GTX 970 underperforming? Help

[gtagtagta1]

So I've recently upgraded to an ASUS GTX 970 4gb and so far I've been pretty satisfied with it except that I'm noticing I'm getting much lower fps than people with similar PC builds.

 

My build:

 

CPU: AMD fx-8320 (stock for now at 3.5ghz)

RAM: 8GB

MB: m5a97 r2.0

PSU: Corsair CX430

 

Windows 7 64bit

 

People with similar builds have had everything on very high ( except grass) and have had decent results, I'm seeing anything from 55-65fps avg. While Im getting around 40-55avg (40 especially when driving)

Was really hoping I'd be able to play this game at a stable 55avg at least.

 

I've played around with all the settings in the nvidia CP as well to no avail.

 

Please help! Thanks

 

 

[Nick930930]

Check your advanced settings. Turn down extended distance scaling and disable high resolution shadows.

 

If those are already off, idk what to tell you. Could be the rest of your pc has an issue like some bottlekneck?

 

Your other specs appear to be fine.. so yeah. No clue.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Nick930930

[stretchx9]

I have a similar system, FX8350, M5A99FX. 16G.

There are a lot of variables in the game that effect fps and upgrading your video card is not going to level the playing field.

What card did you upgrade from?

What driver version are you using?

Do you have GeForce Experience or MSI Afterburner running in the background?

Is the game play smooth?

 

Run Cinebench R15 Opengl bench and post the result.

Edited September 1, 2015 by stretchx9

[swirler]

1. Is your 970 stock/ref, or OC/custom? That on its own could be the difference.

 

2. Its best to take others results with a pinch of salt. Between the many options and the sometimes vague settings listed, to the exaggerated results. The reported numbers can be misleading. "I run ULTRA MAXED ROCK SOLID 60!!! But no mods, no advanced, no msaa, grass notched down 2, tess not actually maxed, oh and 60 only indoors ALL DAY LONG"

 

3. The less likely, but not to be completely overlooked. Your 8320 @ 3.5 could be holding you back, these CPU benches show there is a difference between speeds on an AMD FX CPU. That difference varies depending on your settings, its usually small enough, but a few fps along with 1 hard hitting setting not being exactly the same and again thats your difference explained.

 

 

I have a similar system

Did you lose your 2nd 970? ^^'

[stretchx9]

Swirler-

Nope, I did not lol.

If the OP posts a synthetic benchmark result; I have a result made @ 3411mhz to compare with his.

You will never get consistent fps with this wreck of a game. For example, I get anywhere from 75 to 115 fps in sli. Seems the faster you go, the more disproportionate the gap becomes.

[gtagtagta1]

Check your advanced settings. Turn down extended distance scaling and disable high resolution shadows.

 

If those are already off, idk what to tell you. Could be the rest of your pc has an issue like some bottlekneck?

 

Your other specs appear to be fine.. so yeah. No clue.

 

All of my advanced settings are turned off except high detail while flying

1. Is your 970 stock/ref, or OC/custom? That on its own could be the difference.

 

2. Its best to take others results with a pinch of salt. Between the many options and the sometimes vague settings listed, to the exaggerated results. The reported numbers can be misleading. "I run ULTRA MAXED ROCK SOLID 60!!! But no mods, no advanced, no msaa, grass notched down 2, tess not actually maxed, oh and 60 only indoors ALL DAY LONG"

 

3. The less likely, but not to be completely overlooked. Your 8320 @ 3.5 could be holding you back, these CPU benches show there is a difference between speeds on an AMD FX CPU. That difference varies depending on your settings, its usually small enough, but a few fps along with 1 hard hitting setting not being exactly the same and again thats your difference explained.

 

 

 

I have a similar system

Did you lose your 2nd 970? ^^'

I'm really hoping it is my stock gpu and stock cpu for now, I don't plan on OC'ing until I upgrade my PSU ( seeing as it's a cx430 for now, could that potentially be the problem?)

Those benches are pretty impressive though and could potentially be my problem?

I have a similar system, FX8350, M5A99FX. 16G.

There are a lot of variables in the game that effect fps and upgrading your video card is not going to level the playing field.

What card did you upgrade from?

What driver version are you using?

Do you have GeForce Experience or MSI Afterburner running in the background?

Is the game play smooth?

 

Run Cinebench R15 Opengl bench and post the result.

I upgraded from a EVGA GTX 650 ti boost 2gb

I am using the newest driver 355.82

I tried running with and without Geforce in the background same deal.

