Diagnosing graphics issues - GTX 1070 - Visual artifacts

[Slavo]

Hello all.

I've had issues with graphics for a while, and haven't been able to diagnose them or find out the reason. I get visual artifacts in games (not all, but some), and they become unplayable.

You can see them here: https://youtu.be/3xz1hgDjaNk

Build:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming 8GB
PSU: Corsair CX600
Mobo: MSI B450 Tomahawk Max

With this hardware, I should be able to run all games on 1080 very smoothly, but you can see that's not the case. The issues appear only in some games. Shadow of The Tomb Raider, Kingdom Come Deliverance. The rest are ok.

I had the same issues before upgrading CPU and Mobo, which means it's unlikely those. Previous ones were Intel Core i5 6600, with mobo Gigabyte Z170 HD3P.

It seems the most likely culprit is GPU. It was still under warranty, so I sent it to Gigabyte recently, and they returned it with "no fault found". Power should be enough for this setup I think, so unlikely PSU, but haven't tested it. Temperatures for both CPU and GPU seem to be ok. As you can see the FPS is ok as well at 60 (due to VSync and my monitor), so it's not under-performing, but it shows these things.

Any ideas what else I can do?

 

[Slavo]

Yes, drivers are latest.

Underclocking 300Mhz on memory and 100Mhz on GPU boost clock doesn't resolve it

 

[Slavo]

If either of these solve it, use as evidence to get the RMA done, as I assume this is happening on shipped configuration.

It didn't resolve it, but also I sent evidence with the original RMA request anyway, which didn't help. Not sure if it ever got to Gigabyte as I did it through the reseller.

 

[Slavo]

how old is your psu?, looking online and your particular unit is end of life (EOL), i did a quick check on outervision a psu calculator program and with your setup was able to push required power to 438w total, but that figure asumes your gpu runs at 1506mhz and no higher.

can you confirm total system specs and at what speed your cpu and gpu hit in games, knowing this will help and at a guess power will go close to 600w, don't forget the cx600w psu only has a 46amp 12v rail which at best can deliver 500w of stable power, if you push close or above that your overloading your psu

The GPU is factory overclocked so runs at higher frequencies - reaches up to 1960-1980Mhz. I'm not sure what calculator you're using, but 500w not being enough sounds crazy. The recommended min PSU for the 1070 is 500w, and mine is above that. I'm guessing this recommendation takes into account the most common system setup - I'm not running any additional hardware that consumes more power. Doing a quick calculation here results in less than 500W: https://outervision.com/b/RBqCJi

Specs:
- MSi b450 Tomahawk Max Mobo
- AMD Ryzen 5 3600
- Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming Rev. 2
- RAM 2 DIMM x 4GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000Mhz + 1DIMM x 8GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX 2300 Mhz (I know about the difference in speed but haven't had issues)
- PSU Corsair CX600
- SSD Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SATA
- HDD WD Blue 1GB 7200 rpm SATA
- 1x DVD/RW Drive

 

[Slavo]

i used this to calculate power

https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

need to know how many case fans and which sizes too, all this will keep adding to the power required.

to add also have you got a program called cpu-z and that will show what voltage is being given to the cpu and will show the cpu's max speed, the link above lets you set that when choosing a cpu, from memory the stock voltage of a 3600 is around 1.4v+ which again adds to total power

The link I posted gives you everything, including fans. Here it is again: https://outervision.com/b/RBqCJi

CPU-Z shows 1.05 - 1.15 Voltage at idle, 1.368 at load

 

[Slavo]

This is a really odd ram set up as not only is half running in single channel which will effect gaming performance I'm guessing it's all only running at the 2300 speed of the lowest stick. I know this shouldn't effect Gpu artifacting but going forward you should probably just replace it with a 2x 8gb kit of 3200-3600.

Back to the Gpu situation, is sottr running in dx 11 or 12?

Although those artefacts look very similar to my brothers Gpu a couple of week before it fail completely.

