Is my 560Ti underpeforming?

[Urban Reflex]

Hi guys,

I've got a potential problem with my graphics card, and I was wondering if you could tell me if it IS a problem, or normal behaviour.

The problem is that it just seems... rubbish. It's a 2GB MSI GTX560Ti Twin Frozr II OC, and the game I'll use as my example is COD Modern Warfare 2. Now, I would've thought that this card is good enough to run this game at max settings at 1680x1050 (correct me if I'm wrong....), however I get an unplayable 23FPS.

GPUZ tells me that the card doesn't underclock during my gaming sessions, but that the GPU load % goes all the way to 100%. Card memory usage is about 50%, temps and fan speeds seem about right according to the internet (55C, 2500RPM).

Is this expected behaviour for this card running this (and other similar age) games? Or do I have a deeper issue?

 

[gpuerrilla]

Its quite old, is it from 2010? Well in any case it sounds like a game that thrives on low cores at high clock speeds CPU wise. Not sure about your GPU as I dont have time to look right now, but I would be tempted to overclock your CPU and see if that makes any difference. Its a DX9 game, been a while.

 

[cheesyboy]

Mid-range gpu struggling at max settings a game that's about a year old (at gpu release). Sounds about right to me.

I still run a 560ti, but rarely play 3D games, and tend not to go max settings anyway, so can't offer much comparison

 

[Tommy_Here]

There's something definitely not right there, that game used to run on my 660 Ti at 1080p and I'd be 150+fps all times the 660 Ti is 2x the power of the 560 Ti, you should at least get 60. Try msi afterburner overlay monitor your clockspeed/usage

 

[Kirby Wurm]

https://www.techspot.com/review/359-nvidia-geforce-gtx-560ti/page5.html

Judging by this something is definitely wrong. They used a faster CPU but the difference is far greater than should be the case.

 

[z10m]

Are you sure it’s only using 50% of your vram.? From memory the game is a vram hog when using max texture resolution.

Edit: my bad I was thinking about cod advanced warfare

 

[Rroff]

I used to play the game on a Samsung 2233rz 120Hz 1680x1050 monitor with a Q9550 (usually somewhere around 4GHz) and GTX470 SLI (though the 470s were clocked pretty heavily) and framerates in that game were comfortably around 100fps with everything turned up and easily exceeding 120 with some settings turned down for the cleanest visuals.

Dunno what card they were testing in that link, etc. but there was several different versions of the 560ti with differing performance, etc. a 448 core variant which had 1.28GB VRAM but much faster than the normal 1 and 2GB models and some OEM, etc. models which had things like cut down VRAM performance, etc. (normally seen in pre-built machines and some laptops, etc.).

EDIT: Actually the "GTX 675M" in my laptop is actually the 560ti 2GB (when the VRAM is overclocked its same performance as the desktop one) and it still handles that game fine even at 1920x1080 albeit not brilliant but it was IIRC around 50fps (with max or close to max settings) when I last played the game on there. (Obviously that is with a reasonably recent CPU).

 

[Marine-RX179]

Hi guys,

I've got a potential problem with my graphics card, and I was wondering if you could tell me if it IS a problem, or normal behaviour.

The problem is that it just seems... rubbish. It's a 2GB MSI GTX560Ti Twin Frozr II OC, and the game I'll use as my example is COD Modern Warfare 2. Now, I would've thought that this card is good enough to run this game at max settings at 1680x1050 (correct me if I'm wrong....), however I get an unplayable 23FPS.

GPUZ tells me that the card doesn't underclock during my gaming sessions, but that the GPU load % goes all the way to 100%. Card memory usage is about 50%, temps and fan speeds seem about right according to the internet (55C, 2500RPM).

Is this expected behaviour for this card running this (and other similar age) games? Or do I have a deeper issue?

Something's definitely not right, as I remember I used to play the COD MW2 on the slower HD5850 and even that managed to deliver around 40~60fps+ on 1080p.

About the GPU usage, did it at lots of random dips from the 100%? 55C is quite low temp for a 560Ti 2GB, as I remember my friend that use to have the card in a relatively good airflow case it would be averaging at around 65C+ under intensive gaming...so I am kind of suspecting your 560Ti 2GB is not being used to the max all the time.

 

[efish]

Is this expected behaviour for this card running this (and other similar age) games?

No.

Game should run fine at 4 a.a. 16x a.f. max settings.

If 55c is in-game temp, that looks suspect. 68- 72 c in-game for me with very good airflow. Idle 30 to 37c.

M.S.I had higher power usage if I remember correctly (its the card I had).

Is you're p.s.u. up to the job?

Drivers have been an issue with this card in the past that caused slow down can't recall a drop in temp like that at the same time.

 

[efish]

No.

Game should run fine at 4 a.a. 16x a.f. max settings.

If 55c is in-game temp, that looks suspect. 68- 72 c in-game for me with very good airflow. Idle 30 to 37c.

M.S.I had higher power usage if I remember correctly (its the card I had).

Is you're p.s.u. up to the job?

Drivers have been an issue with this card in the past that caused slow down can't recall a drop in temp like that at the same time.

p.s I just spoke to my son who had the card when it died.

First symptom massive F.P.S. drop in games. Would sometimes go back to normal on on re-boot.

Unfortunately he did not let me know until a weeks later when it started artifacting.

Cause= faulty brand new p.s.u.

