GTX970 Drastically Underperforming

[KINGARTHR]

I've been noticing terrible lag in some of the games I play (most noticeably H1Z1 and Battlefield 1) and I've deduced that it's my Nvidia graphics card. I went to test it on www.userbenchmark.com and it told me that it was running at the 9th percentile. I need help because I don't know what's wrong or how to fix it. Thanks.

Link to benchmark test:
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/2862419

PC Specs:
Processor: Intel Core i5-6600 CPU @ 3.30GHz
RAM: 8.00 GB
Power supply: 430w
GPU: GTX 970 4GB
OS: Windows 10 Home
System type: 64-bit OS, x64-based processor

If there's any troubleshooting I need to do or information I forgot to give, please tell me. Thank you.

 

[imrazor]

Is this a recent development or have you had this problem since you got the 970? Your PSU seems a little weak for a 970 - minimum recommended PSU is 500w. What make and model is it? Have you checked your temps with HWMONITOR or Speedfan?

 

[KINGARTHR]

Is this a recent development or have you had this problem since you got the 970? Your PSU seems a little weak for a 970 - minimum recommended PSU is 500w. What make and model is it? Have you checked your temps with HWMONITOR or Speedfan?

Hi, thanks. I can't tell if it is recent or not- I think it has been happening since I got this card last May, but I'm not positive. Yes, I know the power supply is a bit weak but it works; it's never shut down on me yet or anything. My PSU is EVGA and I use GPUz and CoreTemp to check on my temperatures, everything there is fine. Again, thanks a lot for helping.

 

[imrazor]

Thing is the system may not reboot or crash, but if your card isn't getting enough power it'll throttle back on the GPU speed. This will reduce performance, sometimes drastically. Sometimes you can get away with a PSU below min spc, but typically only if it's a quality model. That's why I was asking what make and model your power supply is.

EDIT: Actually, what clock speed is GPU-Z telling you that your GPU core and memory are running at? You need to check while running a game.

 

[imrazor]

I took another look at your benchmark scores, and noticed a comment that you had high cpu usage from background processes. This can also reduce your performance. You'll need to look in Task Manager and turn off some or all of your startup items, or use something like Razer Cortex to shut down your background processes.

 

[KINGARTHR]

Thing is the system may not reboot or crash, but if your card isn't getting enough power it'll throttle back on the GPU speed. This will reduce performance, sometimes drastically. Sometimes you can get away with a PSU below min spc, but typically only if it's a quality model. That's why I was asking what make and model your power supply is.

EDIT: Actually, what clock speed is GPU-Z telling you that your GPU core and memory running at?

Yeah, I'm aware that a PSU could affect my GPU performance. [strike] Also I just realized that my temperature is running unusually high. It's at 79-80 degrees Celsius. Usually It runs much, much lower. I'm willing to bet that's the problem... How could I fix this?[/strike] I just realized I had overwatch open in the background while doing these tests... My idle GPU temperature is 47 degrees which is still relatively high, right? Anyway, here's the clock speeds:

GPU Core Clock: [strike]1215.0 MHz[/strike] 202.5 MHz
GPU Memory Clock: [strike]1752.8 MHz[/strike] 162.0 MHz

EDIT: Okay. I used to use Razor Cortex but it wouldn't hurt to re-download it.

 

[imrazor]

Did you have overwatch running when you did the original benchmarks at userbenchmark.com?

Actually, I wanted to see the core/memory clocks while you were running a game to make sure your card wasn't throttling. The core clock looks good, but I'm a little uncertain about the memory clock. It should be running at 7GHz, but the discrepancy may just be due to GPU-Z not taking into account the quad data rate.

Given those (normal) clocks I'm starting to think you've got something running in the background causing your stuttering. Try running Razer Cortex, then try benchmarking your system again. If it's still stuttering, you might want to try looking at Task Manager while gaming to see if something is hitting your CPU.

And it still would help to know what make and model of power supply you have.

 

[KINGARTHR]

Did you have overwatch running when you did the original benchmarks at userbenchmark.com?

Actually, I wanted to see the core/memory clocks while you were running a game to make sure your card wasn't throttling. The core clock looks good, but I'm a little uncertain about the memory clock. It should be running at 7GHz, but the discrepancy may just be due to GPU-Z not taking into account the quad data rate.

Given those (normal) clocks I'm starting to think you've got something running in the background causing your stuttering. Try running Razer Cortex, then try benchmarking your system again. If it's still stuttering, you might want to try looking at Task Manager while gaming to see if something is hitting your CPU.

And it still would help to know what make and model of power supply you have.

Thanks. No games were running when I did the benchmarks at userbenchmark.com. I'll get back to you once I've downloaded Razer Cortex. How would I see what make and model my PSU is? Thanks so much

 

[imrazor]

You'll probably have to open up your case and take a look at it. There should be a label with the manufacturer on it, as well as a model number. Might be a good idea to take a picture of it so we can see how many amps you've got.

If it's a supercheap, no-name model you might not be able to find a manufacturer. But that'll tell us that you have a subpar unit.

 

[Vellinious]

Thing is the system may not reboot or crash, but if your card isn't getting enough power it'll throttle back on the GPU speed. This will reduce performance, sometimes drastically. Sometimes you can get away with a PSU below min spc, but typically only if it's a quality model. That's why I was asking what make and model your power supply is.

EDIT: Actually, what clock speed is GPU-Z telling you that your GPU core and memory running at?

