GTX 970 severe throttling voltage + clock :(

[Josef_]

Hello everyone,

Depending on load, my MSI GTX 970 Gaming significantly throttles the core clock as well as voltage.

When I run any game or any other stresstest than Furmark, my card hits its maximum potential and remains utterly stable, even at 1500+ core. Unigine Heaven remains stable at max OC values and never drops, even after a 3 hour run.

When I run Furmark, and only then, my card lowers voltage from 1234mV to a whopping 1060mV (wtf?!). The clock is lowered significantly as well. Overclocking core does increase the max clock but it never reaches "boost speed". I feel like my PSU might be the problem; it's 400 watt but high quality and 36A double 12rail, again, it handles Heaven at max settings at max OC for hours on end).

http://imgur.com/a/6Wdjv (top pic is good, bottom pic is bad)

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

On your taskbar, is the green icon "97" showing your GPU usage? You can download GPU-Z and see what the Perfcap Reason is.
Okay, I've just noticed that it's dropping the clocks when the power % goes up to 112%, this is because your Power Limit is set to 110% and your card is needing more, which cannot be done on the stock BIOS (Changing the GPU BIOS will invalidate your warranty). Try taking the Memory Overclock off completely and see if it still power throttles, it shouldn't do.

 

[Josef_]

Thanks for pitching in. I have disabled all overclocking and left the power limit and voltage at max. The voltage is now *slightly* higher, but still way below the 1.2+ that it should be. (see screenshot)

Heaven benchmark score topped at 1510 (max settings, 1080p), which is decent I guess.

http://i.imgur.com/UwaPpJM.png (stock settings, besides power limit + voltage)

P.s.: I have read somewhere that Furmark bricked a lot of GPU's in the past and Nvidia has adjusted its drivers accordingly. Seems like a tall tale but it would explain everything.

 

[Josef_]

*Update*:

I have just noticed that it does happen with other benchmarks as well, depending on how extreme the stress is on the GPU.

The "furry" benchmarks all throttle the voltage and core clocks. The most throttling still happens only with Furmark, by far. Some examples:

http://i.imgur.com/C3rdoF7.png non furry (+171 clock (1512 effective), 1243 voltage, remains stable)

http://i.imgur.com/TdyzUI5.png FURRY (+171 clock (1366 effective), 1068 voltage, remains stable)

http://i.imgur.com/7b7lCHz.png non furry (+171 clock (1512 effective) 1243 voltage, remains stable)

I am absolutely baffled by the inconsistencies.

*It seems that the power draw limit is almost reached when doing "furry" benchmarks, hence the throttling. But still, 105%-108% max power draw is within limits..*

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

This is a strange one, would you mind downloading the 3DMark Demo from steam and running that? I'd like to see your graphs and compare them to mine to see if we can notice anything.
Edit: I've just noticed that as with my card, your card is going over 63c which results in some sort of minor throttling. Try taking the side panel off or ramp up the GPU fans to get the temp to stay under 60c to see if it stops dropping clocks.

 

[Josef_]

I've tried setting fan speed at 100% and it cooled down to a cool 50 degrees at load, no change. Temp is not the problem. I'm going to replace my PSU later this month and see what it does. If there's no change, I'll upload the graphs. The one consistency is that when it throttles, the power limit is reached, as can be seen on the graphs on my screenshots. Surely that is the issue, not so sure a new PSU will fix that, though.

Thanks!

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

I've tried setting fan speed at 100% and it cooled down to a cool 50 degrees at load, no change. Temp is not the problem. I'm going to replace my PSU later this month and see what it does. If there's no change, I'll upload the graphs. The one consistency is that when it throttles, the power limit is reached, as can be seen on the graphs on my screenshots. Surely that is the issue, not so sure a new PSU will fix that, though.

Thanks!

Does it still do it at stock/underclocked?

 

[Josef_]

I've tried setting fan speed at 100% and it cooled down to a cool 50 degrees at load, no change. Temp is not the problem. I'm going to replace my PSU later this month and see what it does. If there's no change, I'll upload the graphs. The one consistency is that when it throttles, the power limit is reached, as can be seen on the graphs on my screenshots. Surely that is the issue, not so sure a new PSU will fix that, though.

Thanks!

Does it still do it at stock/underclocked?

Yes, stock, underclocked and OC. The lower I clock it, the less throttling on the voltage but it never reaches normal voltage values (again, only in "furry" benchmarks with 100% or higher power load).

When OC'd the core clock does stay higher than stock when throttling, it just simply never reaches "boost" clock.

Getting great scores with Heaven, consistently, so it seems to be a non-issue in real life performance. Still, annoying and odd.

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

I've tried setting fan speed at 100% and it cooled down to a cool 50 degrees at load, no change. Temp is not the problem. I'm going to replace my PSU later this month and see what it does. If there's no change, I'll upload the graphs. The one consistency is that when it throttles, the power limit is reached, as can be seen on the graphs on my screenshots. Surely that is the issue, not so sure a new PSU will fix that, though.

Thanks!

Does it still do it at stock/underclocked?

Yes, stock, underclocked and OC. Then lower I clock it, the less throttling on the voltage but it never reaches normal voltage (again, only in "furry" benchmarks with 100% or higher power load).

When OC'd the core clock does stay higher than stock when throttling, it just simply never reaches "boost" clock.

Getting great scores with Heaven, consistently, so it seems to be a non-issue in real life performance. Still, annoying and odd.

That's strange, my clocks only ever drop if I go over 63c or go above 1495Mhz, where it hits the power limit.

 

[Josef_]

Even when doing the furry doughnut benchmark? (B) GPU core burner v2 (Furry Donut) in Kombustor)

That is strange indeed. I genuinely hope replacing my PSU will change things, perhaps it's the lower level security measures kicking in due to insufficient (stable) voltage from PSU.

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

Even when doing the furry doughnut benchmark? (B) GPU core burner v2 (Furry Donut) in Kombustor)

That is strange indeed. I genuinely hope replacing my PSU will change things, perhaps it's the lower level security measures kicking in due to insufficient (stable) voltage from PSU.

I haven't done it for a long time but I don't think it downclocked even on that and it's a possibility but I'd say it was unlikely.