The game play is smooth all around, 0 stutter. The weird thing is, I get around the same fps no matter what I change , ( except of course if I put everything to normal, then I get a steady 60fps, but normal textures etc look f*cking awful so I rather put everything on very high and suffer the fps loss for now)

 

With vsynch off, Im getting around 50FPS avg Id say but it drops to the low 40's when driving and gets as high as 65 when walking around.

 

My CINEBENCH r15 benchmark results:

 

Open GL - 58.45fps

CPU - 558 cb

 

I also had a 3dmark fire strike score of about 7700 which isn't too high? I'm starting to get a little worried

Edited September 1, 2015 by gtagtagta1

[stretchx9]

There's a problem. I looked at my Cinebench results and thought "could this be right?" I down clocked my bus to 3500mhz and ran Cinebench 3 times. Cpu 539 / Opengl 74.87 fps. That's with a MSI 970 Gaming 4G.

I'm on W10 Home with the 355.80 driver. I would look into your Windows Virtual memory page file size for starts.Then go into your bios and see if your CPU-NB and HT speeds are at something reasonable, like 2200 / 2600.

Edited September 1, 2015 by stretchx9

[gtagtagta1]

There's a problem. I looked at my Cinebench results and thought "could this be right?" I down clocked my bus to 3500mhz and ran Cinebench 3 times. Cpu 539 / Opengl 74.87 fps. That's with a MSI 970 Gaming 4G.

I'm on W10 Home with the 355.80 driver. I would look into your Windows Virtual memory page file size for starts.Then go into your bios and see if your CPU-NB and HT speeds are at something reasonable, like 2200 / 2600.

 

So I checked my bios I'm assuming you're referring to the CPU/NB frequency? That is set at "Auto" and the HT Link Speed is also set at " Auto ".

 

 

If it's any more help mose of the CPU/NB settings are set at auto ( Load line calibration) and CPU & NB voltage is set to "offset mode"

 

Hope this helps somewhat.

[stretchx9]

Auto is not always the best.

With the 970 chipset board, consider 2400 / 2600 as the most optimal as it gets. I think AMD states the 970 nb to 8320 spec is 2200.

2600 / 2600 is possible but in most cases not probable.

You have a low wattage PSU, try setting LLC to high, that may help to smooth any sudden supply voltage 'droops'. 'Offset mode' is just a different fashion of representing a value change.

I wouldn't be going this deep into this thread if there was not such a reported difference between Opengl results on very similar hardware.

It's better to find the root cause of lesser system performance with the least amount of variables involved.

Saves time this way and will certainly carry over to other games.

Edited September 1, 2015 by stretchx9

[gtagtagta1]

Auto is not always the best.

With the 970 chipset board, consider 2400 / 2600 as the most optimal as it gets. I think AMD states the 970 nb to 8320 spec is 2200.

2600 / 2600 is possible but in most cases not probable.

You have a low wattage PSU, try setting LLC to high, that may help to smooth any sudden supply voltage 'droops'. 'Offset mode' is just a different fashion of representing a value change.

I wouldn't be going this deep into this thread if there was not such a reported difference between Opengl results on very similar hardware.

It's better to find the root cause of lesser system performance with the least amount of variables involved.

Saves time this way and will certainly carry over to other games.

Well I've changed it to 2200, didn't seem to do much of a difference.

Could the PSU really just be the culprit here? Once I OC the CPU and GPU maybe I'll have at least a stable 50fps at least on gta?

The thing is, on games like Assassins Creed Unity im getting an avg of around 55fps on ultra

on Crysis 3 Im getting around 40-45 avg on ultra (which doesn't seem to be to bad according to the benchmarks?)

 

So I just did a fire strike test and got a score of 7700 which isn't too bad considering I haven't OC'd anything. I compared all my other results to the high scoring ones and everybody who has had theirs in the 9000 range have had an impressive overclock so I'm not too worried for now, I guess I'll start worrying once I get a new PSU and OC my CPU and GPU and I won't see much of a change.

 

It's just that I really thought my current setup would handle the gtx 970 pretty well, I mean it's not terrible, I just thought it woudl of performed much better.

 

GTA V is just pissing me off though, I can't really enjoy the game because of that huge drop once I start driving. I Mean its still 40 fps but it shouldn't be doing that

 

UPDATE: So I decided to monitor the gpu while under heavy load and these are some of the results I got, anything seem out of place?

