GTX 970 Vastly under performing, please help!

[Toastatic]

I've had this GTX 970 for less than a year and ever since I installed it and put in up to date drivers I've only gotten 20-40 frames in every game I play, literally every game, Diablo 3 I get 20-30 frames, Battlefield 4 I get 15-30 frames (With some drops to 0), GTA 5 I get 10-20 frames (With drops to 0), Hawken I get 20-30 frames, Team Fortress 2 I get 30-40 frames, counter-strike GO I get 15-30 frames (with some drops to 5).

I've uninstalled/reinstalled all my drivers to my knowledge, I've reseated the GPU in case it wasn't registering at x16, and it was, I've gone into my Nvidia control panel and turned of my global Vsync setting, made no change/difference, I changed the Nvidia control panel settings for the games themselves, no change, I switched to a single monitor instead of two, no change, I've installed different drivers, no change, I've gone to ultra graphics, it stays the same FPS with maybe a 3-5 frame difference (which I found weird), I switched to the lowest possible graphics settings and again, it stayed the same FPS with maybe a 3-5 frame difference (Also weird)

I ran tests on my CPU and even under 99% load, it stays at a max of 25 deg C (I have it water cooled but I didn't think it would make THAT much of a difference because nothing is over clocked)

No matter what I do, idle or gaming, My GPU stays at 61-62 degrees and doesn't change.

System spec -
GPU - 4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (EVGA)
CPU - Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.00GHz Haswell 22nm Technology
RAM - 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard - MSI Z97-G45 GAMING (MS-7821) (SOCKET 0)
Storage - 2x 238GB Crucial_CT256MX100SSD1 (SSD)
Optical Drive - ATAPI iHAS124 E
Audio - Corsair Gaming H2100 Headset
OS - Windows 8.1 64-bit

 

[Jayhawker32]

Hmm download either MSI Afterburner or EVGA PrecisionX. It's possible you're getting power limits based on your temps. Once you download it tell me what your temp limits are set to which is probably affecting your power limit as well.

 

[Toastatic]

Hmm download either MSI Afterburner or EVGA PrecisionX. It's possible you're getting power limits based on your temps. Once you download it tell me what your temp limits are set to which is probably affecting your power limit as well.

https://gyazo.com/75774f3a3a96185ab0d46636147098f6 That's what I have, I don't fully know where to get my limits/affects or anything but that's what it is right now

https://gyazo.com/e165ff5b2f3746a1c0bc9dea1beb0cd6 This is the other tab of the PrecisionX

 

[Jayhawker32]

Hmm download either MSI Afterburner or EVGA PrecisionX. It's possible you're getting power limits based on your temps. Once you download it tell me what your temp limits are set to which is probably affecting your power limit as well.

https://gyazo.com/75774f3a3a96185ab0d46636147098f6 That's what I have, I don't fully know where to get my limits/affects or anything but that's what it is right now

https://gyazo.com/e165ff5b2f3746a1c0bc9dea1beb0cd6 This is the other tab of the PrecisionX

I know you said that your temps don't go above like 60 but my guess would be that you're hitting close to your temp max so your cards power is getting dialed back to prevent overheating therefore limiting performance. I would do a custom fan curves to bring your idle temps down some and your load temps and see if that helps framerate.

 

[Toastatic]

Hmm download either MSI Afterburner or EVGA PrecisionX. It's possible you're getting power limits based on your temps. Once you download it tell me what your temp limits are set to which is probably affecting your power limit as well.

https://gyazo.com/75774f3a3a96185ab0d46636147098f6 That's what I have, I don't fully know where to get my limits/affects or anything but that's what it is right now

UPDATE: Okay, average temp with fan curve under load in game (Medium graphics saddly) is 35-40 for temp and 30-40 for frames, was 20-30 with good frames, now it's more stable with 10-15 frame increase, still quite a bit low

UPDATE: Nothing significant, but more stable frame rate, now running battlefield 4, medium settings at 30-35 frames solid. no major drops yet
https://gyazo.com/e165ff5b2f3746a1c0bc9dea1beb0cd6 This is the other tab of the PrecisionX

I know you said that your temps don't go above like 60 but my guess would be that you're hitting close to your temp max so your cards power is getting dialed back to prevent overheating therefore limiting performance. I would do a custom fan curves to bring your idle temps down some and your load temps and see if that helps framerate.

Okay, I've applied a fan curve, launching battlefield 4 to test (Base frames before were 15-20 avg, 30-40 high) Once I turned the fan curve on, the fans actually ramped up/turned on and now my average temp is 30, going to test it under load

Update: After playing a match or two on battlefield, My temp didn't go above 40, stayed 35 average and I got a 10 fps boost with more stability, now on medium settings, it's running 30-40 frames average with very few drops to 20 for two games, still extremely low, especially for medium settings

 

[technoholic]

can you tell your PSU specs? are you sure the power pins (from your PSU) are connected to your GPU? can you test your computer with another GPU (i.e maybe borrow your friends GPU for a short time)? Did you upgrade/change your GPU last year or did you build your computer with this GPU?

