GTX 1080ti but low fps?

[Haoo]

Bought a GTX 1080ti like 2 months back and haven't been able to really get the most out of it. On GTA 5 @1080p I get no higher than 50 fps and even when I play at 4k I don't hit 60. Also even when playing minecraft with shaders I can only get 30fps. What is going on? When I play battlefield 1 at 4k I am able to maintain 60fps+ but sometimes it dips below, and when I lower the resolution to 1080p or 1440p it seems to actually drop in fps. Please help because I cant really enjoy my games at the current moment and want to fix this before BFV releases. If theres any other info needed such as GPU and CPU usage during any one of those games just let me know! Thanks (sidenote: I've previously asked many times, even on this forum, if upgrading to a gtx 1080ti would cause any bottlenecks with my CPU and was told it wouldn't be an issue)

PC SPECS:
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC Black Edition Gaming
CPU: Intel Core i7-4820K CPU @3.70GHz
motherboard: ASUS sabertooth x79

 

[Unolocogringo]

try this.
DDU
https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html
Install in regular windows.
Reboot into safe mode.
Clean out all old video drivers. AMD drivers also if your last card was AMD.
Reboot into windows and install latest drivers.

 

[atomicWAR]

As stated run DDU this fixes most issues. And no you should not be bottlenecked with your setup. I run 2 GTX 1080s on a i7 3930k @4.2Ghz and have zero issues with bottlenecking. In fact my set up does as well but usually better then Ryzen 1000 series and doesn't lag to far behind even Intel 8 series CPUs much @1440 (at 4K they are all pretty muched tied)...typically I test somewhere between the 2 newer CPU platforms when gaming at 1440P if 4K (2160P) is two taxing or a game doesn't have a resolution scaler so I can dial back 2160P to say .85-.9 (1836P-1944P). Point being your issue is likely something in drivers or software. Try also checking yours CPU usage both per core/thread and total usage. Per core usage...no one core should break 90% on lightly threaded games or you don't want to have 3-4 cores break 90% each in heavily threaded games. If your usage is higher then that then you may be CPU bottlenecked but I would be surprised if you are at 4K...1080P is another story. A lower resolution is actually much harder on the CPU then a higher one as backwards as that might sound.

 

[atomicWAR]

Also you dialed back your graphics settings in game to see what your CPUs max frame rate is in a given game? If no you can do this to test how fast your CPU can deliver frames for any game you have/test. Drop all settings to low as they go, drop the resolution to the lowest possible (scaler to if applicable), and test your FPS. What ever that FPS is your CPU can do at any resolution as long as you GPU is capable enough. Also how much ram do you have?

 

[Haoo]

Also you dialed back your graphics settings in game to see what your CPUs max frame rate is in a given game? If no you can do this to test how fast your CPU can deliver frames for any game you have/test. Drop all settings to low as they go, drop the resolution to the lowest possible (scaler to if applicable), and test your FPS. What ever that FPS is your CPU can do at any resolution as long as you GPU is capable enough. Also how much ram do you have?

Will try all of this thanks! I have 16gbs of ram

 

[Haoo]

As stated run DDU this fixes most issues. And no you should not be bottlenecked with your setup. I run 2 GTX 1080s on a i7 3930k @4.2Ghz and have zero issues with bottlenecking. In fact my set up does as well but usually better then Ryzen 1000 series and doesn't lag to far behind even Intel 8 series CPUs much @1440 (at 4K they are all pretty muched tied)...typically I test somewhere between the 2 newer CPU platforms when gaming at 1440P if 4K (2160P) is two taxing or a game doesn't have a resolution scaler so I can dial back 2160P to say .85-.9 (1836P-1944P). Point being your issue is likely something in drivers or software. Try also checking yours CPU usage both per core/thread and total usage. Per core usage...no one core should break 90% on lightly threaded games or you don't want to have 3-4 cores break 90% each in heavily threaded games. If your usage is higher then that then you may be CPU bottlenecked but I would be surprised if you are at 4K...1080P is another story. A lower resolution is actually much harder on the CPU then a higher one as backwards as that might sound.

Ran DDU and still performing the same, I don't know what else to try. Is there like any stores I can take my PC into and for them to check it out. This is really bothering me because I didnt spend $750 for my graphics card to not perform as expected. Thanks for the help though I appreciate it '

On battlefield 1 I get 70-90% GPU usage with it sometimes dropping to 60, and my CPU usage sometimes gets higher than my GPU usage, and it hovers around 80.