 

GPU Core Clock : 1278 MHZ

GPU Memory CLock: 1752 MHZ

GPU temp : 65c

Memory used : 3300mb

GPU Load : 74%

Memory Controller load: 45%

Video Engine Load: 0 %

Bus Interface Load: 2%

Power Consumption : 92% TDP

VDDC: 1.2120 V

 

( this is while driving in GTA 5)

Edited September 1, 2015 by gtagtagta1

[stretchx9]

I see nothing unusual indicated in your monitoring. That being said it seems there's no reason that the 970 would the issue. A month ago I made a short video while rendering at 4k DSR. All while driving. That was with the same system OC'd @4400mhz and the 970 at default settings. Windows 8.1, Nv350.12 driver. YouTube has a way to degrade a 1080p video look like it was passed through a garbage disposal. Look for fps lower than 47, most fps are in the high 50's to an occasional low 60. I run a 750 watt psu.

 

 

[gtagtagta1]

I see nothing unusual indicated in your monitoring. That being said it seems there's no reason that the 970 would the issue. A month ago I made a short video while rendering at 4k DSR. All while driving. That was with the same system OC'd @4400mhz and the 970 at default settings. Windows 8.1, Nv350.12 driver. YouTube has a way to degrade a 1080p video look like it was passed through a garbage disposal. Look for fps lower than 47, most fps are in the high 50's to an occasional low 60. I run a 750 watt psu.

 

 

impressive considering that's on 4k.

See the thing is I have 0 stutter, it's just sh*tty framerates. And I'm noticing this all across other games as well. Like I've mentioned, I see people with almost exact builds getting around 10+fps more than me and I really have to ask if this is purely a PSU issue and if that's even possible? I'd think if it was a psu issue I'd have bsods and jittery gameplay, but I don't.

 

Something is off and I have no idea what.

Even testing out Batman Arkham Knight ( I know I know, worst port ever) , I had about 25-30fps ( even with the 30caplock off) , while others were getting in the high 40s mid 50s WITH the same specs

[stretchx9]

Smooth game play is good, better than a dip in fps.

Are you using HDMI? A $2 Amazon or a too long or even a tightly wrapped or kinked cable may effect the card's frame buffer. Sorry- Just fishing. Try to RMA the card as having a bios issue.

In the real world and with modern computer architecture, overclocking will not produce astronomical performance improvement. The game and the card runs on the operating system which is not by any means infallible. Shake it out.

I digress. Good luck.

[gtagtagta1]

Ill do a clean system install in a few weeks and see how that pans out ( once I get that new PSU etc)

I mean maybe i'm nitpcking? I mean I am getting around 50-55fps avg on Wticher 3 ultra ( hairworks off)

60fps on MGS V etc

it's just that my benchmark scores come up sh*tty

and of course that GTA V problem while driving ( though like I said if I changed all my settings to normal, its constant 60)

but yeah I'm thinking its just one switch I'm leaving out that could possibly fix all of this , I tried my comp on HIGH PERFORMANCE mode and SSD HIGH PERFORMANCE ( where my OS is located), same deal

I don't have HDMI

 

UPDATE:

 

So I stumbled upon this video of somebody with same CPU and GPU ( though slighly OC'd) getting similar results while driving, I'm beginning to think this is normal....

 

 

Edited September 2, 2015 by gtagtagta1

[Teletesselator]

gtagtagta1, (OP):

 

I dunno about your particular issue but you are headed for trouble with that hardware configuration and that tier 3 Power Supply Unit (PSU)!!!

 

Your CPU is rated at 125W (max) - and typical consumption is about 105W.

Your GPU is rated at 145W (average) - but very often spikes to around 300W

Here you can see a 980 (165W Average) on our test bench:

This happens hundreds of times per second during game play!

 

Your MB, memory, storage, fans, and etc. Maybe another 50 to 75W

 

With CX being such a poor quality line it would really behoove you to start looking for a higher rated PSU. IMO and without looking at the other (very important) PSU specs your system deserves a 550 or 600W PSU. It will work as indeed you are demonstrating even now - however, what's going on are a few hundred peeks and valleys per second and not the average continuous usage we think of when we think of power ratings. The high spikes (again, 100's per second) are likely hitting in the 500 to 600W range. This overloads critical components in the PSU which will occasionally cause system instability and for SURE lower the lifespan of the PSU. Typical PSUs will die in a matter of just months running full time like that while good ones may last 8months or a year before they die. This is in contrast to the usual 8 to 10 year life spans they have when used properly. Of course the real troubles come from when a PSU does pop - which very often results in damage to your more expensive components - like your MB or GPU. Considering that you should be able to get a 600 or 650W for around or under, $100 I thought it was worth mentioning. YMMV.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Teletesselator

[Nitro192]

I personally own the GTX 970. Gigabyte G1 Gaming Edition. I've tried various settings and here's what I found. At 1080p with every single graphics settings on Ultra and maxed out with advanced graphics settings turned off FXAA, MSAA x4 and NVIDIA TXAA. All turned on. It stays at constant 60. So here's what works.