 

[Toastatic]

can you tell your PSU specs? are you sure the power pins (from your PSU) are connected to your GPU? can you test your computer with another GPU (i.e maybe borrow your friends GPU for a short time)? Did you upgrade/change your GPU last year or did you build your computer with this GPU?

I have no one to test this with, no one I know even has a 970. In the description I put the specs but here they are updated a bit

System spec -
GPU - 4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (EVGA)
CPU - Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.00GHz Haswell 22nm Technology
RAM - 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard - MSI Z97-G45 GAMING (MS-7821) (SOCKET 0)
Storage - 2x 238GB Crucial_CT256MX100SSD1 (SSD)
Optical Drive - ATAPI iHAS124 E
Audio - Corsair Gaming H2100 Headset
OS - Windows 10 64-bit

I have uninstalled all drivers and reinstalled them, I have reformatted my PC, I've swapped PCI slots, I've moved my RAM around, I've changed monitors, I've even done bench marking now, my score was 5709, During the physics test I got 6 fps, on two parts of the test I got over 80 and over 100fps, the other two parts I received bellow 40, I monitored my GPU usage and found that when I was getting 80-100+ frames, it was running at 99% usage, when I play games, it runs at 20-30% usage, I feel like that has something to do with it because no matter what, it will not go above 20-30% GPU usage when I'm playing games, even when I have multiple games launched

 

[Jayhawker32]

can you tell your PSU specs? are you sure the power pins (from your PSU) are connected to your GPU? can you test your computer with another GPU (i.e maybe borrow your friends GPU for a short time)? Did you upgrade/change your GPU last year or did you build your computer with this GPU?

I have no one to test this with, no one I know even has a 970. In the description I put the specs but here they are updated a bit

System spec -
GPU - 4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (EVGA)
CPU - Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.00GHz Haswell 22nm Technology
RAM - 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard - MSI Z97-G45 GAMING (MS-7821) (SOCKET 0)
Storage - 2x 238GB Crucial_CT256MX100SSD1 (SSD)
Optical Drive - ATAPI iHAS124 E
Audio - Corsair Gaming H2100 Headset
OS - Windows 10 64-bit

I have uninstalled all drivers and reinstalled them, I have reformatted my PC, I've swapped PCI slots, I've moved my RAM around, I've changed monitors, I've even done bench marking now, my score was 5709, During the physics test I got 6 fps, on two parts of the test I got over 80 and over 100fps, the other two parts I received bellow 40, I monitored my GPU usage and found that when I was getting 80-100+ frames, it was running at 99% usage, when I play games, it runs at 20-30% usage, I feel like that has something to do with it because no matter what, it will not go above 20-30% GPU usage when I'm playing games, even when I have multiple games launched

That was actually going to be my next question because going back through your comments something seemed off for how low your temps were. What benchmark did you use? 3DMark? If you're getting that low for your physics test there might be something wrong with your CPU and not utilizing your GPU properly. Another tool that can help with monitoring is GPU-Z and CPU-Z. Have you benchmarked or stress tested your CPU only?

 

[Toastatic]

That was actually going to be my next question because going back through your comments something seemed off for how low your temps were. What benchmark did you use? 3DMark? If you're getting that low for your physics test there might be something wrong with your CPU and not utilizing your GPU properly. Another tool that can help with monitoring is GPU-Z and CPU-Z. Have you benchmarked or stress tested your CPU only?

Okay, so here are the CPU Z bench marks for my CPU, The first GIF link is the stress test, the second is the Bench test

https://gyazo.com/8dd613daab4e04eb742e19ecf17de991
https://gyazo.com/a8c30267bba4b4ae2cc7b326162b465c

They both are insanely bellow the average of a 4790k i7

This is a GIF of me just watching youtube and the CPU main page on the CPU Z app

https://gyazo.com/ce17db98a8b49d4baaeeea130c51e049

 

[Jayhawker32]

That was actually going to be my next question because going back through your comments something seemed off for how low your temps were. What benchmark did you use? 3DMark? If you're getting that low for your physics test there might be something wrong with your CPU and not utilizing your GPU properly. Another tool that can help with monitoring is GPU-Z and CPU-Z. Have you benchmarked or stress tested your CPU only?

Okay, so here are the CPU Z bench marks for my CPU, The first GIF link is the stress test, the second is the Bench test

https://gyazo.com/8dd613daab4e04eb742e19ecf17de991
https://gyazo.com/a8c30267bba4b4ae2cc7b326162b465c

They both are insanely bellow the average of a 4790k i7

This is a GIF of me just watching youtube and the CPU main page on the CPU Z app

https://gyazo.com/ce17db98a8b49d4baaeeea130c51e049

To be honest with you were starting to venture past my capability to give you the best info. I guess the way I see it is you have a couple of options. 1.) you can overclock your i7-4790K to see if that improves your issue. Especially with the load temps you're getting, why not overclock it because that's what water cooled systems are for anyway. 2.) you can RMA your CPU and see if that fixes it. The second option is going to take a bit more time and you may be without a computer for a week or so.