[SOLVED] Stubborn stutter issue with RTX 3070 - please help

[DeclanSB]

Hi everyone,

After months on backorder, I recently managed to get an EVGA RTX 3070, however I’ve been struggling with micro stuttering since installing it which I did not experience with my previous 1060 (no other hardware changes were made at this time but I did do a fresh install of Windows). I feel I’ve reached the limits of my knowledge/ability in trying to determine the cause and solution, having scoured google for months now. Apologies for this being a long post, however there is a lot I think needs covering. The stutter occurs in Heaven benchmark, as well as GPU intensive games (Apex Legends, Mordhau) and non-GPU intensive games (CSGO, Valorant).

My original specs after first installing the 3070 were:

ASUS ROG STRIX Z390-F
I5 9600k
NZXT Kraken X63 AIO
Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB 16GB DDR4 3600Mhz RAM
EVGA’s 600W 80 plus certified PSU
EVGA RTX 3070 XC3
Samsung 250GB SSD

Software wise, I tried just about every potential solution to stutter issues that I could find on online. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve reinstalled windows using different builds, used DDU to reinstall different driver versions, increased size of paging file, adjusted power plan, used LatencyMon to look for issues, updated BIOS, adjusted BIOS settings such as disabling CPU C-states, testing every different NVCP setting.

Hardware wise, I have scrutinised every single component, even down to the AIO and corresponding CAM software. I tested everything for faults using a variety of tools (OCCT, memtest, windows diagnostic tool), to the point where I replaced every single part of the computer. My specs are now as follows:

MSI Z490-A Pro
I7 10700k
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black edition
Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB 16GB DDR4 3600Mhz RAM (replaced via RMA)
Corsair TX750M Gold Hybrid Modular PSU
EVGA RTX 3070 XC3 (replaced via RMA)
Samsung 500GB M.2

Despite this, I am still experiencing stutter. My friend even kindly loaned me his 3060ti to test, and the stutter persisted, which has really baffled me as the GPU was originally the only thing I changed.

There is a specific part of Heaven that reliably reproduces the stutter, and it’s when the camera spirals down looking at the dragon statue.

I have linked a sensor log from HWinfo for this below, the stutter occurs between rows 64 and 69 in the 24th second which I have highlighted in yellow, and then highlighted in orange specific observations that raise concern with me.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MuiLKCUCEH3gK8P04sS2ox1h5dNcc642vMjHMX7j1rU/edit?usp=sharing

My main observations are that GPU usage drops from ~99% to ~70% and there are a number of changes in power input. It’s incredibly difficult to know what is a cause and what are symptoms. Given I have tried 3 different GPUs since replacing the 1060, I struggle to see how it can be the graphics card.

Given the stutter occurs at the same point in Heaven everytime, I had a suspicion that this was just down to bad drivers/optimisation and out of my control. However, I then came across a youtube video of a 3070 going through the same part of Heaven without even a slight hitching, so that was that theory out the window.

My current suspicion is back to the power supply, but I replaced the PSU from 600W to 750W. I’m wondering if I have a power draw or other issue in my house that is unrelated to the PC itself? Is it worth moving my set up to a different house to test this theory?

I am at my wits end and have spent a lot of time and money trying to reobtain a PC that I can actually enjoy games with. Any help will be immensely appreciated and thank you in advance.

Extra bits of info:

• PSU is plugged directly into the wall, GPU powered by two separate 8pin connectors (no daisy chaining)
• Monitor is a BenQ 240Hz, no change to Display port lead used.
• Recently, if left idle the display will sporadically go black and won’t wake back up again unless I restart the computer. This is despite being on high performance power plan, no power saving on the pci express, no disk hibernation etc.

 

[Phaaze88]

I think you may be looking at the wrong thing(s). Why is Core 0, Thread 0, pegged at 100%(mostly) throughout a gpu benchmark?
Preoccupied with something else during the run? IDK, but that's what stood out the most.

I would suggest checking the other games for that same behavior - don't just watch Core 0 either, it may happen to one of the others.

 

[DeclanSB]

Thanks for pointing that out and the suggestion. I've just had hwinfo open playing CSGO and Core 0 and Core 7 were quite often hitting 100% usage with the rest not maxing out as often. Is it abnormal for the CPU to still need to be involved in some manner during a GPU benchmark? Although I agree it's odd only Core 0 is acting in this way, it's remaining at 100 during the periods of the benchmark that aren't stuttering, to me that suggests it isn't a cause nor even a symptom of the stutter?

 

[Phaaze88]

Is it abnormal for the CPU to still need to be involved in some manner during a GPU benchmark?

No, but it's supposed to be a piece of cake for the cpu to run.
Though I don't have the same hardware(7820X + 1080Ti), I ran it HB after reading the OP, and the highest one core ever got was ~65% on both 0 and 7. Thought I did see 90% on them during the loading and exiting screens.
I ran a custom preset with Quality, Tessellation, and AA at their highest for 1440p, DX11 API.
You have a more powerful cpu and gpu, and a thread is more or less stuck at 100% in that? Something's off.

Something else is either running in the background, or it gets stuck running some broken driver.
For some of your games, that core/thread is the Primary Thread. It handles all the commands from the game code as well as relaying commands to other cpu threads.

