GTX 690 - Performance I was not expecting :(

Tigerace2712

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Basically,I wanted a good gaming rig for a long time, so I finally saved up enough to buy a really good one.
Or so I thought
Here are the specs:
CPU - Intel I7 3970Xtreme Ediiton 12 Core 3.57GHZ
32GB Corsair Vengeance RAM
GTX 690 - Multi GPU btw
2TB HDD + 127GB SSD.
Rampage IV Extreme Motherboard
Liquid Cooling + 4 other fans
A 27 inch iiyama FULL HD LED screen.

I was really happy.

I play ARMA 2 without VSync.
50 FPS
On only High Settings.

Was I expecting too much here?
For a GTX 690, performance like that in my opinion is not good news.
I checked, slow mode is off on my Motherboard.
I downloaded PlayClaw 3 to see how my GPU was fairing.
Both GPU's in the 690 NEVER go higher than 50%.
In Arma 2, their peak is at 50% while playing.
BUT IN THE MENU THEY IMMEDIATELY GO TO 100%.
Is this a driver bug?
Is it a CPU Bottleneck, if so, how the **** do I fix it?
How the hell do I fix it.
Should I swap the 690 out for a 680?
Even WoW has regular FPS drops from 60 to about 50. Not much, but its annoying when you know you have Nvidia's most powerful card right next to you . . :(

Someone Help me . . . Please . . .

Ohh, btw.
Total Cost for me? 5000$
Am I Happy?
NO!
 

Tigerace2712

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No no, I tried loads. Thats the weird part. BF3 runs fine.
So do the following: (Most of the time)\
Skyrim
Jagged Alliance - BIA + CF
Saints Row 3 - Often drops to 50-40 FPS
Xcom EU
ETW
Shogun 2 TW
RISEN 2
All on Ultra. Most run fine

Borderlands 2 is a big deal. I saw lots of posters with the 690 and Borderlands 2 together. It runs like a snail. Often I get about 20 FPS
That is unnacceptable for a 690
I turned SLI off for some games. DIDNT DO A DAMN THING.
Actually, it often made it worse.
I think something is stopping the GPU from going higher than 50%
But what?
That is the question.
 

DiaSin

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One thing I have heard suggested for other cards is to go into the bios and switch your PCIe slot back down to PCIe 2.0. Some motherboards have issues running at the full 3.0 speeds. And I am pretty sure that even a GTX 690 will just barely saturate a slot running at 2.0 speeds.

Other than that.. all i can think of is that its a driver issue, either with the GPU drivers or your bios.

I know that one of my friends just switched to Nvidia for the first time and got ABYSMAL performance until he updated his motherboard drivers and switched the PCIe slot down to 2.0 speeds.
 
I doubt this is going to help but in borderlands 2 if you turn physx from low to high or vice versa do you get the same framerate? Its possible for some reason physx is running off your CPU in that game.

Also do you have any other monitors to test out? Your current on is a VA panel and while it won't affect your framerate it could be contributing to that "feeling" of sluggishness. I'm not saying go and buy a monitor but if you have on laying around.
 

DiaSin

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According to most of the benchmarks I read that 3970x actually outperforms an i5 by ALOT. It may be massively overkill and overpriced but it IS far more powerful than an i5. When I referred to the price I was really referring to the performance that comes with that price. It doesnt make that much of a difference for gaming, I agree but for productivity it blows the i5 out of the water. Even still, even an i5 most likely would not be a bottleneck. So I dont think thats his issue. My point is that overclocking an already fantastic CPU most likely would not solve his issue. He would gain a few frames I am sure but the core issue sounds to me like a driver problem or a PCIe gen 3 compatability issue.
 


No more calls, please. We have a winner.


 

Tigerace2712

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I cleaned it out
I did another test in Arma II with Playclaw
Heres what I saw
CPU1 0%
CPU2 20%
CPU3 0%
CPU4 20%
CPU5 0%
CPU6 20%
CPU7 0%
CPU8 20%
CPU9 0%
CPU10 100%
CPU11 0%
Where is CPU12?

