How likely is it that my i3 is bottlenecking my G1 Gaming SOC GTX 970 overclock?

[GuruMeditationError]

I'm trying to nudge my GTX 970 SOC (Gigabyte G1 Gaming) up to an average 60fps (using a closed loop GPU cooler) in Valley but it just can't seem to stay stable at anything over an average of 57fps with everything maxed out.

The thing is, I'm getting no artifacting, it just crashes to a black screen or locks the computer, but the times when it does this and recovers, Speedfan is showing the CPU usage maxed out and the image on the monitor then accelerates through valley, to the point it would have been before the hitch, and carries on as normal. Sometimes it just doesn't recover and just hard locks with the music's still playing and I'm forced to just reset the P.C. at the front panel.

Does the lack of artifacting and the way it's behaving mean it might be a CPU bottleneck issue rather than an issue with the overclock? I've got an i3-4130 (3.40GHz) I've been using while I've been waiting for the prices to drop on the i5's and I'm wondering if upgrading to an i5 will let me get a stable OC on my 970.

[SCHISCHKA]

1 minute ago, GuruMeditationError said:

Speedfan is showing the CPU usage maxed out

 

1 minute ago, GuruMeditationError said:

How likely is it that my i3 is bottlenecking my G1 Gaming SOC GTX 970 overclock?

the likelyness scale goes from zero to yes. I would put it closer to yes

[GuruMeditationError]

6 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

 

the likelyness scale goes from zero to yes. I would put it closer to yes

Lol, thanks   ...that's what I want to hear.  I really want to continue with my overclock, but it's just crashing out on me. 

@SCHISCHKA I mean it does seem like that to me...I'm just not sure what's going on with it, I'm really just assuming and was hoping for clarification etc; wondering if I should schedule a CPU upgrade sooner rather than later for the potential frame-rate benefits.

fyi...for anyone reading this: I've got a watercooler on it with a custom heatsink solution on the mosfets, so 60fps in valley isn't something to be expected out of the box...just thought I should add that for sake of clarity.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, GuruMeditationError said:

Lol, thanks   ...that's what I want to hear.  I really want to continue with my overclock, but it's just crashing out on me. 

I dont think the CPU can have an effect on GPU OC stability but im not sure.

[GuruMeditationError]

7 minutes ago, HydraGaming said:

I dont think the CPU can have an effect on GPU OC stability but im not sure.

Thanks, I believe so too [@HydraGaming edit, sorry, read that too quickly: to be honest I'm not too sure outside of PCIe lane management, and I'm not 100% clear on that either]...I'm pretty sure it definitely effects the PCIe lane usage? In this instance I'm not sure if it's the processor falling over its own feet trying to process valley...although it does seem to happen more often at the transitions between scenes.

The more I think about it, the more I think I've probably reached the upper limit of what my i3's capable of, but...again that's just an assumption based on the behaviour I'm seeing; I'm at the limit of my understanding with this issue at this point.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, GuruMeditationError said:

The more I think about it the more I think I've probably reached the upper limit of what my i3's capable of

Well that is kinda obvious, ~117$ CPU with a ~329$ GPU.

[Morgan MLGman]

2 minutes ago, HydraGaming said:

I dont think the CPU can have an effect on GPU OC stability but im not sure.

I also don't think it's because of the CPU bottlenecking the GPU there.

 

@OP, Valley is not CPU demanding, while your i3 will bottleneck your OC'd 970 in games, it won't in Valley. It might be CPU-related, a defect or something, motherboard-related etc. but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with bottlenecking. Though I gotta agree, i3s are terrible. Have an i5-3360M in my work laptop which is an equivalent (2C/4T) to a desktop i3 from the same generation. It's terrible, when I get around 10-15 tabs in Firefox open it skyrockets to 100% and the PC slowing down is very noticeable.

[wONKEyeYEs]

18 minutes ago, GuruMeditationError said:

I'm trying to nudge my GTX 970 SOC (Gigabyte G1 Gaming) up to an average 60fps in Valley but it just can't seem to stay stable at anything over an average of 57fps with everything maxed out.

