Stuttering with new Monitor

[Ronaldspiers]

Hi everyone,

So just a couple days ago I bought a new monitor.

This one: https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/monitors/gaming/27--chg70-gaming-monitor-with-quantum-dot-lc27hg70qqnxza/

And let me say it works splendidly. Outside of games the picture is fine the 144Hz is smooth with my mouse etc and freesync seems to work. All seems to be in working order.

However while gaming its a different thing. I am getting a very strange stutter effect that I've never experienced, even with high FPS over 60. There is no screen tearing its just a stutter. Like it's all very stop-start. So for example if I am running its not a smooth animation its like the whole screen freezes for a millisecond then goes again. It's very distracting and can be unplayable.

I've tried a variety of games. The only games it doesnt seem to happen on to an unplayable extent is Arkham City which runs at 144fps or thereabouts, battlefield Bad company 2, and Skyrim. Theres a lot more games I haven't tried.

But in For Honor, Prey, Doom (new one), witcher 2 and 3, jurassic world Evolution. It happens and makes them unplayable.

It's slightly alleviated when i turn the resolution down to 1080p. And it doesnt happen at all if i limit the FPS on Witcher 3 to 30.

I've installed my monitor driver from the disc (using DP connection) and I've uninstalled and reinstalled my GPU drivers.

I'm running an R9 290x MSI Gaming. Just at its standard clock im.not comfortable overclocking. The temps run at 94 Celsius gaming which it always has ive never not had it run at that temp since I built the PC 3 years ago.

The CPU is a i5-4670K running at the standard 3.5GHz. The temps are fine on that never going higher than like 45-50. And the CPU usage when gaming ranges from 70-90 percent or thereabouts in between.

I've tried running freesync on and off and various settings. And i cant figure out what the issue is. I'm hoping it's fixable and it isn't the monitor. I thought maybe it was a bottleneck from the CPU but from research people are saying my CPU should be ok for 1440p gaming. And i don't see how the refresh rate of the monitor would cause it.

I dont have an external drive to back up data before doing a clean install of Windows so that would likely be down the line in list of things to try.

The rest of my system is

ASUS z pro motherboard
8GB (2x4GB sticks) RAM
cpu cooler is the old hyper 212 evo.
And PSU is an XFX 650W.

If anyone has any ideas I would be grateful however if you could explain like I am 5 because honestly I'm just not a very smart person.

Thanks in advance. I will try and get a video uploaded to YouTube of what the stutter looks like.

 

[profoundnoah]

Don't feel bad about asking questions. Only the truly ignorant do not make queries. Have you checked your RAM usage when playing these titles? Also, 94C is a bit ridiculous, even for the 290X, something that is already markedly hot. I'd advise cleaning it out.

 

[Ronaldspiers]

Here is a video of what the stutter looks like.

https://youtu.be/DbUuCd2ePrw

I will.have a clean out of the GPU for sure. If you give me a short amount of.time I can check the RAM usage and get back to you thanks.

 

[profoundnoah]

Oh wow, it's almost as if it's ignoring half the frames that are being processed by the GPU. ALWAYS download drivers from online, NEVER use the disc. I would try reinstalling your monitor drivers immediately. What about running the monitor without Freesync enabled?

 

[Ronaldspiers]

OK so the RAM usage in witcher 3 is about 5.5-6GB /8GB. However I've downloaded and ran MSI Afterburner whilst playing the witcher 3 and found that my Max "Core Clock" of the GPU is set to 1030 MHz. During gaming its maxing out about 750 - 800 MHZ of that 1030. The Memory Clock is maxed out at 1250 when gaming. Freesync on/off makes no difference.

Not knowing that much about it. Should the GPU be utilizing the full 1030 MHz clock speed during gaming? Could that cause this issue? if the GPU is getting too hot trying to run the game at 1440p could it bottleneck itself to run at a lower core speed?

 

[karenjoly]

OK so the RAM usage in witcher 3 is about 5.5-6GB /8GB. However I've downloaded and ran MSI Afterburner whilst playing the witcher 3 and found that my Max "Core Clock" of the GPU is set to 1030 MHz. During gaming its maxing out about 750 - 800 MHZ of that 1030. The Memory Clock is maxed out at 1250 when gaming. Freesync on/off makes no difference.

Not knowing that much about it. Should the GPU be utilizing the full 1030 MHz clock speed during gaming? Could that cause this issue? if the GPU is getting too hot trying to run the game at 1440p could it bottleneck itself to run at a lower core speed?

That R9 290x MSI Gaming.temperature appears to be too high. See this:

https://youtu.be/PUiJrHlmPSU?t=121

And the operating core frequency is too low; I am no expert so someone correct me if I'm in error but the core clock should be maxed ; what's the point of a high clock if its not used ?

Try another GPU.

Nice monitor tho.

 

[cryoburner]

With a temperature that high, the graphics card is likely throttling performance due to overheating. I believe the 290X throttles at about 95 C, which is right about where you're at.

What kind of monitor did you have before? A 1440p screen has nearly 80% more pixels than a 1080p one, and may in turn put more load on the GPU. Additionally, if you had a 60Hz screen and your frame rate was limited to 60fps by something like v-sync, then your card would have had time to rest between rendering frames, resulting in it drawing less power, and in turn producing less heat.

Also, what kind of case is your system in, and what kind of case fans does it have? And have you checked to make sure all your fans, including those on the 290X, are spinning properly while you are gaming? You should also make sure that there isn't dust build-up impeding airflow through your case or in your graphics card's cooler.

 

[Ronaldspiers]

Hi sorry for the delayed reply I work shifts so my free time during working days is limited. So I cleaned out the PC with an air duster GPU fans clear and no airflow issues. The case I am running is a corsair Carbide 500R midtower. It has 2 front 120MM fans intake, 1 200MM fan at the side intake directly to the GPU and one 120mm fan pushing air out the back.

Before this monitor I had a 1080p 60Hz one. I would rather run at lower FPS and not have this stutter than anything else its very distracting. I'm saving up for a new GPU but really don't want the majority of my games to be unplayable until then.

The problem has very slightly gotten better but i am still having the issue. Unfortunately I Don't have any friends with GPUs that could let me have a go with theirs in my Rig. I played Metro Last Light Just there and took a screenshot from MSI afterburner. I'm hoping this works posting it but we will see.

https://imgur.com/a/57PDyQp


Edit for clarity: So from the screenshot the temp at peak is 96 Celsius and the drops to 93/92. The core clock at peak is about 950 and the drops to about 850 and then 650. I have no idea if it should be running at a flat constant rate of 1030? could anyone clarify?

Also weirdly the peak core clock on the wee graph is when the temperature is at it's highest. Im assuming when the temp drops thats when the GPU is throttling itself.

I've tried all different kinds of settings on Afterburner. I cannot change the max temp of the GPU to anything less than 94 degrees Celsius. And the powerlimit is always set at 0 because it just resets when i try anything else and save the setting so it wasn't at 24 or whatever is on the screenshot. Hope this helps.

 

[drivinfast247]

At what graphics setting are you trying to run at?

 

[Ronaldspiers]

I've tried various settings from uber high. To "so low its PlayStation 1 era" and it doesn't seem to help. Changing to 1080p helps and so does limiting FPS to 30 in witcher 3. The framerate is decent on games at 1440p not 60fps constantly but decent enough its smooth.

On another note. I've been doing some research and wonder if you folk think It would be worth reapplying thermal paste on the GPU and how easy is this to do? I did it for my CPU all those years ago but i'm obviously going to need to dismantle the gpu to an extent. How dangerous/easy is it to just ruin my GPU doing this and would anyone recommend a thermal paste?

 

[cryoburner]

It does look like it's overheating and throttling. It should not be hitting 95C like that, and the clock rate is jittering around under load. According to Afterburner, the max clock rate is set to 1050MHz though, which would imply to me that its overclocked. Note the "Core Clock" slider on the left, and the "Max" core clock readout in the graph. Going by the product page for what I assume might be your card...

https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/R9-290X-GAMING-4G.html

...they consider 1040MHz as "OC Mode", 1030MHz as "Gaming Mode" and 1000MHz as "Silent Mode". Stock clocks for a 290X are 1000MHz, so anything over that is a factory overclock. You should try setting it to 1000MHz, and seeing if that helps. Or maybe even underclock it slightly. It does look like its dropping below 1000MHz as it heats up, though I'm not sure if there might be brief spikes back to 1050MHz not accurately represented by the graph.

The fan speed also seems to be maxing out, though have you looked at the fans when in operation and verified that both of them are actually spinning properly?

 

[Ronaldspiers]

Hi so the 1050MhZ was me messing around with different settings I have tried under clocking to 800 and going as high as 1050 to see what would happen but the temperatures still skyrocket to 95-96 regardless. The fans are spinning OK I've checked while the GPU is under load. Also even at the normal clock of 1050 the highest the clock speed goes is about 960MHz. Then it drops to roughly 600 ish. It is slightly better when underclocked but still prevalent.