 

[atomicWAR]

Have you tested your max frame rate in games? This info will be useful to a tech if/when you take it in. Let's say in BF1 you dropped your settings all the way down along with your resolution. Your rig gets 80FPS at the low base settings. Now you kick up your resolution only to find your at 70FPS but when you increase textures your FPS drop through the floor. Could be s sign you have a ram issue either VRAM or DDR3 based. More you test and tinker to see how it reacts the easier it is to try and figure out exactly what the issue is. Now all that said seeing your CPU hover at 80% could be the sign of a bottleneck. BF1 is REALLY hard on CPUs, even 4C/8T ones. Especially when in multiplayer because all the extra players your CPU has to deal with. For BF1 you ideally want a 6C/12T CPU or better for the bigger servers. Single player is far more sensitive to single thread IPC though. Anyways I would add some OC to your chip and see if that helps resolves things. With your chip it should hit 4.2GHZ fairly easy. Also are you running 4 sticks of ram? Older CPU tech like ours gets a little extra life out of memory intensive work loads but some folks still only drop one or two sticks in losing access to this horse power. Also what are your timings and cmd (T) rate?

As for stores you can take it to. The big chains probably won't have someone that can tune your PC as well as you could with some help on toms but I could be wrong. I find the big guys just shoot for working within spec. No more no less. A smaller shop with good guy you may get lucky. He may tune your ram timings, tinker your OC, voltages, etc. But yeah you could try best buy, geek squad or who ever. Or simply look up PC repair and hope you find someone who will work with OC'd rigs and will do more specialized work on a PC.

 

[Haoo]

Have you tested your max frame rate in games? This info will be useful to a tech if/when you take it in. Let's say in BF1 you dropped your settings all the way down along with your resolution. Your rig gets 80FPS at the low base settings. Now you kick up your resolution only to find your at 70FPS but when you increase textures your FPS drop through the floor. Could be s sign you have a ram issue either VRAM or DDR3 based. More you test and tinker to see how it reacts the easier it is to try and figure out exactly what the issue is. Now all that said seeing your CPU hover at 80% could be the sign of a bottleneck. BF1 is REALLY hard on CPUs, even 4C/8T ones. Especially when in multiplayer because all the extra players your CPU has to deal with. For BF1 you ideally want a 6C/12T CPU or better for the bigger servers. Single player is far more sensitive to single thread IPC though. Anyways I would add some OC to your chip and see if that helps resolves things. With your chip it should hit 4.2GHZ fairly easy. Also are you running 4 sticks of ram? Older CPU tech like ours gets a little extra life out of memory intensive work loads but some folks still only drop one or two sticks in losing access to this horse power. Also what are your timings and cmd (T) rate?

As for stores you can take it to. The big chains probably won't have someone that can tune your PC as well as you could with some help on toms but I could be wrong. I find the big guys just shoot for working within spec. No more no less. A smaller shop with good guy you may get lucky. He may tune your ram timings, tinker your OC, voltages, etc. But yeah you could try best buy, geek squad or who ever. Or simply look up PC repair and hope you find someone who will work with OC'd rigs and will do more specialized work on a PC.

One more thing i'd like to add. I used Superpostion Benchmark @4k and was getting above 60fps and my GPU usage was at 99% and CPU at 20-35%. Why is my PC performing well on the benchmark but poorly on my games even including minecraft?

 

[atomicWAR]

I honestly don't know. As a general rule you should not be bottlnecked with your CPU. Yes there are a few well threaded games that may cause some hiccups but not the kinds of frame rates your talking. As stated before you can test your max FPS and then slowly step up the settings to see if you find a point where the frame rate takes a dive but that's assuming you can get a good frame rate at some very low settings to work up from. If your frame rate is just always 50 FPS as the highest then it doesn't help you at all beyond knowing your rig just doesn't perform like it should, which we already know anyways.

Well you are in a tight spot. I hope you found a solution/fix since I was last online.

 

[atomicWAR]

Have your completely reformatted and reinstalled windows? That's about the last thing you could try with the info you have given me.

 

[Haoo]

Have your completely reformatted and reinstalled windows? That's about the last thing you could try with the info you have given me.

