Problems with gtx 970

[super sulu]

Hi I have never posted in these forms before so please be lenient with my lack of knowledge. I have a zotac gtx 970 with an FX 8320 overclocked to 3.8ghz. I am getting really bad frame rates in all games that i play. For example in mirrors edge my fps never stays at 60 for longer than 3-5 seconds and it is constantly plummeting to 20's and 30's. I have a corsair 600w pus that is new so I don't think that is the problem. I have reinstalled all drivers and turned off physics in mirror edge. I have also monitored my temps while playing and my gpu temps never go past 50 or 60. My cpu temps never go past 70. Just wondering if you think something is wrong with one of my components. thanks



p.s my 3d 11 mark score is 8795 at 720p and my performance got worse when i tried to overclock either my CPU or GPU

 

[Vitric9]

Problems, what problems. that is about right,

 

[photonboy]

No, he's got a problem all right.

There's no way Mirror's Edge should be that low (unless he's running 4K resolution).

*My guess is the GPU is throttling down for some reason. To test this use afterburner or similar to monitor GPU frequency. If it's staying near the BOOST speed (i.e. 1200MHz or whatever it's set to) then you're okay. If you're dropping a lot lower you've got a problem with either:

a) GPU being throttled, or
b) CPU being throttled.

You should also run:
a) MEMTEST www.memtest.org for a full pass, and
b) a suitable CPU test while monitoring temperature and frequency (Prime95 is too hot for real-world but if it's working then you've nothing to worry about. Run that while monitoring Task Manager-> Processes... show all graphs and all EIGHT should show near 100% use. The frequency should be near 3.8GHz)

 

[photonboy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms8gdpuezas

FX-8350 + R9-270X

Not apples to apples as he MAY be capped with VSYNC ( but still didn't drop below 60FPS) and seems to be running at 1440x900 but then it's a similar CPU and much WEAKER GPU.

PhysX I assume is off as well.

I didn't bother to run a benchmark as I have an i7-3770K + GTX680 but I can say for certain there's no way his performance should be as low as he describes (assuming 1920x1080).

 

[photonboy]

Update:
I think you need to compare more games or benchmarks to people with nearly identical setups.

 

[super sulu]

Hi thanks for your answers i did another full sweep of my drivers and just so you know on load my gpu is about 60 max and my cpu is about 60-65 max 40 idle

 

[super sulu]

Whats strange is that as an experiment i ran mirrors edge at the lowest settings and made the resolution 800x600 but it still dropped in the exact same places and it actually preformed worse at this lower resolution

 

[super sulu]

Just did a test on afterburner like you said and everything is normal except for the gnu usage it is constantly getting high and then plummeting while i am playing

 

[photonboy]

I'm rather stuck for helping, though if you have a SPARE DRIVE you can try this:

1. Register, download, and burn image of Windows 10 64-bit Preview to USB stick or DVD.

2. Shut down and have only the current Windows drive and new drive attached.

3. Boot up with W10 Preview install disc attached (will need to change BOOT ORDER in some cases so install media is first)

4. Install Windows 10 to the NEW drive. Delete any existing partitions if it's not new. *CAREFUL not to choose the other drive though it should be obvious.

5. *You should now have a DUAL BOOT window appear to which you can change the default OS to start.

6. Open Windows 10 and install the latest NVidia drivers. Don't install anything else unless needed right now.

7. *You can actually install STEAM (which will ask you to register the "new machine" through e-mail) then you can LINK to the Steam game folder on the other drive, though you'll have no SAVE files.

So no need to install games to test, though I would install a few benchmarks to COMPARE to your other OS installation.

8. COMPARE games, benchmarks.

Summary:
This is really about seeing if it's a SOFTWARE issue. Windows 10 is plenty stable for this, and the latest NVidia drivers are working fine on all the games (50+) I've tried so far.

This way you not only don't have to reinstall Windows on the other drive but you can also TEST the new Windows 10 at your convenience.

(You can also UPGRADE your W7/8 solution with the Preview now or RTM version later at end July. Many people prefer clean installs but my advice if that seems a big hassle is to make a BACKUP IMAGE using Acronis True Image Free or similar program then Upgrade to Windows 10. If you do upgrade REMOVE the existing preview version on the other drive. You can ask about that if it's an issue.)

 

[super sulu]

Thanks so much i will try it

 

[super sulu]

THANK YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH

 

[Vitric9]

for what it's worth your Firestrike score is on the mark, give or take a few points.

 

[super sulu]

Thanks so much photonboy I did what you said and now i can play it on max without dipping bellow 62 fps once!!!!