The thing is, I'm getting no artifacting, it just crashes to a black screen or locks the computer, but the times when it does this and recovers, Speedfan is showing the CPU usage maxed out and the image on the monitor then accelerates through valley, to the point it would have been before the hitch, and carries on as normal. Sometimes it just doesn't recover and just hard locks with the music's still playing and I'm forced to just reset the P.C. at the front panel.

Does the lack of artifacting and the way it's behaving mean it might be a CPU bottleneck issue rather than an issue with the overclock? I've got an i3-4130 (3.40GHz) I've been using while I've been waiting for the prices to drop on the i5's and I'm wondering if upgrading to an i5 will let me get a stable OC on my 970.

I have an i3 6100 with a R9 390x (stock speeds) and i just ran valley on standard settings and got 80-150fps averaging 120fps.

[GuruMeditationError]

3 minutes ago, HydraGaming said:

Well that is kinda obvious, ~117$ CPU with a ~329$ GPU.

I know, but it was just another one of my crazy P.C. experiments (after trying to overclock and cool the hottest ever components in SLI (bar I think one from each category?) in both GPU and CPU history)...this time it was trying to see what the limit was for running a 970 (it ran GTA V with no problems whatsoever, but then I guess valley is a stress test so, who knows).

2 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

I also don't think it's because of the CPU bottlenecking the GPU there.

 

@OP, Valley is not CPU demanding, while your i3 will bottleneck your OC'd 970 in games, it won't in Valley. It might be CPU-related, a defect or something, motherboard-related etc. but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with bottlenecking. Though I gotta agree, i3s are terrible. Have an i5-3360M in my work laptop which is an equivalent (2C/4T) to a desktop i3 from the same generation. It's terrible, when I get around 10-15 tabs in Firefox open it skyrockets to 100% and the PC slowing down is very noticeable.

I know, it's not great but I bought a Xonar Essence with the money I saved, and I'm looking to upgrade to an i7 when the prices drop a little lower.

[Morgan MLGman]

Just now, GuruMeditationError said:

I know, but it was just another one of my crazy P.C. experiments (after trying to overclock and cool the hottest ever components in SLI (bar I think one from each category?) in both GPU and CPU history)...this time it was trying to see what the limit was for running a 970 (it ran GTA V with no problems whatsoever, but then I guess valley is a stress test so, who knows).

I know, it's not great but I bought a Xonar Essence with the money I saved, and I'm looking to upgrade to an i7 when the prices drop a little lower.

GTA V is much more CPU demanding than Valley.

[19_blackie_73]

I can run a test with my 970 this evening, though i don't think i went over 60fps either. I'm running a xeon, that shouldnt bottleneck

[GuruMeditationError]

3 minutes ago, wONKEyeYEs said:

I have an i3 6100 with a R9 390x (stock speeds) and i just ran valley on standard settings and got 80-150fps averaging 120fps.

Thanks...if I turn off everything, and just run valley at its most basic, but in full screen at 1080p I get about a 35fps increase at my current most extreme overclock...with everything at ultra, when I can get it through a complete benchmark run with my current most extreme oc the difference is about 6fps.

[GuruMeditationError]

3 minutes ago, 19_blackie_73 said:

I can run a test with my 970 this evening, though i don't think i went over 60fps either. I'm running a xeon, that shouldnt bottleneck

It's okay...mine's a non-reference SOC version, with a closed loop GPU cooler, that I made a custom mosfet heatsink for...? It's totally non-standard, so probably wouldn't be apples to apples, but thanks anyway?  

[zMeul]

it smells like the GPU drivers are crashing with a TDR event, check Event Viewer

[GuruMeditationError]

5 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

GTA V is much more CPU demanding than Valley.

I know...I'm just not sure if higher load on the GPU has some kind of knock on effect where the CPU's concerned...it might just be my graphics card crashing out on valley...just wondering if there might be anyone on the forum with a definitive answer...it's a tricky one. To be honest I was expecting a hard "yes" or "no" but I guess it's not that straight forward.  

