GTX 970 Performing like a 770

[Jonnyzord]

So I got a new graphics card, clean installed it and what not... I run a benchmark on PC mark and it under performs... I play my video game DotA 2 and it plays at 60FPS (I have vSync on) and after about half an hour it will randomly drop 20-30 frames for a constant 5-10 minutes then go back to normal. re-seated the card, nothings changed. Updated the bios, nothings changed, made sure all my settings weren't on power saving mode, nothings changed, overclocked my CPU in case of a bottle neck, nothings changed. I have no idea what's wrong. A little help please? Really feel like just selling the card and going back to my old GTX 770 as it works even better than this card currently.

Specs:

 

AMD FX 8320 3.8Ghz

Evo 212 CPU Cooler
Asus A5A97 R2.0 Motherboard

8GB Kingston beast RAM

MSI Twin Frozr GTX 970

240GB Kingston hyper x 3k

3TB Seagate Hard Drive

Windows 10 64

[Aruxx]

Have you tried running HWMonitor or something of the sorts while you're playing games.  You might be able to see what's happening through that.

 

(Could be thermal throttling, that's my thought)

[FloRolf]

-reinstall/clean install drivers (DDU)

-make sure it stays cool

-monitor clock speeds

[Jonnyzord]

Had MSI after burner on and from what I can tell it's running perfectly, and when it dips in the frames it's running the same as when it's running the game at 60FPS. used DDU clean installed the drivers, it's staying around 60 Celsius when it's running my games and the clock speeds are not running anywhere near it's peak.

[Aruxx]

1 minute ago, Jonnyzord said:

Had MSI after burner on and from what I can tell it's running perfectly, and when it dips in the frames it's running the same as when it's running the game at 60FPS. used DDU clean installed the drivers, it's staying around 60 Celsius when it's running my games and the clock speeds are not running anywhere near it's peak.

A thought is completely close MSI Afterburner while you're playing.  See if it works fine without it running.  Could be a random setting that was accidentally pressed in MSI Afterburning causing the card to underclock.

[Oskar94a]

3 minutes ago, Jonnyzord said:

-snip-

Monitor your CPU usage and see if it goes to 100% while the weird stuff happens.

[Jonnyzord]

I only opened MSI Afterburner to see what was wrong when it started dipping, and only downloaded the program to find out why it wasn't working properly. 

 

It's hard to get the problem to reoccur it's very sporadic with it's coming and going, going to load fallout 4 up for 5 minutes see what's happening. 

[Aruxx]

Just now, Jonnyzord said:

I only opened MSI Afterburner to see what was wrong when it started dipping, and only downloaded the program to find out why it wasn't working properly. 

 

It's hard to get the problem to reoccur it's very sporadic with it's coming and going, going to load fallout 4 up for 5 minutes see what's happening. 

I'm kinda stumped by this, but I notice you didn't mention a power supply in your main post.  Are you sure you have the juice to power a hyped up 8320 and a GTX 970?

[Simon771]

Use msi afterburner and hwmonitor in background.

In afterburner select to monitor frame time and frame rate.

If frame times are jumping higher than 30ms, it's probbably CPU problem.

[Jonnyzord]

From everything I look at and see I have enough watts to run my GPU and CPU I will use my msi after burner and hw monitor in the background whilst playing, will reply when it happens again, as I said its sporadic so I don't know when it will happen again. Also, any reason why my GPU's under performing in Passmark: http://imgur.com/wTYXNDn

[Aruxx]

1 minute ago, Jonnyzord said:

From everything I look at and see I have enough watts to run my GPU and CPU I will use my msi after burner and hw monitor in the background whilst playing, will reply when it happens again, as I said its sporadic so I don't know when it will happen again. Also, any reason why my GPU's under performing in Passmark: http://imgur.com/wTYXNDn

I noticed GeForce Experience in the bottom, is Shadowplay running?  That can rob some performance.  As far as the clock speeds being low I cannot think of what's causing that.

[Jonnyzord]

It wasn't running at the time no, gonna run some more hardware monitors and test it whilst I'm playing.

[Aruxx]

11 minutes ago, Jonnyzord said:

It wasn't running at the time no, gonna run some more hardware monitors and test it whilst I'm playing.

I tried searching it for myself and all I could find is faulty drivers, performance settings turned down, or bad overclocks.  Maybe try downgrading your driver?  A lot of things you have already mostly covered.

[-rascal-]

I'm surprised nobody say this yet; OP's first post gave it away.

1. V-Sync is enabled
2. FX-8320
3. DotA 2 -- a MOBA based multiplayer game

V-sync will lock your FPS at the refresh rate of our monitor. If your display is 60 Hz, then it will cap it at 60 FPS. If it every dips below 60, then it will reduce to the lowest multiple -- which is 30 FPS. For an example, you all of a sudden dip down to 50 FPS, it will bring it down to 30 FPS. There is no in between 60 or 30. THIS problem is what G-Sync and FreeSync addresses.

 

FX-8320 may be multi-core, and high frequency, but the per-core performance is not the best. Compared to it's Intel counterpart, it has a lot of chancing up to do. The upcoming "Zen" on socket AM4 is suppose to bring AMD Processor's per-core performance up to, or close, to what Intel's level.

