Weird FPS drops on my PC. Please help. :(

[Lightness]

Hello.
I recently bought a Zotac Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 Amp! Extreme Core Edition 4gb 256-bits (I read a lot of good reviews about it) to upgrade my old and good GTX 750 TI OC 2gb.
Alright. I've installed the card, installed the drivers and everything seemed to be perfect. I was happy, really happy. But not for long...

I wanted to test this new baby right away. So I opened GTA V. Put everything on Very High and went to test...
I expected something like this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGS7RjaY6v8

Well, it did not performed anything like the video. The MAX FPS was 60 and the average was 30~39. VSync was off so I can see the true performance of the card.
And it's not only on GTA V. Tom Clancy's The Division also have FPS drops. 60 to 51. 60 to 49... Basically every game that would run greatly on my PC with this card are having this "FPS drop issue"
I don't have a clue of what's going on and I need some help/advice please. I really don't know what's wrong.
My PC Specs are:

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5ghz
RAM: Kingston 1x8gb 1600mhz
HDD: Seagate 1tb model ST1000DM003
VGA: Zotac Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 Amp Extreme Core Edition
Mobo: M5A99FX PRO R2.0
PSU: Corsair 650W

I'm pretty sure that the CPU isn't overheating. So as GPU.
Any help/advice will be really appreciated.
Thank you.

 

[Proofy]

You tried both options and you still have fps drops ? idk I'm out of option

since you used to play with GTX 750 TI with no issues, rma your gtx 970 see if it will fix the issue or try using it in another computer just to see if it's gpu that's causing the issue. GPU logs looks normal tho

Are you 100% sure you did everything correctly in second option that I gave you? changing minimum processor state to 99%, and changing maximun processor state to 99% ?

 

[Lightness]

You tried both options and you still have fps drops ? idk I'm out of option

since you used to play with GTX 750 TI with no issues, rma your gtx 970 see if it will fix the issue or try using it in another computer just to see if it's gpu that's causing the issue. GPU logs looks normal tho

Are you 100% sure you did everything correctly in second option that I gave you? changing minimum processor state to 99%, and changing maximun processor state to 99% ?

Yes. I am sure.
GTX 750 TI do not use so much power from the PSU like this one. The GPU is working fine on games like Sonic Generations, Sonic And All Stars Racing Transformed, it keep them at 60 FPS+.
The Witcher starts at 60 FPS, but when you change the direction of the camera, depending of what is on the scenario the FPS drop to 50~49FPS and returns to 60 in some other parts of the game. So it looks like my PSU is sucking.
I'm gonna change the PSU. It started to make sense. On games like Sonic this doesn't happen because they don't use the GPU so much so the PSU can make it, now on GTA... GTA was never the same. It doesn't get 60 FPS anymore and started to happen this since I got a power out on my street. I happened so much last year, maybe my Corsair PSU is dying... I don't know. I'm gonna try to use the GPU on another computer to be sure, but I think it's not the GPU.

 

[Proofy]

well you do have shitty psu.. buy seasonic 650w or EVGA SuperNova G2 650w

 

[Lightness]

well you do have shitty psu.. buy seasonic 650w or EVGA SuperNova G2 650w

I've changed the PSU to a Zalman 700W, the FPS still dropping. On the Witcher 3 on a city with a lot of npcs the FPS stay on 30. Is this normal?

 

[Lightness]

Let me ask something... The RAM can interfere in any way in the overall performance of the computer? Because my RAM is 1086, not a 1333 like I thought...

 

[Vic 40]

Look in the bios for XMP or AMP and enable it,see if the ram will work on rated specs after that.Look with cpu-z->memory tab,to see what the current speed is,under the spd tab what it should/could be.That 1086 is a weird nr,so maybe a bus speed isn't set right,might want to do a clear cmos to make the bios run at original settings,after that look for XMP/AMP.

 

[Lightness]

It was my ram. It was underclocked. My RAM's clock is 1600. It was running as 1115mhz. Now I just need another kit to do a dual channel then it's GG.
Thank you all for the answers.

 

[Vic 40]

I Now I just need another kit to do a dual channel then it's GG.
.

Adding ram can get you into other troubles as well.Just buy a lager set if you want more ram and sell what you have or keep it as back-up.
Read,
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-dram-myths,4155.html#p4
look at "Just Add More DRAM".

You found a reason why the ram was underclocked?

 

[Lightness]

I Now I just need another kit to do a dual channel then it's GG.
.

