual, but I can't say that I understand every sensor, so maybe I'm missing something. Here's the file. That's 1440p Ultra without AA

 

[alceryes]

Your GPU is hitting its power limit. Column KL.
Also, running memory at 3200MHz vs 2400MHz can definitely make a difference in games.

 

[Nosfer]

Also, running memory at 3200MHz vs 2400MHz can definitely make a difference in games.

On Intel while running 1440p? It's hard to find info on this subject, but tests I found showed big difference in 1080p, but only few FPS in 1440p.
I mean, RAM was my first guess when I found this video, so I'm not sure.

Your GPU is hitting its power limit. Column KL.

Yeah, but isn't it maximum for 2080S chip? I can't even set more than 100% in AORUS app or MSI Afterburner.

 

[alceryes]

On Intel while running 1440p? It's hard to find info on this subject, but tests I found showed big difference in 1080p, but only few FPS in 1440p.
I mean, RAM was my first guess when I found this video, so I'm not sure.

Every game is different in how it utilizes RAM.

Yeah, but isn't it maximum for 2080S chip? I can't even set more than 100% in AORUS app or MSI Afterburner.

This could be all your 2080 Super is capable of. They aren't all created equal.
How's your case airflow and ambient temp?

I also think your OS drive has health issues. This should be addressed (replaced).

 

[Nosfer]

How's your case airflow and ambient temp?

I don't know exact number, but I don't have any overheat issues. I have 3x140mm fans on front and 1 140mm fan on back.

I also think your OS drive has health issues. This should be addressed (replaced).

Maybe I will, but that's weird actually. CrystalDiskInfo shows SSD health as "Good", with no problems. Could performance degrade that much in 10 years? The problem is I don't even remember what speed was promised by manufacturer, because when I look for my SSD model it shows me new revisions which don't even look like mine.

So the main culprits are SSD and RAM, right? Is there anything I could miss on GPU part? I don't know, maybe some problems that occurs despite good graphs (chip problem or something, I don't know).

 

[Joseph_138]

A lot of people who post to those benchmark sites are using all kinds of exotic cooling, like liquid nitrogen, to get their parts to run as fast as possible without heating them up. You have to take the extreme overclockers into consideration when evaluating your scores against those of others. If the clock speeds on their parts, or their benchmark scores, seem abnormally high, then you're looking at an extreme overclocker. They are not representative of the broader community who may not overclock at all or only overclock mildly.

Something that might help boost your scores is pretty simple, and many people overlook it, is to check what processes are running and disable the ones that you don't need running all the time. Cleaning up your startup menu, also helps to prevent many programs from running in the background on boot up that steal clock cycles away from your games. It's not just your CPU that they steal from, either. I've seen background apps taking up GPU and network resources, too. Running a clean system, can give back a lot of lost performance. I cleaned up all the crapware from a new machine that I acquired recently, and dropped the background CPU usage from 18% to under 1%. GPU and network usage also came down, but not to as great an extent as the CPU usage did.

 

[spentshells]

Your ram speed is low, that is why you are getting less frames, Activate the xmp profile in the bios. If your ram is only rated for 2400 and has no additional profiles available, you could overclock it or buy new ram.
Remember that other persons ram is 1/3 faster than yours.

Your GPU is communicating with your cpu through the system ram. Effectively there is a bottleneck and it is blatantly your ram speed.

If your ram speed is 2400Mhz and not any faster this is going to remain an issue.
You could learn to overclock it, but in reality it seems more likely that if you want those extra frames (I would) then you'll need to buy faster ram.

Your system will remain relevant for years so spend the money get yourself some 3600Mhz RAM and sell your 2400Mhz stuff for whatever you can get for it.

 

[Nosfer]

The problem dissappeared as mysteriosly as it appeared.

So, I bought new SSD, did a clean Windows install - SSD itself works a lot better, Windows works a little smoother, but FPS problem was still present. A few days later I used my PC just for one thing - checking if it can run Windows 11, so I enabled Intel PTT and Fast Boot in BIOS, checked that it can run Windows 11 and turn it off. Next day I have +12 FPS in RDR2 and every game got huge FPS boost.

I'm happy as hell, but I can't understand what the hell was the problem. I tried to turn off PTT and Fast Boot, I tried to use my previous Windows (on an old SSD) - problem is gone. It may be something about BIOS, but the first thing I did was doing a CMOS reset and it didn't help.

 

[alceryes]

The problem dissappeared as mysteriosly as it appeared.

So, I bought new SSD, did a clean Windows install - SSD itself works a lot better, Windows works a little smoother, but FPS problem was still present. A few days later I used my PC just for one thing - checking if it can run Windows 11, so I enabled Intel PTT and Fast Boot in BIOS, checked that it can run Windows 11 and turn it off. Next day I have +12 FPS in RDR2 and every game got huge FPS boost.

I'm happy as hell, but I can't understand what the hell was the problem. I tried to turn off PTT and Fast Boot, I tried to use my previous Windows (on an old SSD) - problem is gone. It may be something about BIOS, but the first thing I did was doing a CMOS reset and it didn't help.

This sounds like something that was corrected with a BIOS reset. Glad you got it fixed!