Lower than normal Firestrike score (and overall system performance decrease)?

[JaZoN_XD]

So recently, I've noticed that all my FIrestrike scores have been consistently lower than before at they are all scoring a consistent number lower. I used to be able to hit 10500+ points without a problem every single time, but now it's dropped quite dramatically, seemingly only graphical fronts. (see pictures) I don't think it's the driver because the drivers in both tests are the same version. Background programs are the almost exact same during both tests. Shadowplay has been turned OFF in both cases. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures to show the difference in performance in games, but it's there. A few fps (about 3 fps I would say) in GTA V. Although that isn't a lot, it is in fact the difference between hitting the 60 fps V-sync cap and not. Does anyone have any idea as to what might be causing this slowdown? Thanks.

[Lolucoca]

That's not even 200 points. I'd consider this margin of error. 

[tahmidkhan123]

This is an incredibly small decrease in performance and is within margin of error for most benchmarking programs. It is probably caused by the smallest of things such as an update to a program, new service running in background etc. Until a more noticeable decrease in performance is observed, dont even worry bout it. 

[DXMember]

check the individual scores

did the physics score get lower?

did any of the graphics scores got lower?
I suspect it's nVidia preparing for the pascal rollout, #KeplerGate all over again!!!

[JaZoN_XD]

14 hours ago, DXMember said:

check the individual scores

did the physics score get lower?

did any of the graphics scores got lower?
I suspect it's nVidia preparing for the pascal rollout, #KeplerGate all over again!!!

Yes, like i mentioned in my original post, only graphics score got affected. Physics score was the same

[JaZoN_XD]

15 hours ago, Lolucoca said:

That's not even 200 points. I'd consider this margin of error. 

 

15 hours ago, tahmidkhan123 said:

This is an incredibly small decrease in performance and is within margin of error for most benchmarking programs. It is probably caused by the smallest of things such as an update to a program, new service running in background etc. Until a more noticeable decrease in performance is observed, dont even worry bout it. 

I wouldn't consider this margin of error because this is consistently lower than before at a consistent amount. Also, the previous score wasn't achieved once in a lifetime or something... it was achievable every time.

[DXMember]

6 minutes ago, JaZoN_XD said:

Yes, like i mentioned in my original post, only graphics score got affected. Physics score was the same

#Maxwellgate confirmed
Pascal roll-out initiated

[grayperview]

Either caused by new drivers, or gpu boost not going as high, due to thermal performance of the card..........more likely operation gimp maxwell has started

[sgloux3470]

1 hour ago, JaZoN_XD said:

 

I wouldn't consider this margin of error because this is consistently lower than before at a consistent amount. Also, the previous score wasn't achieved once in a lifetime or something... it was achievable every time.

 

My experience with 3Dmark has been that my scores are very, very variable.  I've run consecutive runs and seen bigger differences in score.  One day X overclock gets a certain score and the same overclock two days later doesn't do it.  My guess is small differences in background applications have a decent effect on score.

 

As for slight performance difference in GTA, I would make sure your clock speeds are the same.

[Monarch]

I get around 150 - 200 points less for just having MSI Afterburner with its graphs and overlays on. If I turn off Speedfan which I use to control case fans I get a bit more points as well. So it seems like the score varies a lot based on the background apps. 

 

As for the GTA V and Vsync, from what I've seen no CPU can maintain 60 fps or 16.7 ms in CPU intensive games such as GTA V, for which the graphics API is to blame. It's also impossible to compare framerate now and before because there are so many variables in terms of what's going on in the game.

[JaZoN_XD]

1 hour ago, super_skank said:

Either caused by new drivers, or gpu boost not going as high, due to thermal performance of the card..........more likely operation gimp maxwell has started

Quote

My experience with 3Dmark has been that my scores are very, very variable.  I've run consecutive runs and seen bigger differences in score.  One day X overclock gets a certain score and the same overclock two days later doesn't do it.  My guess is small differences in background applications have a decent effect on score.

 

As for slight performance difference in GTA, I would make sure your clock speeds are the same.

@sgloux3470 The clocks stayed constant (same as the previous test) and as I have said, the drivers are the same between both tests.

[JaZoN_XD]

1 hour ago, Monarch said:

I get around 150 - 200 points less for just having MSI Afterburner with its graphs and overlays on. If I turn off Speedfan which I use to control case fans I get a bit more points as well. So it seems like the score varies a lot based on the background apps. 

 

As for the GTA V and Vsync, from what I've seen no CPU can maintain 60 fps or 16.7 ms in CPU intensive games such as GTA V, for which the graphics API is to blame. It's also impossible to compare framerate now and before because there are so many variables in terms of what's going on in the game.

Interesting, maybe it is the Afterburner with the overlays... Although I do remember having to manually click the AB icon after the result opens up which means that it was closed to begin with... As for GTA V, my CPU indeed is a bottleneck some if not most of the times... it's running at 85~100% and sometimes pegged at 100 for quite a while. I wish I had an overclocked i5, i think that would fair quite a bit better.

[Monarch]

20 minutes ago, JaZoN_XD said:

Interesting, maybe it is the Afterburner with the overlays... Although I do remember having to manually click the AB icon after the result opens up which means that it was closed to begin with... As for GTA V, my CPU indeed is a bottleneck some if not most of the times... it's running at 85~100% and sometimes pegged at 100 for quite a while. I wish I had an overclocked i5, i think that would fair quite a bit better.

If you mean the icon in the notifications area then it was running in the background. In GTA V your CPU is the bottleneck, but even if you had a 5960X you'd still drop below 60 fps occasionally, though much much less frequently. 

[grayperview]

GPU degradation maybe??

 

more likely something is running in the background.

[ybriK]

This is margin of error stuff. I've experienced this many times.

[JaZoN_XD]

49 minutes ago, super_skank said:

GPU degradation maybe??

 

more likely something is running in the background.

Do electronic components even degrade in the way you described it? I don't think so do they...?

[ybriK]

10 minutes ago, JaZoN_XD said:

Do electronic components even degrade in the way you described it? I don't think so do they...?

Apply enough high heat and voltage permanently over the course of 3+ years, they do. Look at abused AMD cards used for bitcoin farming. Technically we're all applying degradation damage to our components as of now but it's a very very very tiny amount.

[grayperview]

I'd imagine GPU boost on Nvidia cards speeds up degradation a bit too, given that it is effectively overclocking the card by default.

 

But your results are margin of error, it's less than 1.5% difference between the two scores...

 

Are you using fast start up within windows 10? I found this lowered performance for me, by about 3-5%...

 

I disabled it, so it does a proper full boot each time i turn on my PC and not this shitty fast "hybrid" boot bollocks....and my performance mysteriously came back....

 

Fast start up shaves about 3 seconds off boot up for me, losing 3-5% performance isn't a good trade off in my eyes.

 

http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4189-fast-startup-turn-off-windows-10-a.html

 

http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2859-hibernate-enable-disable-windows-10-a.html

[SImoHayha]

is the firestrike 1.1 free? I can never find it lol.

 

I want to try it sometimes T~T

[grayperview]

its on steam, search for 3d mark

[JaZoN_XD]

On 3/18/2016 at 11:17 PM, super_skank said:

its on steam, search for 3d mark

you don't even need steam just get it off the 3d mark website lol