Here is the GPU while playing Arma II
GPU 1: 50%
GPU2: 50%

Then I go back to the arma 2 Main Menu

GPU 1: 115%
GPU 2: 117%

WHAT DA FRENCHTOAST IS THAT ALL ABOUT?
Driver bug?
BF3 Runs fine on Ultra
Crysis 2 with DX 11 and High Res textures also runs fine.
Help?
I also noticed, that the fan speed was never really raised over 50% by the driver. I tested by raising it myself to 100% to see if the GPUs went higher then, still they stayed at 50%.
Is it something with the Motherboard, or Nvidia?
How do I update my BIOS on the ISUS Rampage IV Xtreme?
Also, what is antialising?
Do I have to have it on max with the 690?
Or does it only act as help for weaker cards?

-Rick
 

Tigerace2712

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Perhaps, but then explain why WoW drops to 50 FPS often?
Gotcha xD
On a serious note, I need to know why lol
 

Kari

Splendid

you are actually missing cpu#0...
yep, it starts from zero.

antialiasing makes the picture smoother and evens out those jaggedy edges in game graphics, higher levels of AA and AF are hard work for the gpu but should be just a piece of cake for yours...



 

Tigerace2712

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Well
Two new questions appeared:
Where dafuq is CPU 0
and How come the 690 struggles with Antialising? In the NVid control panel, I can set it manually to as high as 64x CSAA Whatever that is
 

Kari

Splendid

lol dont know where it went.. and 64x is really really high, didnt know anything went that high, usually at least the traditional forms of AA and AF only went up to 16x and 8x, CSAA is propably more sophisticated and 64x might be way too much for anything these days

edit thou it really should make the cards sweat at 99% load... what kind of vram usage are you getting, maybe that CSAA is eating up all the vram causing it to swap to the main system ram and hampering performance..
 


Not sure where cpu 0 is but anyhow using 64x CSAA is completely insane. Especially for any new titles. Just don't even try it, leave it at 4/8x and there you go.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/anti-aliasing-nvidia-geforce-amd-radeon,2868-4.html

I personally can't tell the difference between 4x and 8x when I am in game.
 


Wait so your saying that if a game isn't optimized to Xfire/SLi you can still get 99%/99% gpu usage (essentially making it a 200% scaling)? And I am talking about without increasing AA/AF/etc to unrealistic levels (64x for example)

If a game hits Vsync cap its not going to use 100%, thats part of the reason is there.
 



ohhh, I see what your saying. Yeah you're right about the usage =/= scaling. Jumped down your throat for no reason, sorry.
 

Tigerace2712

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Perhaps, but the specs wern't my choice. You see, the truth is, this PC was a gift for Christmas. I told my Dad, (he was the one going to buy it), to get the AlienWare Aurora from Dell with the specs I presented. He however bought it from Gamepc.nl and chose all the expensive things.

So maybe our ignorance resulted in this, but, is there a way to fix it?
-Rick
 

dusR

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Feb 3, 2013
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i dont know what is the problem maybe your power supply isnt enough to hold the card at its maximum performance, you should ask some professional to help since i have this card and i have never experienced this low performance in those games. i didnt try to run arma 2 personaly but with this card run such a game on 50-60 fps just sounds unreal, i tried running bf3 and crysis 2/3 and some other games and i can tell the performance of this card is imaginary its just pure beast!! i got in bf3 ulta highest settings 150-170 in average sometimes even 230 fps, i get in crysis 2 max settings + high res 4k textures pack and i get 350 fps in average sometimes in can get even 400+ fps.
personaly i think that buying this card was the smartest thing i ever did!!!


btw my rig is : i7 2700k 3.5-3.8ghz with watercolling, the beast Gigabyte gtx690 4gb, 4x4 GB gskill memory, 1.5TB WD caviar black HDD, somekind 320GB HDD, and OCZ Vertex 3 max iop edition 120GB ssd for windows and some programs that i need to run faster then ussual such as visual studio for development etc..., my PSU is Thermaltake TR2 the new one 800W.