 

DotA 2, like the majority of the MOBA based games (i.e. LoL, HoTS, etc), prefer few, high per-core performance Processors. This is exactly the disadvantage of the AMD FX Processors. DotA 2 may have multi-core support, but it certainly will not be able to efficiently utilize ALL eight cores on the FX-8320. It doesn't matter if your FX-8320 is overclocked to "balls-to-the-walls" level, it may still not be enough to significantly reduce the CPU bottleneck.

 

For an example, my FX-8350 at 4.9 GHz still show signs of bottlenecking on my two HD 7970's in BF4 -- an AMD game that can use the all the CPU cores. Performance takes a significant hit, in games like Starcraft 2 and DotA 2, when there is too much activity happening on-screen at a given time.

[Chirag Borawake]

Sounds like thermal throttling to me! Monitor your temperatures and let us know.

[zberry7]

V-Sync will drop your frame rates to 30 if your PC isn't spitting out 60+ FPS. Also check your settings in MSI Afterburner, GPU Boost 2.0 could be turning down your clock speed because of power limitations, turn up your power limit to the max.

Also if none of that helps, turn on KBoost while gaming, it will run your graphics card at full boost all the time, I don't use Aftrrburner but the setting should be there, if not, then try PrecisionX.

 

[Morgan Everett]

16 hours ago, -rascal- said:

I'm surprised nobody say this yet; OP's first post gave it away.

1. V-Sync is enabled
2. FX-8320
3. DotA 2 -- a MOBA based multiplayer game

V-sync will lock your FPS at the refresh rate of our monitor. If your display is 60 Hz, then it will cap it at 60 FPS. If it every dips below 60, then it will reduce to the lowest multiple -- which is 30 FPS. For an example, you all of a sudden dip down to 50 FPS, it will bring it down to 30 FPS. There is no in between 60 or 30. THIS problem is what G-Sync and FreeSync addresses.

 

Well, not really. I play with V-sync enabled all the time, on a 60Hz display, and when my framerate drops below 60 I don't get 30. G-Sync and FreeSync don't exist to address this (non-existent) problem, but to prevent screen tearing while obviating the need for V-sync, which can cause stuttering and input latency, in the first place.

[Blackie Sheen]

19 hours ago, Aruxx said:

I'm kinda stumped by this, but I notice you didn't mention a power supply in your main post.  Are you sure you have the juice to power a hyped up 8320 and a GTX 970?

If he had enough juice for his former 770 and the same cpu, he should have more than enough juice for the 970 and the same cpu since the 970 consumes significantly less power

[i_build_nanosuits]

that's why you should not pair a 5 years + old 100$ CPU with a modern 350$ graphics card i guess?

[-rascal-]

4 hours ago, Morgan Everett said:

 

Well, not really. I play with V-sync enabled all the time, on a 60Hz display, and when my framerate drops below 60 I don't get 30. G-Sync and FreeSync don't exist to address this (non-existent) problem, but to prevent screen tearing while obviating the need for V-sync, which can cause stuttering and input latency, in the first place.

 

Double-buffering V-sync will do what I mentioned previously.

 

Say...your vertical refresh rate is 60 Hz.

Because you can only go down in a multiple of 60/N -- where N is a integer value, then the results are:

• 60 (when N =1)
• 30 (when N = 2)
• 20 (when N= 3)
• etc

Simply put, V-sync will decrease the vertical frequency down to stay in sync with the 60 Hz -- otherwise, you will see the tearing.

 

This is what FreeSync and G-Sync helps resolve....

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

If your frame rates drop down to say...47 FPS, you won't have to take the hit by of dropping down to 30 FPS. It can "compensate" for that, and allows you to maintain your 47 FPS.

 

In AMD's case, what they call is "dynamic refresh rate." you can have a range of values in between 60 Hz and 30 Hz (i.e. 45Hz, 40Hz, or 32 Hz)

[Morgan Everett]

2 hours ago, -rascal- said:

 

Double-buffering V-sync will do what I mentioned previously.

 

Say...your vertical refresh rate is 60 Hz.

Because you can only go down in a multiple of 60/N -- where N is a integer value, then the results are:

• 60 (when N =1)
• 30 (when N = 2)
• 20 (when N= 3)
• etc

Simply put, V-sync will decrease the vertical frequency down to stay in sync with the 60 Hz -- otherwise, you will see the tearing.

 

This is what FreeSync and G-Sync helps resolve....

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

 

If your frame rates drop down to say...47 FPS, you won't have to take the hit by of dropping down to 30 FPS. It can "compensate" for that, and allows you to maintain your 47 FPS.

 

In AMD's case, what they call is "dynamic refresh rate." you can have a range of values in between 60 Hz and 30 Hz (i.e. 45Hz, 40Hz, or 32 Hz)

But not V-sync per se. In no PC game I've ever played has V-sync behaved in the way you've described. This was once a problem, but isn't now. So, again, G-sync and FreeSync are technologies intended to eliminate screen tearing and the use of V-sync, which causes stuttering and input latency, to avoid it.