1080p
All Graphics Settings MAXED out (Ultra)
Advanced Graphics (Off)
MSAA x4
FXAA
Nvidia TXAA

Constant 60fps with those settings, it just eats up 3.6GB of VRAM but it does it.

These work too

1440p
Graphics settings High to Ultra
Advanced Graphics (Off)
MSAA x2
FXAA
Nvidia TXAA (Off)

Constant 60fps

I can tell you right now, a 430W PSU with a low tier rating just isn't enough for the 970 when it wants to run full throttle. I own an EVGA 650W GS PSU which is Tier 1. Even my old 500W failed to run the 970 properly in power hungry games. i kept getting shutdowns. I Can almost guarantee it's the PSU.

[gtagtagta1]

gtagtagta1, (OP):

 

I dunno about your particular issue but you are headed for trouble with that hardware configuration and that tier 3 Power Supply Unit (PSU)!!!

 

Your CPU is rated at 125W (max) - and typical consumption is about 105W.

Your GPU is rated at 145W (average) - but very often spikes to around 300W

Here you can see a 980 (165W Average) on our test bench:

This happens hundreds of times per second during game play!

 

Your MB, memory, storage, fans, and etc. Maybe another 50 to 75W

 

With CX being such a poor quality line it would really behoove you to start looking for a higher rated PSU. IMO and without looking at the other (very important) PSU specs your system deserves a 550 or 600W PSU. It will work as indeed you are demonstrating even now - however, what's going on are a few hundred peeks and valleys per second and not the average continuous usage we think of when we think of power ratings. The high spikes (again, 100's per second) are likely hitting in the 500 to 600W range. This overloads critical components in the PSU which will occasionally cause system instability and for SURE lower the lifespan of the PSU. Typical PSUs will die in a matter of just months running full time like that while good ones may last 8months or a year before they die. This is in contrast to the usual 8 to 10 year life spans they have when used properly. Of course the real troubles come from when a PSU does pop - which very often results in damage to your more expensive components - like your MB or GPU. Considering that you should be able to get a 600 or 650W for around or under, $100 I thought it was worth mentioning. YMMV.

whoa, that is definitely interesting and good to know. I have been looking at PSUs all day today and it looks like I should be getting a new one if not this week, next week ( 650-700w) so thank you for this info

 

I personally own the GTX 970. Gigabyte G1 Gaming Edition. I've tried various settings and here's what I found. At 1080p with every single graphics settings on Ultra and maxed out with advanced graphics settings turned off FXAA, MSAA x4 and NVIDIA TXAA. All turned on. It stays at constant 60. So here's what works.

 

1080p

All Graphics Settings MAXED out (Ultra)

Advanced Graphics (Off)

MSAA x4

FXAA

Nvidia TXAA

 

Constant 60fps with those settings, it just eats up 3.6GB of VRAM but it does it.

 

These work too

 

1440p

Graphics settings High to Ultra

Advanced Graphics (Off)

MSAA x2

FXAA

Nvidia TXAA (Off)

 

Constant 60fps

 

I can tell you right now, a 430W PSU with a low tier rating just isn't enough for the 970 when it wants to run full throttle. I own an EVGA 650W GS PSU which is Tier 1. Even my old 500W failed to run the 970 properly in power hungry games. i kept getting shutdowns. I Can almost guarantee it's the PSU.

Will definitely try these out once I get this new PSU and will report back for sure. Thanks to everybody who has helped out.

[Ronin720]

iirc the vram on the 970 is questionable (slower) when using over 3.5 GB

[Teletesselator]

Nitro192 is much more certain that the PSU is the cause of your problems than I am though. I wrote my post as a sort of off-topic precautionary tale. The "occasional instability" I mentioned is more like BSOD, system crashes, machine freezes, sudden power downs, and so forth - like that. OTOH, while I've never seen nor heard of an underspec'd PSU causing a frame rate reduction, I suppose it's not impossible.

 

 

 

 

iirc the vram on the 970 is questionable (slower) when using over 3.5 GB

 

 

Dual monitors will slow things a bit as well BTW...