I messed around with game settings that were more CPU demanding, I noticed turning down these things caused my fps to go up a bit

Do you think upgrading my CPU to an i7 8700k might fix all these problems? I understand that I shouldn't be having trouble with fps with my current rig but still. Let me describe my problem a bit more, I was able to play everything fine even when i had my gtx 970(with the same i7 4820k cpu) then one day i was just dropping in fps, I noticed this in BF1 since I play it the most. I upgraded my GPU to a GTX 1080ti and yes I am now able to play at 4k with 70fps(with gpu usage barely going above 85% most of the time) but then sometimes(most of the time, it happens in certain parts of the map, or when many players are on screen) my GPU usage drops pretty low to around 50-60% causing Fps to dip below 60. And just to be sure it wasnt a broken GPU, I put my old GTX 970 back in and im seeing the same results(GPU usage shooting down) but obviously with the gtx 970 I cant play 4k so im talking about when I play in 1080p. Also in minecraft I get the same fps as I do with the gtx 970 and the gtx 1080ti as well as low gpu usage(all this being at 1080p)
Overall, I dont really think its a problem with my GPU's it definitely has something to do with the CPU, motherboard, or ram.

Just tried GTA 5, very weird thing happened, I am getting above 60fps with ultra setting(expect for the grass preset) at 1080p however my gpu usage is around 40% could this be because I am not playing it at 4K, and if i did i would see my GPU usage go up?

If i did upgrade my CPU, prompting me to upgrade my ram and motherboard, and I still saw the same problems what would be my next step? From that point i'd assume its a software issue right?
Could you send a link on how to reformat and reinstall windows, I'll try this next?

 

[atomicWAR]

First off moving to a 6C/12T CPU would help with BF1 issues to a degree but I wouldn't count on it being a silver bullet either. Yes when in servers with loads of peeps you'll likely get a boost but the places where single thread IPC is an issue (usually in single player and certain areas of maps) you won't see as much uptick though you will see some. The simple reason is the IPC difference between Intel gen 4 and 8 isn't actually all that great, especially in games at 4K. This is why people told you would not face a CPU bottleneck and it was true. BF1 is honestly a optimization nightmare. This is the other part of the problem you are having. So yeah throwing more CPU at the problem will help as it can help overpower the bad optimization but because of the fact your facing both threading issues (minor) and IPC issues (minor and arguably common even in new CPUs). Problems is both of those minor issues add up to a more serious offense and as a PC gamer myself I get your frustration. We pay a lot for hardware and expect it to perform.

If it were me I would likely do one of two things (assuming you have completely scrubbed windows and reinstalled just to be sure no software bugs/issues causing your issues). One I would either upgrade right now...or two I would decide what, in my head, is upgrade worthy. For me right now gaming at 4K with an old i7 3930K with a couple of GTX 1080s it is number 2. In my head I need PCIe 4.0 or better to drop and/or my CPU to start to bottleneck. Mainly because, on the PCIe front, SLI on PCIe 8x links for 4K gaming can cause a bottleneck. I have to choose between using one of my PCIe slots or a 5-8% FPS drop. Most games I can just deal with the drop and hold my 60 FPS but there are a few games where making sure my second GTX 1080 gets a full 16x slot (ie I disable my last PCIe last slot and therefore add in card...I guess I could remove it all together but huge pain to reinstall it again) just like the primary GTX 1080 does. I am lucky in that had both GPUs been allocated to PCIe 3.0 8x slots like mainstream CPUs are in SLI the performance hit would be even bigger, closer to 15%. So I hold for now, salivating at the prospect of when PCIe Gen 4 launches and I can buy a new CPU platform for my rig.

So I would think really hard about what you want out of an upgrade. If a few more FPS are good enough or you want to do more game streaming then jumping to a i7 8700k would probably be great. If your looking to buy another CPU platform to last as long as your gen 4 part has/can still, I might wait for the next gen AMD 3000 series parts to drop and/or Intel to finally get 10nm parts out both of which should have PCIe 4.0 as well. Even if PCIe 4.0 is not attached to their consumer launches (we know it is for Eypc 3000 series) the rumored performance uptick sounds outstanding. Big enough if you bought today....in six months time you may be sorry (amd CPU schedule wise). Yet there is always something to be said for buying what is out now in regards to PCs. Something new is always coming. It is a tough call let me know what you end up doing.

edit. To be clear I run PCIe gen 3 not gen 2 via the nvidia PCIe gen 3 patch for SB-E CPUs on capable motherboards like the Rampage IV Extreme

 

[Haoo]

First off moving to a 6C/12T CPU would help with BF1 issues to a degree but I wouldn't count on it being a silver bullet either. Yes when in servers with loads of peeps you'll likely get a boost but the places where single thread IPC is an issue (usually in single player and certain areas of maps) you won't see as much uptick though you will see some. The simple reason is the IPC difference between Intel gen 4 and 8 isn't actually all that great, especially in games at 4K. This is why people told you would not face a CPU bottleneck and it was true. BF1 is honestly a optimization nightmare. This is the other part of the problem you are having. So yeah throwing more CPU at the problem will help as it can help overpower the bad optimization but because of the fact your facing both threading issues (minor) and IPC issues (minor and arguably common even in new CPUs). Problems is both of those minor issues add up to a more serious offense and as a PC gamer myself I get your frustration. We pay a lot for hardware and expect it to perform.