Issue not caught in time,card toast.

Does not mean to say you have the same problem but I would check out p.s.u first for any issues.

 

[nashathedog]

Hi, I'd take the gpu cooler apart to give it a good clean and a blow through the heatsink, A gpu that's this old will likely be clogged up with dust so a good clean & some new paste can't hurt it.
As mentioned the card is older than the game and it was a mid range card so it's going to require tweaking to get the right balance between performance and visuals.


If their is one finding a better cpu for your motherboard will help things as well. You shouldn't have to pay a lot secondhand.

 

[efish]

Hi, I'd take the gpu cooler apart to give it a good clean and a blow through the heatsink, A gpu that's this old will likely be clogged up with dust so a good clean & some new paste can't hurt it.
As mentioned the card is older than the game and it was a mid range card so it's going to require tweaking to get the right balance between performance and visuals.


If their is one finding a better cpu for your motherboard will help things as well. You shouldn't have to pay a lot secondhand.

The card is very easy to take apart and put back together again. Not so much of a dust magnet, get most of it off without taking it apart but the thermal paste ends up as dry as a bone.

It was the first thing I did. I would still check the p.s.u. first before anything else.

 

[NirK]

The card is about 5 generations old and was a midrange card when it came out, overall just get a new GPU.

 

[Urban Reflex]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your many and in-depth responses! I'm going to take it apart and re-do the thermal paste - I did this before a few years ago but perhaps the dust and heat have dried it all out, as efish suggested? Although, if this was the case wouldn't I see temps higher than the 55C I am seeing?

I did wonder if my CPU was some kind of bottleneck, but the CPU itself is only a few months older than the game, and it doesn't hit 100% usage when playing. That, and it handles newer games fine (Far Cry 4, for example), although graphical performance still isn't great.

PSU should definitely be up to the job, it's 750W and I think the recommended PSU for this card is something like 500W, and actual draw is about 180W looking at the reviews. If I run Furmark the temps / CPU / fan speed all hit max, and there's no artefacting or tearing or anything - just low frames (score of 2695 @ 720p).

I'm using GPU-Z for temps and monitoring.

 

[efish]

The card is about 5 generations old and was a midrange card when it came out, overall just get a new GPU.

That's the road I went down.

Nothing like the feeling of putting a new graphics card into a system to instantly find you have invested £350 in what may be a one use p.s.u tester.

Just make sure you have a change of underwear on hand.

If its a higher wattage card it will stress the p.s.u. more and results will be instant and very dramatic if something is wrong here.

 

[efish]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your many and in-depth responses! I'm going to take it apart and re-do the thermal paste - I did this before a few years ago but perhaps the dust and heat have dried it all out, as efish suggested? Although, if this was the case wouldn't I see temps higher than the 55C I am seeing?

I did wonder if my CPU was some kind of bottleneck, but the CPU itself is only a few months older than the game, and it doesn't hit 100% usage when playing. That, and it handles newer games fine (Far Cry 4, for example), although graphical performance still isn't great.

PSU should definitely be up to the job, it's 750W and I think the recommended PSU for this card is something like 500W, and actual draw is about 180W looking at the reviews. If I run Furmark the temps / CPU / fan speed all hit max, and there's no artefacting or tearing or anything - just low frames (score of 2695 @ 720p).

I'm using GPU-Z for temps and monitoring.

Sounds like the paste should be fine but does no harm and its an easy card to work with. I assumed the problem was the card, as it was running with a new 750 watt p.s.u. from a reliable manufacturer, sticking in a brand new card identified the issue as it failed instantly booting into windows due to the greater power draw. Had a cheap p.s.u tester but it did not pick up the fault.

Replaced the p.s.u with a spare, new card was fine. Never re-tested the old card, cleaned and re-pasted it but its sitting on the shelf getting used as a paper weight.

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your many and in-depth responses! I'm going to take it apart and re-do the thermal paste - I did this before a few years ago but perhaps the dust and heat have dried it all out, as efish suggested? Although, if this was the case wouldn't I see temps higher than the 55C I am seeing?

I did wonder if my CPU was some kind of bottleneck, but the CPU itself is only a few months older than the game, and it doesn't hit 100% usage when playing. That, and it handles newer games fine (Far Cry 4, for example), although graphical performance still isn't great.

PSU should definitely be up to the job, it's 750W and I think the recommended PSU for this card is something like 500W, and actual draw is about 180W looking at the reviews. If I run Furmark the temps / CPU / fan speed all hit max, and there's no artefacting or tearing or anything - just low frames (score of 2695 @ 720p).

I'm using GPU-Z for temps and monitoring.

If the issue is just with one game you could try an older driver. Card had issues with drivers back in the day causing slow down in a number of games.

google 500 series 314.22, it was the driver that sorted a lot of problems for the 500 series.

 

[Urban Reflex]

Soooo... It turned out that even though my motherboard has three full size PCIE slots, only two of them are 16x. The one I had my 560 plugged into was only 4x.

Thank you for all your help, it's running plenty faster now!

 

[fastwunz]

Haha!! You plonker! Great result in the the end - glad it’s sorted

 

[gpuerrilla]

oh well - game on!

 

[willhub]

Does PCI-E 2.0 8x effect performance? I was led to believe it wouldn't, but I'm running a HD7970 in my old PC and it's stuck at that for some reason.