Edited September 3, 2015 by Teletesselator

[MightionNY]

I personally own the GTX 970. Gigabyte G1 Gaming Edition. I've tried various settings and here's what I found. At 1080p with every single graphics settings on Ultra and maxed out with advanced graphics settings turned off FXAA, MSAA x4 and NVIDIA TXAA. All turned on. It stays at constant 60. So here's what works.

 

1080p

All Graphics Settings MAXED out (Ultra)

Advanced Graphics (Off)

MSAA x4

FXAA

Nvidia TXAA

 

Constant 60fps with those settings, it just eats up 3.6GB of VRAM but it does it.

 

These work too

 

1440p

Graphics settings High to Ultra

Advanced Graphics (Off)

MSAA x2

FXAA

Nvidia TXAA (Off)

 

Constant 60fps

 

I can tell you right now, a 430W PSU with a low tier rating just isn't enough for the 970 when it wants to run full throttle. I own an EVGA 650W GS PSU which is Tier 1. Even my old 500W failed to run the 970 properly in power hungry games. i kept getting shutdowns. I Can almost guarantee it's the PSU.

I'm going to have to be skeptical about your claims of constant 60 fps for those 1080p settings.

 

My system uses a EVGA GTX 970 SC coupled with a 5820k and 16 gb of memory on an EVGA X99 FTW (quad channel).

 

I tried those settings, and found several issues reproducing yours:

1. The only settings that go to Ultra are Grass Quality and Post FX.

2. You can't hit 3.6 gb usage without turning on the advanced graphics options Extended Distance Scaling and Extended Shadow Difference all the way up. Most you can use with all the advanced options off is about 2.5gb, at least for me.

 

I ran the benchmark with your settings, and it dropped below 60 FPS plenty.

 

As for smoothness, the setting that reduced my hitches markedly was turning shadow quality down to High from Very High, along with turning off extended distance scaling.

 

MSAA seems to cause slowdowns while driving when "new" vehicles and such show up.

 

Turning Post FX down helped too - I myself don't like Depth of Field - my imperfect eyes keep trying to focus it.

[Red Hat]

PSU: Corsair CX430

Maybe your parts aren't getting the juice they need.

I suggest you to get a better PSU asap.

 

 

 

I'd recommend you to get a Seasonic PSU.

 

 

[gtagtagta1]

I've decided to go with the .... *drum roll*

 

 

XFX BLACK EDITION XTR 650W

 

I'll be installing it in a few days once it arrives.

[XCalinX]

The 8350 can barely get over 60 FPS, so turning the settings up is free performance

[gtagtagta1]

An update:

 

So I've installed the new XFX psu and right away I got an increase in performance.

 

My CINEBENCH r15 benchmark results:

 

Open GL - 89.76fps ( was roughly 59fps prior to the PSU upgrade)

and my firestrike score went from 7600 to 8400

. So this is interesting.

I did play some GTA and I did notice a little bit of difference but i'm still getting around 40-45avg while driving. I'm starting to think this is normal

 

another update:

 

I OC'd my cpu to 4.2ghz and my Cinebench r15 results are as follows:

 

OpenGL: 92.92fps

CPU: 667cb

Edited September 8, 2015 by gtagtagta1

[gtagtagta1]

Any fix for this? definitely not enjoying this 40-45 fps while driving drop

[Omarock]

Do you have any mods on? I noticed having some script mods like SP garage can make fps drop a lot when driving.

[gtagtagta1]

Do you have any mods on? I noticed having some script mods like SP garage can make fps drop a lot when driving.

nope, I'm testing on a clean install

[gtagtagta1]

HUGE UPDATE:

 

So I've been looking at ways to fix this issue and I think I've finally done it.

 

Placement of the RAM! Yup... my 8gb ram was set on single channel instead of dual channel and at 1333mhz instead of 1600mhz ( though I think it has more to do with the channel settings than the mhz)

 

[mahanddeem]

970 though it's a capable card, but not ground shattering in anyway. My 980 is struggling at some higher settings, like msaa, grass and extended shadow distance.

And your cpu is midrange at best. This game needs 4690K or better for the best cpu experience.

Edited October 13, 2015 by mahanddeem

[Nick930930]

970 though it's a capable card, but not ground shattering in anyway. My 980 is struggling at some higher settings, like msaa, grass and extended shadow distance.

And your cpu is midrange at best. This game needs 4690K or better for the best cpu experience.

 

 

I wouldn't say it's struggling. I too have a 980ti (not sure if you have the ti or not), and sure, MSAA, grass, and extended draw distance can hurt performance, but not to much. The lowest my fps drops is like.. 50fps. Which is not that bad considering the image quality.