If it were me I would likely do one of two things (assuming you have completely scrubbed windows and reinstalled just to be sure no software bugs/issues causing your issues). One I would either upgrade right now...or two I would decide what, in my head, is upgrade worthy. For me right now gaming at 4K with an old i7 3930K with a couple of GTX 1080s it is number 2. In my head I need PCIe 4.0 or better to drop and/or my CPU to start to bottleneck. Mainly because, on the PCIe front, SLI on PCIe 8x links for 4K gaming can cause a bottleneck. I have to choose between using one of my PCIe slots or a 5-8% FPS drop. Most games I can just deal with the drop and hold my 60 FPS but there are a few games where making sure my second GTX 1080 gets a full 16x slot (ie I disable my last PCIe last slot and therefore add in card...I guess I could remove it all together but huge pain to reinstall it again) just like the primary GTX 1080 does. I am lucky in that had both GPUs been allocated to PCIe 3.0 8x slots like mainstream CPUs are in SLI the performance hit would be even bigger, closer to 15%. So I hold for now, salivating at the prospect of when PCIe Gen 4 launches and I can buy a new CPU platform for my rig.

So I would think really hard about what you want out of an upgrade. If a few more FPS are good enough or you want to do more game streaming then jumping to a i7 8700k would probably be great. If your looking to buy another CPU platform to last as long as your gen 4 part has/can still, I might wait for the next gen AMD 3000 series parts to drop and/or Intel to finally get 10nm parts out both of which should have PCIe 4.0 as well. Even if PCIe 4.0 is not attached to their consumer launches (we know it is for Eypc 3000 series) the rumored performance uptick sounds outstanding. Big enough if you bought today....in six months time you may be sorry (amd CPU schedule wise). Yet there is always something to be said for buying what is out now in regards to PCs. Something new is always coming. It is a tough call let me know what you end up doing.

edit. To be clear I run PCIe gen 3 not gen 2 via the nvidia PCIe gen 3 patch for SB-E CPUs on capable motherboards like the Rampage IV Extreme

I still need to completely scrub windows and reinstall, I just don't know how to do that. Could you provide a good youtube tutorial link? If this doesn't work i'm going to just upgrade my cpu, i came to this conclusion after seeing many benchmarks of Battlefield V with a GTX 1080ti and i7 8700k combo getting around 100fps @1440p and around 50-60 at 4k. By the way I can't thank you enough for the constant help and replying to all my questions, you are seriously the best, and yes this is a very frustrasting issue because I just want to play Battlefield 1 and V with its gorgeous graphics at 60fps as it is my favorite game series.

These are the youtube videos I have watched showing the GTX 1080ti + I7 8700k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BzPqhMEnME&t=68s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxyjE0cgfGk&t=178s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWjAwEBlikY&t=99s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUhCf6t3RBA&t=576s

 

[huntlong]

Reinstalling windows is easy if you don’t want to save anything you currently have. Just google “windows installation media” and download that from Microsoft. Choose the version of windows you have now. Home, pro, etc. Save this to a USB flash drive. Restart your PC and head into your BIOS. Make the flash drive your default boot option.

Restart your pc. It should come up with the option to repair or install windows. Choose to install. It willask where you would like to install windows. At this point you should see all of your available drives. You can now click each one and format/erase them. Once you have formatted each drive they will be empty. Now pick the drive you wish to install windows on and simply follow the onscreen prompts. When it asks you for an activation code just click that you do not have one. It will activate itself as long as it is installed on the same motherboard you have been using.

I would wait to upgrade your CPU as well. Only a little over a year ago 4 core i5’s were perfect for gaming but now games are quickly becoming more friendly toward high core counts. Wait and see what AMD puts out next and what intels response is. At the moment intel is really a terrible value to me atleast. More and more games are supporting high core counts. I made the mistake of buying into Kaby Lake. Don’t be like me.