Yeah, I'm aware that a PSU could affect my GPU performance. [strike] Also I just realized that my temperature is running unusually high. It's at 79-80 degrees Celsius. Usually It runs much, much lower. I'm willing to bet that's the problem... How could I fix this?[/strike] I just realized I had overwatch open in the background while doing these tests... My idle GPU temperature is 47 degrees which is still relatively high, right? Anyway, here's the clock speeds:

GPU Core Clock: [strike]1215.0 MHz[/strike] 202.5 MHz
GPU Memory Clock: [strike]1752.8 MHz[/strike] 162.0 MHz

EDIT: Okay. I used to use Razor Cortex but it wouldn't hurt to re-download it.

Your GPU core is maxing out at 202MHz? Under load?

 

[imrazor]

His clocks were hitting 1215 when he had Overwatch running. If I'm reading his comments correctly, 202MHz is his clock speed at idle.

 

[KINGARTHR]

His clocks were hitting 1215 when he had Overwatch running. If I'm reading his comments correctly, 202MHz is his clock speed at idle.

Yes, that's correct. The only thing I see on my PSU is EVGA 430w and 80Plus. I don't see any model number. Just to make sure, you want me to re-do the first benchmark test I did with razer running?

 

[imrazor]

That's right, try userbenchmark with Cortex running. I'm curious to see if you get this note on your benchmark again:

Sub-optimal background CPU (19%). High background CPU reduces benchmark accuracy. Find active processes with windows task manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC).

It would also be interesting to see what your results are from a more familiar benchmark, like 3DMark Fire Strike.

 

[razamatraz]

I do notice that you are running one of the rare boards that uses DDR3 RAM with a Skylake processor. It shouldn't be what's holding you back but it's also fairly slow DDR3.

The PSU should be fine for a 970 (as long as it's a good quality 430W and not one that is actually a 300 with a 430 sticker on it).

Background tasks seem high. Try turning off Antivirus and windows defender for a game or two and see if it improves.

Also, which GTX 970? Brand, model/fan type etc.
What case is it in?
How's your cooling?
Load Temps?
PSU brand/model?
do you notice issues in any other games or programs?

 

[KINGARTHR]

I do notice that you are running one of the rare boards that uses DDR3 RAM with a Skylake processor. It shouldn't be what's holding you back but it's also fairly slow DDR3.

The PSU should be fine for a 970 (as long as it's a good quality 430W and not one that is actually a 300 with a 430 sticker on it).

Background tasks seem high. Try turning off Antivirus and windows defender for a game or two and see if it improves.

Also, which GTX 970? Brand, model/fan type etc.
What case is it in?
How's your cooling?
Load Temps?
PSU brand/model?
do you notice issues in any other games or programs?

I have a PNY GeForce GTX 970 4GB Rev 2. My CPU is cool and my 2 case fans and my case vents do a good job at keeping the case really cool. I don't do anything for cooling for my graphics card specifically though. My PSU is EVGA 430w, I'm not sure what model though. Most other high-end games I play like Just Cause 3 etc. struggle, though I feel like my computer should be able to handle them.

 

[KINGARTHR]

That's right, try userbenchmark with Cortex running. I'm curious to see if you get this note on your benchmark again:

Sub-optimal background CPU (19%). High background CPU reduces benchmark accuracy. Find active processes with windows task manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC).

It would also be interesting to see what your results are from a more familiar benchmark, like 3DMark Fire Strike.

With Razer Cortex running:
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/2905260

 

[imrazor]

Alright, it still says you have 8% CPU utilization in the background which is better but not ideal. If you try running one of your games with Cortex enabled, do you see an improvement in FPS and/or a reduction in stuttering?

I'm also having a little trouble interpreting the results from userbenchmark.com. Can you try running 3DMark? It's a free download from Steam, or right here: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/3dmark.html

 

[imrazor]

Now that I think about it, the best tool to analyze this may be Task Manager. With all your programs closed, open Task Manager (hit CTRL-SHIFT-ESC) and click on the Processes tab. Then click on the CPU column header. This will sort your apps, processes and services by CPU usage. What rises to the top when you sort by CPU utilization? Is one process consistently at the top? How much CPU usage does it consume?

 

[razamatraz]

Well, your latest run puts you at 24th percentile for the 970 and 38th percentile for the 6600. That's not really bad. It just means that 75% of other GTX 970s are benching faster and 62% of 6600s are benching faster. You have to keep in mind that a lot of people submitting to user bench are overclockers so if you are not overclocking you can't expect to beat the average.

The normal curve for 970s is really tight so at most being 24th percentile means you are 5% slower than average for a 970.

I think this can probably all be explained by the DDR3 RAM your board uses unfortunately. It's DDR3 1600 C10 which is a fair amount slower than DDR4-2133 C15 which is the starting point for most non-K Skylakes, not a big deal in most cases but in games where textures are being swapped between RAM and VRAM it can put you below the average for speed. It shouldn't make a big difference but it can make this much difference.

Your components seem good, in my opinion this might just be how your system performs. BF1, Just Cause 3 and H1Z1 are all known to have performance hits in some areas with i5 processors.

Now to be sure there isn't a problem we need to see actual frame times from the games themselves. You can use Rivatuner to log frame rate and frame times and pick out the stutters etc in game. If it is giving you bad 1% lows below 30FPS then you have a problem.

This can be a fairly complicated setup; you need MSI afterburner with Rivatuner Statistics server installed, then you need to select FPS and Frametime from the monitoring setup and setup logging to file. Then you pretty much need to take the file it generates and put it into Excel and run statistical analysis on it to see where the average, 1 percentile, 0.1 percentile lows etc. are on FPS. FRAPS can do this too, although I don't think the free version logs.