GPU power drops by 200 watts

[FixedontheSilence]

Hi Guys,

 

Looking to see if anyone has any insight or is able to help.  The issue only really happens in Battlefield 2042 and Battlefield 5, so it may just be game/engine specific. But it seems kind of crazy.  During my first match after booting up the game my system will have a massive stutter.  This occurs every time.  It only lasts about 5 seconds and then resolves itself.  I can then play for hours without issue.  I have done just about every step you can think of.  Turn off EXPO, turn off OC, Reset Bios.  Reinstall Windows.  This issue occurred on my 7950X3D as well as my 9950X3D.  I've rolled back nVidia drivers to 566.36. Uninstalled Nvidia app.  None of this is the cause. 

 

The stutter seems to be caused by a huge drop in GPU power draw, as well as different CCD's in my processor activating.  Thought it could potentially be a core parking thing, but I turned on turbo game mode in bios to deactivate the non X3D cores and the issue still happened. Also have swapped GPU power cables.

 

System specs:

 

Asus Crosshair x670e hero

9950X3D (Also occurred on 7950X3D)

4090 FE

64GB 6000mhz G.Skill

1200 Watt EVGA P3

 

I used hardware info to create a log of the issue.  If you scroll down you can see the issue occur at 8:12pm

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yHiH9nE7TbnCvkZyEVbB2HD2MFQTw2AwInz-OFa0LnE/edit?usp=sharing

 

Being that this only happens in Battlefield games.  Which run on the frostbite engine. And now use EA anti cheat i'm assuming one of them could be the culprit.  But I have not figured it out.

 

[Sawa Takahashi]

Since you are talking about GPU power drop (and clearly fps and other GPU metrics), I recommend you install GPU-z and go to the Sensors tab.

Look at the parameter titled PerfCapReason. Run your game and see what happens to the PerfCapReason to determine why the GPU drops in performance. It could be thermal, power, idling or some mix.

Your spreadsheet certainly looks nice but all indicates reduced performance without identifying the root cause.

As for why your games are behaving like that.... your PC is certainly overspec and there is no good reason for the sudden performance dip. I too believe some shortcut (or even bugs) in the programming is causing this. Unfortunately, it is hard to solve those for the end user.

If you can get your hands on a modest CPU like some ryzen 9600 or 9700, you could check if the game behaves the same way with a slower processor.

Good luck !

[FixedontheSilence]

18 hours ago, Sawa Takahashi said:

Since you are talking about GPU power drop (and clearly fps and other GPU metrics), I recommend you install GPU-z and go to the Sensors tab.

Look at the parameter titled PerfCapReason. Run your game and see what happens to the PerfCapReason to determine why the GPU drops in performance. It could be thermal, power, idling or some mix.

Your spreadsheet certainly looks nice but all indicates reduced performance without identifying the root cause.

As for why your games are behaving like that.... your PC is certainly overspec and there is no good reason for the sudden performance dip. I too believe some shortcut (or even bugs) in the programming is causing this. Unfortunately, it is hard to solve those for the end user.

If you can get your hands on a modest CPU like some ryzen 9600 or 9700, you could check if the game behaves the same way with a slower processor.

Good luck !

So I did the check in GPU-Z and when the issue occurs it flips back to Idle for that short period and the resumes with VRel.

[Sawa Takahashi]

18 hours ago, FixedontheSilence said:

So I did the check in GPU-Z and when the issue occurs it flips back to Idle for that short period and the resumes with VRel.

Ok. it means that the GPU gets underfed when the hiccup happens.

CPU, storage, RAM, PCIe bus, bugs in programming. In short, you know that the GPU is not the culprit but not much else.

 

[FixedontheSilence]

Just wanted to come back and say I found the resolution in case anyone has anything similar.  It was the thunderbolt controller on my motherboard (Asus Crosshair x670 Hero) interacting with the games anti-cheat software.  When the anti-cheat scans the hardware it puts the thunderbolt to sleep for a second which causes the stutter.  Disabling the thunderbolt from going to sleep resolves the issue.  Crazy.