[GuruMeditationError]

3 minutes ago, zMeul said:

it smells like the GPU drivers are crashing with a TDR event, check Event Viewer

Cool, thanks, I've never done that before...so it might just be a driver issue?

I updated mine a couple of weeks ago when I played Path to Thalamus...I'll take a look at the event viewer and see if I can figure it out.
 

Do you know if the CPU would be part of that process or is it purely GPU?

[GuruMeditationError]

Okay...well...at this point I've kind of hit diminishing returns with this...

 

...I've found the reports in Event Viewer but to be honest, in the time it would take me to research this stuff on the off-chance that I'm going to get the information I'm curious about, I could probably list enough stuff on eBay to just buy a second-hand i5 outright and just answer the question for myself that way (I know, it's a bit of a cop-out, but I'm not sure drilling down into this detail would be cost-effective in terms of the time I'd be spending trying to figure it all out)

...but thanks to everyone who responded, it's really appreciated.

[GuruMeditationError]

1 hour ago, zMeul said:

it smells like the GPU drivers are crashing with a TDR event, check Event Viewer

For what it's worth, this is what I'm getting (not sure if it's something obvious to trained eyes but I can't really make sense of it)...

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Application Error
Date:          26/04/2017 10:32:39
Event ID:      1000
Task Category: (100)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      "Me!"
Description:
Faulting application name: valley.exe, version: 1.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x511cbdf2
Faulting module name: Unigine_x86.dll, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x511cbdf2
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x003d78b3
Faulting process ID: 0x2658
Faulting application start time: 0x01d2be6fc97b4bd5
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Unigine\Valley Benchmark 1.0\bin\valley.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Unigine\Valley Benchmark 1.0\bin\Unigine_x86.dll
Report ID: 73e85820-4d7b-48d5-91be-a9424e8560b5
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Application Error" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>100</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2017-04-26T09:32:39.170705200Z" />
    <EventRecordID>31458</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>Chris</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>valley.exe</Data>
    <Data>1.0.0.0</Data>
    <Data>511cbdf2</Data>
    <Data>Unigine_x86.dll</Data>
    <Data>0.0.0.0</Data>
    <Data>511cbdf2</Data>
    <Data>c0000005</Data>
    <Data>003d78b3</Data>
    <Data>2658</Data>
    <Data>01d2be6fc97b4bd5</Data>
    <Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\Unigine\Valley Benchmark 1.0\bin\valley.exe</Data>
    <Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\Unigine\Valley Benchmark 1.0\bin\Unigine_x86.dll</Data>
    <Data>73e85820-4d7b-48d5-91be-a9424e8560b5</Data>
    <Data>
    </Data>
    <Data>
    </Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

I think I'll just wait and see if a CPU upgrade will solve things...bit clueless about things at this level...

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Exception+code%3A+0xc0000005&rlz=1C1CHWA_enGB627GB627&oq=Exception+code%3A+0xc0000005&aqs=chrome..69i57.842j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[zMeul]

if you have any OC, dial it back to factory

start to check RAM for errors, use MemTest86: http://www.memtest86.com/

 

it could something else or a defective video card

[GuruMeditationError]

10 minutes ago, zMeul said:

if you have any OC, dial it back to factory

start to check RAM for errors, use MemTest86: http://www.memtest86.com/

 

it could something else or a defective video card

Thanks, will do.

 

[GuruMeditationError]

1 hour ago, zMeul said:

if you have any OC, dial it back to factory

start to check RAM for errors, use MemTest86: http://www.memtest86.com/

 

it could something else or a defective video card

I ran memtest, hoping it might be a RAM module, or even the CPU cash...but...no errors...  

...so, probably the video card (although still hoping it's something to do with the interplay between the CPU & GPU).

 

But yeah...if it is faulty...