Yeah, I know I'm due for RAM upgrade. The artifacts happen with both dx 11 and 12, video was recorded on 12.

so cpu is locked at 3.6ghz and will not got faster?

when i put in your system to outervision i get this, assuming the cpu stays at 3.6ghz and uses 1.36v, and your gpu boosts up to 1.98ghz

https://outervision.com/b/GBDEzU

I don't think the CPU is locked, but that's the voltage reading when running the CPU-Z stress. AMD also provide their own power management plans for Windows, which enable more performance. I think that specific CPU can go up to 4.1Ghz, in which case it might be consuming more power, but it's a 65W CPU, so I don't expect it to ever go above 70W

 

[Slavo]

your right in saying that the cpu will sit around 65w power draw under load, but that only happens if you set the cpu to its base speed of 3.6ghz, if the cpu is left to it's own devices and boosts to 4.2ghz your power usage will likely be around 100w, a handy program is hwiinfo64 it will show all the information you would ever need to know about your pc including max cpu clocks, power usage and temperatures, hell it will readout your psu voltages too!, if anything is wrong the program flags the values in red

https://www.hwinfo.com/download/

download the installer from a server and run the program, when the little box appears select sensors only and click run, then you'll get all the info you'd ever need

I am aware. I was using HWMonitor, and here's all that info while running Cinebench.

https://imgur.com/StuwpRb

 

[Slavo]

temps on that run are really good, anything below 70 is good, did see package power go upto 80ish watt's, within hwmoniter are you able to see what voltages your psu is at, if not no biggie i think you need the pro version, however hwinfo64 will provide that information along with everything thing else, gpu wise is it still the two games that glitch or have you noticed anything else in your game collection?

CPU voltages are displayed just above the temperatures in that screenshot. Mostly 1.35V.
Yeah - I'm quite happy with the thermals - using a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black edition, which is much better than the AMD stock Wraith Stealth cooler.

Only those 2 games. I also had issues with Dishonored 2. Lowering the settings helps. After a lot of trial and error, I've got it to a point it's OK, but that means medium on 1080p with SOTR, lowest anti-aliasing, no shadows, no tesselation and a lot of other stuff pushed down. In my mind, I should not have to do that with this card. It should handle things quite well at 1080p

 

[Slavo]

obviously dropping the settings down will reduce the load the gpu has to undertake, its a good sign that the artifacting has stopped or has reduced, but i'm still on the fence with your psu, did you download hwinfo64, that will show what voltages your psu is supplying with a current, low and high value. Take a screen grab of that and post it.

What value am I looking for? It shows me Mobo, CPU, GPU voltages but no PSU

 

[Slavo]

obviously dropping the settings down will reduce the load the gpu has to undertake, its a good sign that the artifacting has stopped or has reduced, but i'm still on the fence with your psu, did you download hwinfo64, that will show what voltages your psu is supplying with a current, low and high value. Take a screen grab of that and post it.

Idle:
https://imgur.com/UdC1GTC

Load:
https://imgur.com/48KIW6g

 

[Slavo]

one sec I'll check

idle voltages are all in the green

12v is at 12.096v
5v is at 5.120v
3.3v is at 3.328v

load voltages look good too

12v is at 11.904v
5v is at 5.120v
3.3v is at 3.328v

all seem with in atx spec but even though the voltages look good the amps the unit is supplying may not be enough, you haven't mentioned how old your psu is.

interestingly your gpu core voltage at idle is 0.781v and under load it only increases to 0.912v, that seems suspect as the load core voltage of most gtx 1070's should sit around 1.050 - 1.064v.

do you have a custom power limit in place for your card? forget that question i can see the card is pulling 103% total power at load

PSU is 5-ish years old. But I guess based on the above there's no indication there's a problem for it, if I understand correctly. I guess without any trial and error it's hard to diagnose further.

 

[Slavo]

the only real way is to borrow or buy another psu, if borrowing one make sure its around the 600w mark and a known good unit, otherwise take the plunge and order a new unit, stick to 600w but look at gold rated units, just for peace of mind don't be afraid to spend a bit (£70-£80), end of the day its the sole component responsible for your whole computer's power.

how may power plugs does your gtx 1070 have?

1 x 8-pin plug. I've got a few coming out of the PSU and I've tried all of them, so not a faulty cable.