Results of putting a GTX 1070 SC in my i5 2500k @4.6 Ghz

[Delicieuxz]

I think I've found its max OC without artifacting in Unigine Valley, Ultra settings. The PC that my EVGA 1070 SC is installed in is an i5 2500k @4.6 Ghz, with 16 GB RAM @ 1866 Mhz, running Windows 10 for this testing.
 
EVGA 1070 SC - fully-stable settings in Unigine Valley, Ultra preset, 8xAA:
 
MSi Afterburner config:
voltage +100% (the voltage is BIOS-limited to a safe maximum, so allowing for up to +100% doesn't mean that it will actually reach that)
power target +112%
Core clock +129 Mhz over default EVGA SC (2126 Mhz total)
Memory clock + 577 Mhz (4581 Mhz total reading in Valley, or 2381.1 Mhz reading in GPU-z)
 
The difference between the +129 Mhz core clock OC (over default EVGA SC OC) and default core clock-speed (while keeping the memory clock OC of +577 Mhz) in the opening scene of Unigine Valley is about 3 FPS, or 3.2% total FPS (89 vs 92 FPS).
 
The difference between the +577 Mhz memory OC and default memory clock-speed (while keeping the core clock OC of +129 Mhz) in the opening scene of Unigine Valley is about 8 FPS, or 8.6% total FPS (84 vs 92 FPS).
 
I had expected that the core OC was going to be more impacting than the memory OC, but it looks to be the other way around.
 

 

I set up my OC in Afterburner, using the free version of Unigine Valley to test incremental changes, and have tested the core clock in gaming, but haven't yet tested this memory clock of +577 Mhz in games (though I previously tested the memory in games at +554 Mhz and it was fine).
 

 

For my game testing, the resolution is 1920x1200, and the 1070 core was at 2126 Mhz, and the memory at +554 OC.

 

In Witcher 3, I was able to run everything maxed out, including Hairworks (but with Hairworks AA at 4x, and not 8x), and get around 63 - 80 FPS, with the FPS typically staying in-between 67 - 71 FPS.

 

In Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, I was able to get constantly above 60 FPS by choosing either FXAA or SMAA, and also turning down soft-shadows to the second-highest setting, I think Very High. And this way I was able to maintain 60 FPS with Vsync on. But if Soft-shadows were set to Ultra, or whatever the highest setting is, FPS would dip to around 57 or so. And if I put on MSAAx4 instead of FXAA or SMAA, and kept Vsync on, then FPS would drop to 35 - 50.

 

In GTA V, with everything set to Ultra, with both 4xMSAA and TSAA, but with reflection AA I think at 4x, and not 8x, I was getting 85 - 110 FPS in the city. With just turning down the reflection quality from Ultra to Very High (keeping reflection AA at 4x), FPS stayed constantly above 100, going up to maybe 135 - 140.

 

In Assassin's Creed Syndicate, with Vsync on, I could keep most settings at maximum, with AA at 4x, but I had to turn something down to keep the FPS above 60, and I'm not sure what it was.

 

In Arma 3, the GTX 1070 made almost no difference from my R9 280X OC, due to Arma 3 being heavily CPU-dependent. I think I'm mostly getting the same 35 - 60 FPS that I was getting before, at medium-high settings, with reduced draw distances.

 
Overall, the 1070 is giving me some great to incredible performance gains, other than in Arma 3. It also appears that I got a great overclocking card, and I'm happy with it.

[don_svetlio]

You can get even more from it from an i7

[david cassar]

Could you include the gpu and cpu usage in those games?

[forthe48]

10 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

-snip-
 
Overall, the 1070 is giving me some great to incredible performance gains, other than in Arma 3. It also appears that I got a great overclocking card, and I'm happy with it.

Pretty interesting results to read, I just recently scalped together an i7-2600s build for a friend, so it's cool to see GPU performance with CPUs from around the same time.

[Delicieuxz]

27 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

You can get even more from it from an i7

My next PC purchase will possibly be a Noctua cooler for a quieter-running PC, but after that, I'll probably upgrade the mobo, CPU, and RAM. But I'm not in a big rush to do that right now. I looked at 2600k, 2700k prices on Criagslist, and I don't think $175 - $225 CAD is worth the amount of FPS I'd gain, since I can put that money towards a 6700k, or better. But I doubt I'll be upgrading mobo and CPU in the next 6 months.

 

25 minutes ago, david cassar said:

Could you include the gpu and cpu usage in those games?

Next time I run them I'll take a look.

[The Afro Samurai]

Nice, I got the funds for two 1080's but they are so hard to find and I refuse to overpay and I'm on the fence about getting two 1070's. As I'm getting sick and tired of waiting. I can get two 1070's right now. This helps.

