GTX 1080 on i7-7820X FPS drops / spikes

[Gary Smith]

I've looked through a few threads here to see if I could pick up some tips to solve this issue but I'm at a loss. I've downloaded some of the tools in other suggestions and tested logging things.

System Specs
i7-7820X
X299 Aorus Gaming 7 (Gigabyte)
32GB (4x8 Corsair Vengeance LPX) DDR4 DRAM 3000MHz
WIN 10 Pro x64 on High Performance power

I've got a 3 monitor setup, all 1440p BenQ monitors. I've got 2 graphics cards in my system. The GTX 1080 for my middle main monitor and a GTX 1050 for my 2 secondary monitors. I ran Afterburner to do tracking to figure out if there was a bottleneck somewhere (CPU usage or GPU usage) and I can't find it.

The whole reason I bought the second card is because I thought my 1080 was buckling. I've even set my secondary card to Dedicated Physx for testing. I've tried tweaking nVidia Control panel settings and just leaving them to defaults but there is nothing I can see stopping this spiking. It's has been happening for several months across many driver versions, I'm just annoyed now because I was considering just buying a 1080 TI to see if that would solve this but I don't see GPU load ever happening so I'm not sure that would solve anything.

I find it in any various number of games. My GPU usage is not max and my CPU usage is not max but I'll get spikes. The only thing I found with Afterburner is that when GPU usage dropped the FPS also dropped (not sure if that has anything to do with it, its just what I noticed).

https://i.imgur.com/jiA8U9C.png = page1 Standard Behavior (60% usage / 60 fps)
https://i.imgur.com/N38IfhW.png = page2 (Nothing unusual in CPU use or clock speed)
https://i.imgur.com/ha10xia.png = page1 Drop Behavior (32% / 30 fps)
https://i.imgur.com/KFvGAOS.png = page2 (No variance I can see)

This particular capture is during FF14 I've tried borderless windowed and windowed. High and Low graphics settings. Regardless of my settings I get this spikes and thats just this game tested, it happens in many others (Monster Hunter World, World of Warcraft, FF15, etc...).

For harddrives I've got 2 SSDs and 2 SSHDs and various games installed between them. It doesn't seem to matter which drive the game is installed on.

I'd be happy to shoot a paypal thank you over to someone if they can help me figure out what I'm missing here.

 

[schwatzz]

Might have something to do with HPET https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/915727-common-stutter-lag-crash-fix-hpet-guide/

 

[Gary Smith]

Might have something to do with HPET https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/915727-common-stutter-lag-crash-fix-hpet-guide/

Thanks for the info, my MB doesn't seem to support it so the entry wasn't in the list. I manually added it and set it to no just to be sure. That didn't seem to have any impact though.

 

[jossrik]

The 1050 isn't doing anything for your system, that might be adding to the problem. Plug all three monitors into the 1080, make sure in the bios you've got it set to Gen 3 for your graphics card. Turn off V-Sync, turn on G-Sync if you have it. Here's the thing with the 1050, your second card is used for output only, the main card will be doing all the lifting when you're not using SLI/Crossfire, unless you're in a DX12 situation where they programmed the game to take two differing video cards, but there's all kinds of trouble you could be adding to your system...
Is your CPU overclocked? RAM overclocked? GPU Overclocked? Any of the three can cause stuttering if they're not stable... As far as the games go, what they load off shouldn't make a difference. What do you have your pagefile set to? With 32G RAM I'm not sure i'd use one, but windows will use one default... Just some stuff to try.

 

[Gary Smith]

Is your CPU overclocked? RAM overclocked? GPU Overclocked? Any of the three can cause stuttering if they're not stable... As far as the games go, what they load off shouldn't make a difference. What do you have your pagefile set to? With 32G RAM I'm not sure i'd use one, but windows will use one default... Just some stuff to try.

I appreciate the details. I don't have any option in Bios for Gen 3 and my monitors are all 60hz and G-Sync doesn't appear on any options.

I pulled the 1050 just for testing, if its not useful in any way its just generating more heat in the case, even though none of my stuff is really hot, no need to draw more power and make more heat if I'm getting no benefit. I don't have anything overclocked. I followed some other suggestions and set my page file to a specific size so Windows can't vary it, set it to 1/2 my ram at 16GB.

I think at this point from everything I've read and been suggested maybe the card is just bad.

 

[jossrik]

Is your CPU overclocked? RAM overclocked? GPU Overclocked? Any of the three can cause stuttering if they're not stable... As far as the games go, what they load off shouldn't make a difference. What do you have your pagefile set to? With 32G RAM I'm not sure i'd use one, but windows will use one default... Just some stuff to try.

I appreciate the details. I don't have any option in Bios for Gen 3 and my monitors are all 60hz and G-Sync doesn't appear on any options.

I pulled the 1050 just for testing, if its not useful in any way its just generating more heat in the case, even though none of my stuff is really hot, no need to draw more power and make more heat if I'm getting no benefit. I don't have anything overclocked. I followed some other suggestions and set my page file to a specific size so Windows can't vary it, set it to 1/2 my ram at 16GB.

I think at this point from everything I've read and been suggested maybe the card is just bad.

7680x1440 is a lot of pixels to push. Ya the 1050 is just adding heat and electricity to your rig. Are the spikes totally random, are they in congested areas? Congested doesn't necessarily mean people, it can be trees and stuff like that too... What's your VRAM usage during the spikes?

 

[Gary Smith]

7680x1440 is a lot of pixels to push. Ya the 1050 is just adding heat and electricity to your rig. Are the spikes totally random, are they in congested areas? Congested doesn't necessarily mean people, it can be trees and stuff like that too... What's your VRAM usage during the spikes?

The same time of my tests here shows memory at 2000 min was 1935 and max was 2200. As for congested areas, some games turning down graphics helps and other games it does nothing.

I considered SLI but I've seen so many mixed results in my research. If SLI will benefit me running a game in windowed on 1 screen with the 3 monitor setup, I might just look at doing 1080 SLI unless the RTX release drops the price of the 1080 ti I could get 2 of them. But I know SLI doesn't do much for a lot of games and from what I've read it can negatively perform in some cases.

 

[jossrik]

7680x1440 is a lot of pixels to push. Ya the 1050 is just adding heat and electricity to your rig. Are the spikes totally random, are they in congested areas? Congested doesn't necessarily mean people, it can be trees and stuff like that too... What's your VRAM usage during the spikes?

The same time of my tests here shows memory at 2000 min was 1935 and max was 2200. As for congested areas, some games turning down graphics helps and other games it does nothing.

I considered SLI but I've seen so many mixed results in my research. If SLI will benefit me running a game in windowed on 1 screen with the 3 monitor setup, I might just look at doing 1080 SLI unless the RTX release drops the price of the 1080 ti I could get 2 of them. But I know SLI doesn't do much for a lot of games and from what I've read it can negatively perform in some cases.

Ya, SLI is really hit or miss at this point. Not sure what to tell ya now, I'm outta ideas. You can try tweaking performance in the Nvidia control panel, Manage 3d Settings, then adjust for the games that are giving you trouble... Aside from that, maybe upgrade time...