Adding ram can get you into other troubles as well.Just buy a lager set if you want more ram and sell what you have or keep it as back-up.
Read,
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-dram-myths,4155.html#p4
look at "Just Add More DRAM".

You found a reason why the ram was underclocked?

I did not found out why, but I changed to it's normal frequency and the performance got a little better, but still not what I was expecting.

It looks like that there is something holding the performance of my VGA. Just do not know what it is. Something might be the bottleneck.
Dual Channel would influence the performance? All PC gamers I know use dual channel. Mine stills single channel.

 

[Proofy]

Run a memtest then see if something is wrong with your RAM

 

[Vic 40]

Going through the thread again does it seem that the limit is in your cpu.It's not a bad cpu,just not up to par with a 4790K which was used in that video you linked before.I saw somewhere in the thread that the gpu didn't go over 60% usage which means it's not utilized fully,which means the cpu can't keep up with it.

Tried to overclock the cpu? Get a better cooler than the stock one before trying.Maybe get a better one even when not overclocking,see if thermal throttling is an issue.The AMD cpu's are hard to track when it comes to temps.their own overclock tool is the best way to look at the temps.

Dualchannel ram should give a bit better result,but not to the extend you want to achieve.I don't think the ram is the issue here.

 

[Lightness]

Going through the thread again does it seem that the limit is in your cpu.It's not a bad cpu,just not up to par with a 4790K which was used in that video you linked before.I saw somewhere in the thread that the gpu didn't go over 60% usage which means it's not utilized fully,which means the cpu can't keep up with it.

Tried to overclock the cpu? Get a better cooler than the stock one before trying.Maybe get a better one even when not overclocking,see if thermal throttling is an issue.The AMD cpu's are hard to track when it comes to temps.their own overclock tool is the best way to look at the temps.

Dualchannel ram should give a bit better result,but not to the extend you want to achieve.I don't think the ram is the issue here.

I'm going to buy another RAM to do a Dual Channel just in case, but do you think it's my CPU? Oh boy... I thought it was a good CPU to pair with a GTX 970... And no, I never tried a overclock, gotta change my cooler before attempting. Just like you said.

 

[Proofy]

Well you did said every game that run great on your PC has fps issues... It's normal that your fps drops like that on the division on 8320.. here's the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4E5iKyEv1k

It's not broken it's just like that because it's an AMD processor. Games always put pressure on first two cores more than others and division is really intensive game therefore fps drops like that. Overclocking the cpu should help, here's how to do it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4E5iKyEv1k

 

[Vic 40]

Yeah,get a decent cooler,you can make a new thread for that if you want,and do some overclocking.It doesn't have to run 4.5ghz,if you get it up to 4.0/4.2 would that already be nice.After that see if it helps.

 

[Lightness]

So it's my CPU? Damn, I thought it was a good CPU for gaming... 🙁
Which AMD CPU do you guys recommend? AMD FX 8350 is fine?

 

[Proofy]

8350 is overclocked 8320 😀

I recommend Intel as it's much superior than AMD when it comes to gaming. AMD is good for video rendering and such but for gaming definitely intel. Recommendation: i5 6500 with MSI Bazooka B150M motherboard and 2x4GB DDR4 RAM if you manage to sell your current cpu+mobo+ram but that shouldn't be a problem tbh

 

[Lightness]

Just a update for you guys. I bought a second RAM exactly as mine to enable the Dual Channel feature and now my PC is more decent. It got way better than before.

 

[Proofy]

Did you run memtest before when you had old RAM?

Was everything ok if you did ?

 

[Lightness]

Did you run memtest before when you had old RAM?

Was everything ok if you did ?

Yes and yes. Everything was fine with my old RAM. I think I'm gonna sell it to a friend. His PC needs an RAM upgrade.

 

[Proofy]

Well that's wierd.. tests have shown that 1x8GB RAM works even better than 2x4GB Dual-channel ram memory in games.. So I don't really get it how come you get better performance but ok if you say so

 

[Vic 40]

Maybe it has something to do with the memory controller.In the tests i just looked at are people using intel cpu's and maybe that the AMD memory controller gives better results with dualchannel.

 

[Lightness]

Well that's wierd.. tests have shown that 1x8GB RAM works even better than 2x4GB Dual-channel ram memory in games.. So I don't really get it how come you get better performance but ok if you say so

I got 2x8gb instead of 2x4gb. I don't know how did this gave more performance to my PC either. :S