[Delicieuxz]

9 minutes ago, The Afro Samurai said:

Nice, I got the funds for two 1080's but they are so hard to find and I refuse to overpay and I'm on the fence about getting two 1070's. As I'm getting sick and tired of waiting. I can get two 1070's right now. This helps.

SLI 1070 would be amazing, no doubt, but if you have the money for SLI 1080, that'd be way more powerful, if your system could handle it, and if you're running 1440p or 4K.

[Teddy07]

39 minutes ago, The Afro Samurai said:

Nice, I got the funds for two 1080's but they are so hard to find and I refuse to overpay and I'm on the fence about getting two 1070's. As I'm getting sick and tired of waiting. I can get two 1070's right now. This helps.

Just wait.

[ace_cheaply]

1 hour ago, The Afro Samurai said:

Nice, I got the funds for two 1080's but they are so hard to find and I refuse to overpay and I'm on the fence about getting two 1070's. As I'm getting sick and tired of waiting. I can get two 1070's right now. This helps.

Dudeman.  Not to tell you how to spend your money, but the 1080, like the 980 before it, is going to be obsolete in less than a year.  The 1070 might go down $50 or so, but the 1080 is going to have to be way cheaper in order to fit the 1080ti in.  I think the 1070 is a much better long term value vs. what will be offered later this year.

[demonaii]

It's good that you are satisfied with your results.

[Delicieuxz]

21 hours ago, david cassar said:

Could you include the gpu and cpu usage in those games?

Witcher 3 (Vsync enabled):

The section where data drops off in the middle of playing is from when I was in the map and inventory menus.

 

 

 

Unigine Valley:

 

 

 

I had to lower the core clock by one increment, to stop the Nvidia driver from crashing in Witcher 3 every once in a while. It's now at 2113 Mhz, and I haven't had another crash yet. In Arma 3, I need a different OC profile entirely, and it was the same way with my R9 280X, which would driver-crash even at stock speeds in Arma 3, and I had to under-clock it to get the game running stable.

 

I'll take some more graph shots later.

[The Afro Samurai]

4 hours ago, ace_cheaply said:

Dudeman.  Not to tell you how to spend your money, but the 1080, like the 980 before it, is going to be obsolete in less than a year.  The 1070 might go down $50 or so, but the 1080 is going to have to be way cheaper in order to fit the 1080ti in.  I think the 1070 is a much better long term value vs. what will be offered later this year.

That's the route I'm going to go. That will hold me over until the ti drops whenever that is. Plus I'll save $450-$500 for now.

[Delicieuxz]

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (Vsync enabled):

 

 

 

Fallout 4 (all settings maxed, Vsync enabled):

 

[Saif Zafar]

Very impressive results.. U hit the silicon lottery.. Im getting a 1070.. Either EVGA FTW or a MSI gaming x.. And I'm feeling happy with my choice 

[alphaproject]

Why in the world are you using Vsync? Serious question. I understand using limited FPS software like Rivatuner, but in game Vsync is awful in every scenario.

 

Plus... using Vsync on the 1070.... seems strange. You can limit the fps to around 75 to get a better reading on the frames per second overall. Limiting to 60 seems like such a huge waste on a 1070 doesn't it?

 

A 1070 being 40/50% faster than the 970 should be able to Max out Syndicate. I get around 45-65 (capped), not ULTRA....but almost everything maxed. FXAA though. Still use HBAO+.

[Delicieuxz]

9 hours ago, alphaproject said:

Why in the world are you using Vsync? Serious question. I understand using limited FPS software like Rivatuner, but in game Vsync is awful in every scenario.

 

Plus... using Vsync on the 1070.... seems strange. You can limit the fps to around 75 to get a better reading on the frames per second overall. Limiting to 60 seems like such a huge waste on a 1070 doesn't it?

I don't remember exactly why I chose to have Vsync on, other than to show that's the amount of meaningful work that both my CPU and GPU are doing to make each game perform flawlessly at my 1920x1200 monitor's 60 Hz. Though, my monitor can apparently do 70 Hz at 1920x1080. Although, I didn't know that in-game Vsync is bad.

 

I'll try some gaming without it on, and post the results.

[Delicieuxz]

On 7/20/2016 at 10:03 PM, alphaproject said:

A 1070 being 40/50% faster than the 970 should be able to Max out Syndicate. I get around 45-65 (capped), not ULTRA....but almost everything maxed. FXAA though. Still use HBAO+.

For some unknown reason I haven't figured out, ACS.exe is crashing each time I try to continue my game progress now. But I looked at my visual settings, and it's all generally maxed, with Environment Quality at Very High instead of Ultra, and with AA at MSAAx2 + FXAA.