 

[DeclanSB]

No, but it's supposed to be a piece of cake for the cpu to run.
Though I don't have the same hardware(7820X + 1080Ti), I ran it HB after reading the OP, and the highest one core ever got was ~65% on both 0 and 7. Thought I did see 90% on them during the loading and exiting screens.
I ran a custom preset with Quality, Tessellation, and AA at their highest for 1440p, DX11 API.
You have a more powerful cpu and gpu, and a thread is more or less stuck at 100% in that? Something's off.

Something else is either running in the background, or it gets stuck running some broken driver.
For some of your games, that core/thread is the Primary Thread. It handles all the commands from the game code as well as relaying commands to other cpu threads.

Ok that is really intriguing. I've just run Heaven again with task manager open at the all core view, but on free camera going back and forth over the area that produces a stutter. I've linked the result below. CPU 0 is mostly locked at 100%, but what was more interesting to me was CPU15 (bottom right) kept spiking when the stutter occured, but was stable going through other areas at the end of the monitoring period.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c6jphoTskJcup3hu2oxv1-_zIgGbJhc8/view?usp=sharing

I've just tried disabling CPU0 via set affinity on heaven.exe. Unfortunately, this just makes CPU1 lock at 100% instead. I also had my eye on CPU time under task manager details to see what .exe might be running in the background but nothing was flairing up when I was reproducing the stutter.

Do you know of any other way of finding out what is locking a single core at full usage? And why one other is spiking during the stutter?

Thank you for your thoughts on this.

 

[boju]

Can you run userbench and link results page please. Maybe something there raise an eyebrow and shine a light on background usage.

From fresh Windows install, is there anything else besides motherboard drivers you remember installing before doing your usual round of tests? Anything else connected to pc other than mouse/keyboard?

Are there any other drives connected with content carried over from previous system and have you done a thorough virus/malware scan on it?

It's odd a gpu upgrade would cause cpu to behave that way, just wondering if it's a coincidence and may have picked up a virus about the time of upgrading gpu and it remains on another drive ready to reinfect.

 

[DeclanSB]

Can you run userbench and link results page please. Maybe something there raise an eyebrow and shine a light on background usage.

From fresh Windows install, is there anything else besides motherboard drivers you remember installing before doing your usual round of tests? Anything else connected to pc other than mouse/keyboard?

Are there any other drives connected with content carried over from previous system and have you done a thorough virus/malware scan on it?

It's odd a gpu upgrade would cause cpu to behave that way, just wondering if it's a coincidence and may have picked up a virus about the time of upgrading gpu and it remains on another drive ready to reinfect.

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/46524092 - I can't see anything of concern here?

Most of my fresh windows installs I've only installed LAN driver, audio driver, GFX driver and done windows updates, before then downloading Heaven to test if the stutter is still present before installing anything else like discord, chrome etc.

Connected to the PC is a display port connection to my main BenQ XL2546 @ 1080p 240Hz monitor, an HDMI lead to my secondary BenQ XL2411 1080p 60Hz monitor (unfortunately can't do 144Hz on this via HDMI), an xtrfy K4 keyboard, a Logitech G305 wireless mouse and an ethernet connection to a TP link 500Mpbs powerline adapter. I've tested the system using a different keyboard, mouse, each monitor on it's own, and using a wireless connection instead. None of which helped.

I've used the same USB drive to act as a Windows Media Creation Tool, and yes I have mostly carried drivers in a second USB that also is storing my personal files for the meantime (as I only use one SSD in my system). What software do you recommend using to do a virus/malware scan?

 

[boju]

There's no high background usage so doubt it's virus or software related. Malwarebytes is good, probably wasting your time but for piece of mind purposes i guess.

Userbench is reporting ram running at 2133 though, might not change anything but try enable xmp in bios and get your ram running at speed.

 

[DeclanSB]

Oh the RAM being at 2133 is just a remnant from a recent restoring of defaults in the BIOS, have switched back to XMP but this hasn't ever helped in my testing. I've tried XMP @ 3600, 3400 and 3200.

 

[DeclanSB]

No, but it's supposed to be a piece of cake for the cpu to run.
Though I don't have the same hardware(7820X + 1080Ti), I ran it HB after reading the OP, and the highest one core ever got was ~65% on both 0 and 7. Thought I did see 90% on them during the loading and exiting screens.
I ran a custom preset with Quality, Tessellation, and AA at their highest for 1440p, DX11 API.
You have a more powerful cpu and gpu, and a thread is more or less stuck at 100% in that? Something's off.

Something else is either running in the background, or it gets stuck running some broken driver.
For some of your games, that core/thread is the Primary Thread. It handles all the commands from the game code as well as relaying commands to other cpu threads.

Coming back on this, out of interest when you saw max ~60% usage on a single core, were you running HB with a frame cap or Vync on?

I've read since that it's not uncommon to see core's locked at 100% when uncapping frames, as the CPU is trying to push as many frames as it can.

 

[Phaaze88]

I didn't have a frame cap on - I don't bother with a frame cap, thanks to Fast Sync.
It's the next best thing to Vertical Sync off, but only really useful when pushing framerates higher than the monitor... at least it doesn't have any noticeable penalties associated with it, unlike the other Vertical Sync settings.

 

[DeclanSB]

Just in case anyone is interested, I think i solved 80-90% of my issue. The main cause was a build up of standy memory, installing ISLC and setting it to clear after it reached 3ish GB has made a huge difference.