...I think I probably already voided the warranty:    

(Actually not sure if the fans for the mosfets are strictly necessary, but I just don't want my 970 to fail...I've got a 92mm noctua lashed, with cable-ties, to the underside of the far end of the board for the overclock, tied to the same fan controller dial as the vipers in push pull on the radiator (I use push pull to keep the motors on both low, rather than one running at a faster speed, and the sound waves, being very similar are also supposed to cancel each other out and therefore reduce noise output even further).  The Mosfets shared the GPU heatsink so, I'm guessing they're built to get pretty hot anyway, so fingers crossed it's sufficient.).

[GuruMeditationError]

Okay...I've been tuning my P.C.'s cooling system and overclock since 8pm GMT last night (with about two hours sleep) so, I'll post a summary and go do something else for a while.

I managed to get the OC stable enough to get artifacts through respectively both the Memory Clock and the Core Clock exclusively, just beyond the point at which it was tending to crash...for some reason I can't get the idea that it's a threading issue out of my mind, as if I keep running it through over and over it seems to crash less (but maybe that's just an attribution error), but either way I couldn't go any higher than the point at which it's tending to crash without over-volting and I'm reluctant to do that as I don't want to reduce its life-span.

I actually got to a point of diminished returns: to get it to start displaying artifacts I had to boost the clocks to a point where I actually started loosing average fps...I dropped the core clock by 5MHz and the memory clock by 10MHz and it yielded an increase in about four or five frames per second, making the stable average around 62fps in Valley at full-screen, 1080p with everything set to ultra, where otherwise (at the point where it was artifacting) I was getting, on average, around 56fps.

I've got +175 on the core clock and +330 on the Memory Clock.

I've no idea if this is a good result in the greater scheme of things, all I can say is it's the best I can get out of this thing and for that I'm happy.

Just got a couple more fan adjustments to make. i.e. hooking up a side-panel fan to be controlled by the mobo where it's currently tied to the dial of a physical fan-controller (the fan above it I've reversed for use as an "emergency extractor" that basically (when the case temperature reaches 45 degrees) accelerates to full speed as fast as Q-fan will let me set it to so...so...I need to chain the fan below it to the same header so that it keeps pushing air onto the graphics card under those circumstances rather than having its flow sucked up and blown straight back out of the case when the "auxiliary extractors" (lol) ramp up.

On a side note...I've removed all 140mm fans from my system as at this point they're just too loud and unnecessary. Also, as a side note I've found the 120mm Akasa Viper to make a relatively loud high-pitch sound with the characteristic of a siren, when placed only on the inside of the plexi, side-window of my Corsair C70, when positioned as an internal intake, and just that one orientation (that of being place to suck air into the case)...any other orientation at all on that side panel and it's virtually silent; flip it over it's silent; place it in the same orientation on the opposite side of the plexi and again it's silent, set it on the inside as an intake and it's a siren...it's baffling.  I've had to mix and match Akasa Vipers and Akasa Apaches because, despite their more or less identical design and dimensions the difference in materials used in the builds actually affects the sonarity through the case...I had to swap out the lower front intake for an Apache also, which is a bit of a pain as the 120mm vipers spin up the moment any amount of electricity hits them, where the Apache's take some load to get moving (and have worse static pressure  )

...so...one fan cable swap, and it's done...just going to wait until the Devil's Canyon i7 is a little more affordable (the intersection where it gets a little cheaper and I set a little more aside for it) and I'll upgrade to one of those and probably overclock it with a larger air-cooler...right now the vipers on GPU's closed-loop just about need to be turned up just enough to coincidentally mask the sound of the GPU's loop pump...probably wouldn't get away with another pump in the case without screwing up its...ambience? and if I basically just partially dismantle the Akasa Medusa I've got I should be able to overclock the i7 quite comfortably with it using mobo-controlled fans without much of an increase in system noise...result! (cool beans).

Now time for me to go and do something completely different...and (hopefully) less OCD...

[edit: Oh cr*p...I'm going to pretend I didn't see this (if Robin Williams jumps out of a board game dressed in leaves and holding one...I'll take it...otherwise: this never existed... https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-GeForce-GTX-1080-HAWK/dp/B01GVHNX5O/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1493223557&sr=1-1&keywords=msi%2B1080%2Bsea%2Bhawk&th=1&tag=linustechtips-21