 

Here's Witcher 3 without any vsync. Everything is maxed, except for Harworks AA, which is at 4x. FPS generally ranged from 63 - 84, with it usually around 65 - 76. It dropped to 62, and 60 for a brief moment:

 

 

 

Here is AC4 Black Flag, with in-game vsync disabled, and Nvidia's adaptive vsync enabled in the Nvidia control pane. I played with the game settings a bit, and found that PhysX at max was crippling FPS, so I set it to Low. And I set soft-shadows at Medium, though High was find with the FPS, too, but I liked the look of medium better, since the shadows weren't so unnaturally crisply-defined as they are on High. All other settings are maxed. Generally, FPS held at the vsync cap, but there were certain areas in Nassau where FPS would go as low as ~54 FPS:

 

[alphaproject]

Yea I have a 75hz monitor. So I cap vids at 65fps.

 

I also use the very high environment in ACS. We have same settings except I just have FXAA and PCSS. The PCSS ultra kills the fps.

 

 

 

There's my ACS video as well.

[Techicolors]

I managed to push my 1070 to around 2000 mhz boost clock. i could go higher but i'm satisfied with that OC.

 

I would like to add AC Unity. not a detailed report in my part but I achieve a solid 60fps at 1440p high settings and no AA, with 80-85% load. but once i enter any cutscene, fps drops to around 40-50fps. i can't max out visual settings, as it results in framerates of 50 fps, sometimes lower. 

 

i then tried out crysis 3. but it appears that my CPU is holding the 1070 back, as it's holding a constant 98% load, while my 1070 can only do 70% load. this is with high settings 1440p with TXAA. i can't max out visual settings, as that drops framerates to 45-50fps, sometimes lower. 

 

next i tried nfs 2015. as expected from frostbite engine, i maxed out every setting, 1440p but no AA (all the available options makes the game way too blurry), and holds 60fps all the time. too bad car handling sucks..

 

i'll try to provide detailed results, but that's what i observed at point-blank. 

[Delicieuxz]

Here are some vsync-off graphs from Witcher 3 (Novigrad), Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and GTA V:

 

 

 

Witcher 3, Novigrad city, all settings maxed, including Hairworks AA, which is at 8X:

 

 

 

 

Assassin's Creed Syndicate, environment Very High, shadows PCSS, MSAAx2 + FXAA, everything else maxed:

 

 

 

 

GTA V, in-game benchmark, reflection AA 4x,  everything else max, MSAAx4 + TSAA:

 

[App4that]

Yep, you have a bottleneck all right. Why I stepped up to the 4790k when I did.

[Delicieuxz]

10 minutes ago, App4that said:

Yep, you have a bottleneck all right. Why I stepped up to the 4790k when I did.

Unless it pushes down the GPU utilization, it isn't a bottleneck. And the GPU stayed at 99%.

 

Also, the CPU hitting 100% in the most demanding part of Witcher 3 (and while I had almost 10 guards chasing after me through the city) doesn't account for even 10% of 1% of gaming scenarios. And even then, it still didn't lower GPU utilization.

 

Also, my Witcher 3 FPS are equal to 4790K Witcher 3 FPS.

[App4that]

A lower GPU utilization is not required to have a bottleneck, that's merely one type of symptom and the symptom most are familiar with. 

[alphaproject]

The 1070 should be able to run AC:Syndicate with PCSS Ultra shouldn't it?  I don't care about the AA mode, but the game looks pretty sick using the PCSS Ultra.

 

Try that setting with FXAA or the next step up. Plus can't you upload the shadowplay of it somewhere for me? Sort of like my video.

[Delicieuxz]

14 hours ago, alphaproject said:

The 1070 should be able to run AC:Syndicate with PCSS Ultra shouldn't it?  I don't care about the AA mode, but the game looks pretty sick using the PCSS Ultra.

 

Try that setting with FXAA or the next step up. Plus can't you upload the shadowplay of it somewhere for me? Sort of like my video.

I actually didn't know there was a shadow option higher than PCSS available until you mentioned it. I checked it out, and it does look especially nice. FPS with PCSS Ultra ranged from 54 - 74, without lowering AA or anything else.

 

I tried making a video using Afterburner's video capture software, but it dropped FPS down to 35 - 55, and make the game very stuttery. I haven't used vid capture software for games before, so maybe you can recommend a setting that won't cripple the game.

 

Here's the performance graphs for PCSS Ultra with MSAAx2 + FXAA. I notice that the CPU is being engaged more intensely with PCSS Ultra, and also that the CPU and GPU frequently both dip in their utilizations are the same moments, but without the FPS dipping. I wonder why that is: