Severely underperforming GTX 770

[Eilua]

Hi,

I built my new computer over the weekend (i5 4670k, Asus DCUII GTX 770, Seasonic Platinum 860w, Asus Maximus VI Hero, Corsair Vengeance Pro 2133 8GB, all in a Corsair 600T), it's my first ever full PC build and the build itself went quite well.

I have configured my RAM to run at it's rated speeds / timings in the BIOS using XMP, I have updated / installed all drivers and downloaded / installed all windows updates available to me (Windows 7 Pro 64 bit). Other than that I have both my GPU and CPU running at their stock values. I am also running the most recent Nvidia drivers (think it's 320. something).

I decided to download The Witcher 2 (a game I've been wanting to play for since its release) and expected to be able to play with all (most) of the bells and whistles on at 1080p and sustain 60FPS.

Using GeForce experience it stated that the optimal settings (and you would think, settings I could sustain high FPS with) were identical to the settings used in a test done by bit-tech when they were testing performance for the Titan.

On their test, they showed the GTX 680 perform with an average FPS of 81, with a minimum of 61, and the 7970Ghz ED perform with an average FPS of 84, with a minimum of 63.

You can see the full test at this website: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/02/21/nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-6gb-review/6

I believe my 770 should perform roughly around (if not slightly better) than both of these cards so you would expect that I would be achieving a similar FPS score, right?

I used similar settings and launched the tutorial to begin my game (the tutorial was a fairly closed in area with little going on). I was averaging around 30 FPS with dips to 10-15 during dialogue sequences. Surely something is not working correctly here?

Help please!

 

[Eilua]

Ubersampling is definitely disabled.

Checked Nvidia control panel and the only option I could see under 'manage 3D settings' about AA was referring to FXAA. That option was off, and most of the other options were set to 'let application decide'.

Is it possible my GPU isn't coming under full load / is incorrectly undervolting itself? Is it worth checking for this (and how would I go about that? :>)?

This is massively depressing me at the moment!

 

[Eilua]

I'll give a go with Heaven 4.0 and post the results in that thread.

I did try that benchmark late last night and couldn't get it to run at all at fullscreen 1080p, it would just keep crashing / not loading.

I'll check my temps on my gpu to see how that's fairing.

Brb.

 

[Eilua]

I received 34.6 FPS average in the Heaven benchmark, which is pretty much about the same that I'm getting in Witcher 2. Hmph.

 

[Eilua]

Score on the Heaven benchmark was 961.

Not sure if that's around what I should be getting with an Asus DCUII OC 770 at stock settings.

And yeah, my PCI lane is running at x16.

After about 3 or 4 loops through heaven my GPU was running at about 68 degrees Celsius which doesn't seem overly high either.

I have no idea what could be causing my slowdown in Witcher 2.

I will try downloading some other games to test, but at the moment I don't own many graphically intense games having only just bought and built the computer.

To be honest, the next most demanding game on my steam list is probably Civ 5, which isn't very demanding at all.

 

[Eilua]

It definitely says that I have Ubersampling disabled in the options menu that you can configure before the game launches.

Is it worth checking a .ini to see whether it's actually enabled and just showing as disabled in the menu?

I did check temps and volts etc earlier with CPU-z GPU-z and HW Monitor while running the game and nothing jumped out at me, but I'll try again.

I'll also check GPU usage while playing with EVGA precision, but I would imagine if my temps are reaching 70 degrees that I'll be close to 100% load.

 

[Eilua]

Ok, I realised that I had set one of the options higher than was in the benchmark done during that titan review at bit-tech.

I had set texture memory size to very large instead of large, switching it back down doubled my FPS. Still though, I'm not averaging what the 680 was in that test. Perhaps it was maxing out my VRAM? (Using a 2GB 770)

I checked my clocks etc and everything is fine. GPU at 100% load, CPU seems to be operating as it should. I don't really know why I'm not getting more performance out of my setup than I am (was still dipping down to ~50 FPS even after the change), but I suppose for now crisis is averted.

I have been getting some oddities from performance scanning hardware though which puzzled me. Using the Witcher 2 one (the one that decided I should only use high settings) it stated that I have 4095MB system memory (when I have 8GB) and that I have 4040MB VRAM (when I have 2GB). Weird!

Either way, thank you for your help.

 

[Eilua]

Hi again,

Here is a link to my GPU-Z screenshot while on the desktop (not sure about the image posting rules on this forum, so I hope that linking direct from the GPU-Z hosting solution is O.K!)

I'm afraid I don't have time to rerun Witcher 2 for a while and take another screenshot of it then because I'm going to work soon.

What I did notice however is that my GPU was at 100% (99%) load while I was playing, the fans were sitting around 70-75% speed and my temps were sitting around 70 degrees celsius, but my clock was sitting at 1050 (base clock) not 1111 (boost clock).

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't GPU boost 2.0 kick in if the temps on the die are below 80 degrees and ramp the core up to the boost value (or around there at any case)? It doesn't seem to be doing this with my 770.

Also, for it being at stock settings and with those fan / load figures are my temps not a little high (especially if it's not enabling boost)?

I would assume that means that my airflow isn't great in my case, and it's not getting rid of the hot air being blown out of the GPU effectively enough?

I'm not sure why that would be though. My build is very (very) clean - I can upload a photo if you guys think it would be easier to point out flaws in my setup. It's all in a Corsair 600T which is a pretty sizeable case designed with good airflow in mind.

I have my 2 200mm case fans connected to my fan controller and have them set at around 50%. Now, naturally I will (should) get better air flow setting them at 100%, but they're load enough as it is already (I can hear them over the headphones while gaming during quite moments).

I really didn't think I'd be having any heat problems while at stock clocks to be honest.

The only thing I can think of that might be causing more heat in my case than there should be is that currently my H80i fans are drawing air from the back of the case, blowing it through the radiator and exhausting it into the case.

The corsair diagram was misleading and there were no arrows on the fans themselves showing which way the air blows so I installed them the wrong way around. Corsair seem to suggest that the way I have them installed currently is optimal either way, and to be honest the air coming from my CPU cooler is being blown directly underneath my 200mm exhaust fan in the top of my case and (presumably) being sucked out of it almost instantly anyway.

Oh, and my 4670k is currently at stock clocks. I would imagine I will get slightly more performance in game with it OC'd, but honestly the load on my CPU while gaming is pretty low to begin with, surely OC'ing it wouldn't make that much of a difference to this particular game?

I had wanted to OC both my CPU and GPU when I pick up 4 new fans after my next pay day. Going to replace the stock h80i fans with Noctua NF-F12's I think (and put them the right way around this time) and replace both 200mm fans with something better, though I'm not sure what yet.

Hopefully after doing this I'll start getting results comparable to the benchmarks I based my purchasing decisions on - there's nothing worse than spending £1600 of your hard earned money and not getting the performance you were expecting to!

 

[Eilua]

Here are my GPU-Z sensor settings after an hour of playing Witcher 2:

Nothing seems to jump out at me as unusual, other than the average GPU clock speed which was only just over 1000 if I recall correctly, despite my card supposedly having a base clock of 1059.

So my GPU must be getting too hot and it's down clocking itself? Max GPU temperature was 72 degrees Celsius I think.

 

[Eilua]

I'm using 320.49 drivers, so I suppose that could explain the slight loss in performance I'm getting.

Still, that wouldn't explain the hardware issues I'm having with me card down clocking itself below the supposed base clock of 1059Mhz under load, despite being under the target temp of 79 degrees Celsius. I hit a high of 72, but an average of like 69.

Can't get the Precision X OSD to work, when I go into 'Monitoring' there isn't a check box for 'Enable OSD Monitoring' only one for Logitech keyboard display. Despite having installed the files needed to enable OSD during installation. I guess I'll try MSI afterburner.

Eugh, It's not been my day today. GPU not clocking high enough, CPU stuck on turbo mode even at Desktop - what more could go wrong? :<

 

[Eilua]

This image has just been taken from my desktop with only CPU-z and GPU-z open. Not only will my GPU not boost, now it's not down clocking either...

I really have no idea what to check to fix this. Is it worth looking at any settings in my bios, or will nothing in there effect this?

I'll check setting an offset and seeing if that does anything in a bit and post the results.

Yeah, I reckon it was just that they were testing a different area, I get similar results in the area they tested (flotsam).

I'm more worried about my GPU not doing things it's supposed to now. I mean, it's performing well enough to not be a hindrance, but my build is two days old and I've spent a lot of money on it, I want to make sure it's performing exactly as it should now - rather than put it to the back of my mind and just end up never fixing it.

P.S. Is my sig alright now? I've deleted a couple of entries. It doesn't clearly show how many lines it will take up when you preview it!

 

[Eilua]

Little update:

Last night I was playing Witcher 2 for about 6 hours with GPU-Z Monitoring my clocks the whole time. My maximum clock was around 1160, which is higher than the manufacturer stated boost clock of 1110.

Temperatures were around what they always have been, and were below the target temperature of 79 degrees, which is presumably why GPU boost 2.0 was able to boost my clock speed above the stated boost speed.

This is the first time that I've seen my GPU go over the manufacturer stated case clock of 1059 however, despite my card not over heating or anything of that nature. It seems that whatever controls the GPU clock on my card (not sure if it's controlled by hardware or software) is a little irritable at best and at worst just simply malfunctioning (not going into boost when it should, and not always down clocking when under 0% load).

Is this something that potentially a future driver update can fix? Or is it hardware based and I should expect to always have a temperamental GPU clock?

I'm really in two minds as to whether to DSR it or not. It works fine in the games I own at the moment, but GPU boost 2.0 is one of the headline features of the 700 series and what grants it its small performance boost over the GTX 680.

I'm going to replace my case fans soon, which should hopefully reduce my GPU temps by a fair amount, I wonder if it's worth waiting for then and seeing if that sorts out my GPU not consistently boosting / down clocking?

 

[Eilua]

Try going to nVidia Control Panel -> Manage 3D Settings -> Global Settings -> Power Management Mode -> Adaptive. If it's on "prefer maximum performance" then that'll be why it's not clocking down on the desktop (could be related to the boost issues too but I doubt it).

Thanks for mentioning that, It was actually set to prefer maximum performance. I have no idea why because I'm 100% certain I haven't changed that preference. Weird.

 

[Eilua]

The GPU not down clocking when there is no load is a little worrying. As Deceptor mentions check the power management setting in the Nvidia Control panel.

Are you able to check a few different games / benchmarks with the Afterburner OSD enabled to check your core clock. I am just wondering if this is a issue with The Witcher 2 rather than the card.

If the card is refusing to boost at all and you have tried all of the usual suspects then I would probably DSR it myself. Even in the current temperatures and in a case not known for its amazing cooling (Define R3) my 780 will happily boost in any game I try it in - even with temps over 75 degrees.

I'm going to download a couple of games today and test them out to see if my boost works correctly in them. To be honest, the only graphically intensive games I have at the moment other than TW2 are Civ 5 and GRID2, which do you reckon would be best to test this out on?

When the Steam Summer sale kicks off, I'll probably buy a few highly GPU demanding games to test this stuff out in the future, but obviously don't want to miss out on the savings I'll get by buying during the sale!

Just out of curiosity, what is the process for DSR'ing? Do I just ring up OcUK, ask to return the product, get a refund and then buy another one off them - or can I just explain the issues I'm having and ask for a straight swap?

I'm new to PC building and have never had to DSR / RMA before!