GTX 970, faulty or PSU/MOBO issue?

thespr

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Jun 15, 2015
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I just bought a lot of new parts for a new build because my current one has been having a lot of issues ever since I put my new GTX 970 in it.

One guy offered the suggestion that there's a possibility that in games that are not very taxing (League of Legends, Dota 2, sometimes CSGO), the 970 struggles to understand whether it should be in full 3D Clock mode or just power down to the idle setting, therefore causing FPS decreases and other issues.

If that is not possible, would a restriction of power from a faulty power supply or motherboard result in unstable performance/fps, monitors turning black for ~15s at a time then snapping back, black graphical artifacting, etc. ?

My 970 ran Witcher 3 and GTA V very well with little hiccups, but ran League of Legends, Dota 2, and CSGO at incredibly subpar performance for the card's value (ran them WORSE than my 3-year old GTX 660). Any explanation for that?

I ran Prime95 and my CPU temps were fine under 100% load, ran Furmark and I had a constant 60+ fps with no stuttering and all that, but when I ran 3DMark 11 I got the following God awful scores:

Graphics Score: 5097
Physics Score: 6936
Total Score: 6332
GT1: 26.37
GT2: 25.23
GT3: 26.42
GT4: 15.37
PT: 22.02
CT: 29.45 (all in frames per second)

I asked around and for a GTX 970 those are absolutely terrible scores, but like I said I ran Witcher 3/GTA V on all ultra/some high settings, 1920x1080 with little to no problems so I have no clue if my card is faulty, or if it was in fact just a motherboard/power issue.

Edit: Forgot to mention my processor is a ~3 year old i5-3570k 3.4GHz
 


Note I ran 3DMark 11 and not Firestrike, just 4 random ass graphics tests.

i5-3570k 3.4GHz
600W shit ass Corsair PSU that is 3+ years old
Very bad gigabyte-b75m-d3h motherboard
8GB RipJaw 1600MHz RAM

If you can point me to a place where I can run a free Firestrike test I'll take that.
 


http://www.filehorse.com/download-3dmark/
 


Downloading it now but the website is throttling my download speed so might take like an hour.

Will run it and post results immediately.
 


Yup, that is what I was looking for...your CPU has something messed up. You are correct as the Boost should be 3.8GHz. So your system is slowing down when getting heavier work loads while raising temps.

Have you installed all the correct drivers and Windows Updates? Do you have the latest BIOS for your MB?
 


I reinstalled Windows just 2 days ago due to all the issues I was facing, and I upgraded my BIOS to what I'm assuming is the most recent BIOS update in order for my card to even work (wouldn't even display anything to my monitors until I upgraded the BIOS, then it worked).

I don't have all the Windows Updates but there are like over 100+ critical ones I need to update but whenever I try to, they fail to install properly (they're all just security upgrades, nothing that I think would affect a processor like this).

It's fucking weird that my turbo/stock are flipped.
 


No I don't, and I'm kind of afraid to do that considering my GPU didn't even work with my MOBO until I upgraded my BIOS in the first place. I mean like I mentioned, I bought all new parts to my PC, new CPU, MOBO, PSU, case, essentially just taking my 970, RAM, and drives and swapping them into a new build, but I'd still like to figure out what the fuck had me so stressed this past week (and to fix it so I can have it as a backup).

I checked Coretemp and sure enough, I'm running in turbo at all times. No wonder my temps increased noticeably ..

Also, just checked AGAIN and my voltage and frequencies are spiking up and down for no reason at all..

It keeps spiking between this: http://prntscr.com/7hp9lc

and turbo'd 3.8GHz frequency: http://prntscr.com/7hp9oo

It's literally just constantly bouncing between these two frequencies/voltages, sometimes hitting 1.8GHz in between.
 


Yeah, maybe the newest BIOS update I did fucked it up? Although I was having the graphical artifacts, monitor shutting off for 15s at a time, stuttering/shaking in games before I even bought my GTX 970, it's why I bought it in the first place .. thought my 660 was fucked up.

I guess ultimately it's fine since I'm doing a re-build but it's nice to know my GTX 970 isn't faulty.

Hell lately I've been having issues just having two streams open (one on my left monitor skyrockets my temps and makes my PC noticeably slower).

You think the CPU is fine, just probably a fucked up MOBO?
 


Alright thanks man. Luckily I'm just doing a rebuild but it's a lot of weight lifted knowing my GPU is fine and it's just my shitty ass motherboard (which was awful to begin with, literally everyone hates it from what I've seen lately LOL).