GTX 780 throttling and stuttering

[sonofzeus26]

I have a MSI 890fxa gd65 mobo, 8gb 1600mhz ram, Phenom II 1100t x6, Galaxy GTX 780 HOF.

First thing, throttling.. I spent the whole night dealing with this and it has been extremely frustrating. First I noticed through HWInfo64 that the card was throttling from 1000mhz down to between 5 to 600mhz or so during gaming, but temps didn't go past 60c during that time. Other software confirmed temps weren't going very high but it was still throttling. GPUZ looked like a damn comb for the gpu clock monitoring because it kept going up and way down constantly every couple of seconds or so. I downloaded a few things to try and get around this like NVidia inspector, the software that came with the card, gpuz, etc.. The only way I could get it to stay up on speed is to hit the damn turbo button on the back of the card itself. Hovered at 75 to 80c with 3200rpm fans which of course added some volume.. Why can't I just disable throttling altogether? I never had this issue with my GTX 580.

The other issue is the performance. To be quite honest I'm slightly disappointed. I definitely get better frame rates than my 580 overall, but it isn't phenomenal. I also get some ever so slight stuttering. Not sharp stuttering, just slightly fast-slower-fast-slower stuttering every few seconds. Happens in Crysis 3 and GTA4. Haven't tested other games yet.

My GTX 580 just worked. I installed it, always got consistent framerates and as far as I could tell visually, it never throttled. I can visually see it clearly with my 780. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. This HOF edition card is supposed to be faster than a GTX Titan. I've never bought an OC'd card before and never OC'd my 580 so I don't know if that has something to do with my issues or not. I'm a little disappointed at the moment and hope I can figure out how to get this thing running consistently fast and smooth. Maybe my old CPU and MOBO are holding things back.

 

[spat55]

The Phenom II seems to be bottlenecking, have you checked GPU usage? If the usage never hits 99% then it is.
(When I say that make sure it is a fairly demanding game)

Another thing is to try and drop the resolution, like one of the posters below said. I seriously think it is the CPU and depending on what PSU and how old it is then it could also be that.

 

[thilanliyan]

What is your CPU speed?
Which games is it throttling and/or stuttering in besides C3 and GTA4?
What resolution and game settings are you using?

 

[wilds]

You are most likely CPU bottlenecked. Use MSI afterburner on another screen and monitor GPU usage. If you aren't at 99%, then you are bottlenecked.

 

[Nate_007]

If I remember correctly someone said that the best way to determine a CPU bottleneck is to lower the resolution of the game and if you see framerate imrpovements then CPU is NOT your issue. So no matter what resolution CPU will stay the same, and the higher the resolution the more work for the GPU to keep up on rendering all the pixels.

Everything that the CPU needs to calculate will remain the same regardless what resolution you're on. But I still find it weird that your GPU would throttle all the way down to 5 Mhz...I think my GPU even idles at 300 Mhz.

 

[toyota]

wow that is not an appropriate system to puts that HOF 780 in at all. you could have bought a 770 and gotten the same playable experience. in GTA 4 you have have a sub $200 gpu and get the same performance with your cpu. in other words even your current 580 was already being held back in many cases. just being blunt here as you made a pretty terrible overall decision getting that card for your current system.

that said you should not be dropping all the way down to 5mhz but 600mhz in some cases sounds about right depending on your settings.

 

[Deders]

Use GPUz to monitor and tell you why it's throttling. It's got a key of you hover over where is says perfcap reason.

 

[imported_Airjarhead]

I have very similar issues:

-I returned two different EVGA GTX 780's due to artifacts and random slow-downs / stuttering in BF3
-I returned 2 GTX 760's that I was running in SLI due to random slow-downs / stuttering
-I am about to Return a Galaxy GTX 780 HOF for slow-downs / stuttering

I'm also NOT impressed with the fps I was getting with the GTX780s. In reviews, an over-clocked GTX 780 averages 40% more fps than a 7970GE. Yet I saw no where near those numbers. For most of my games I got the same FPS.
The 760 sli numbers were very good though.

For the record, each new card was tested on a fresh install of Windows.

I'm starting to wonder if it's a PSU issue? I'm wondering if the OC'd GTX 780 is pushing it to it's limit? I used a PSU calculator, and I should be ok, but I have heard some coil whine, so maybe it's the PSU?

Or maybe it's just Nvidia?

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone can offer an opinion, because this is driving me crazy!

My Specs:
Intel i5 3570k@4.4GHz
Antec Khuler
ASROCK Z77 Extreme 4
4x4GB Samsung ULV
Gigabyte HD 7970OC
Creative X-Fi Titanium HD
QNIX QX2710 @ 80Hz
Crucial M4 60GB & 256GB
Seagate 750GB Hybrid (Storage)
Samsung Blu-Ray Reader DVDRW
Seasonic 750X Gold
Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Thanks

 

[toyota]

/\ a single 780 and 3570 at 4.4 would not even come remotely close to pushing a Seasonic X750 to its limits.

 

[thilanliyan]

You guys saying it's the CPU...you don't know what his CPU speed is, you don't know what his resolution is, you don't know what kind of settings he is trying to run, you don't know which games he is experiencing throttling in, etc.

Maybe you should wait and get all the info before jumping to the conclusion that the problem is the CPU. I'm running a FX6100 at stock, which is probably slower than his X6 and I don't experience any stuttering like he is describing...

 

[sonofzeus26]

The Phenom II seems to be bottlenecking, have you checked GPU usage? If the usage never hits 99% then it is.

I will be sure to check that tonight when I get home

 

[sonofzeus26]

What is your CPU speed?
Which games is it throttling and/or stuttering in besides C3 and GTA4?
What resolution and game settings are you using?

Right now it's operating at default 3.3ghz. I saw massive stuttering in Far Cry 3 last night but after changing prerendered frames from 1 to 2 it cleared a lot of it up, but not perfect. I may try 3 tonight. I didn't realize this would help. I wonder if there is an option for this in Nvidia panel to apply to all games.

 

[sonofzeus26]

If I remember correctly someone said that the best way to determine a CPU bottleneck is to lower the resolution of the game and if you see framerate imrpovements then CPU is NOT your issue. So no matter what resolution CPU will stay the same, and the higher the resolution the more work for the GPU to keep up on rendering all the pixels.

Everything that the CPU needs to calculate will remain the same regardless what resolution you're on. But I still find it weird that your GPU would throttle all the way down to 5 Mhz...I think my GPU even idles at 300 Mhz.

What I mean to say was 500-600. It was idling at 300 or so at the desktop, but when it dips from 1000 to 500 constantly, i get what looks like slowdown every couple of seconds because the framerate cuts in half each time it throttles down. I will try some lower resolutions tonight. My native is 1920x1200.

 

[sonofzeus26]

wow that is not an appropriate system to puts that HOF 780 in at all. you could have bought a 770 and gotten the same playable experience. in GTA 4 you have have a sub $200 gpu and get the same performance with your cpu. in other words even your current 580 was already being held back in many cases. just being blunt here as you made a pretty terrible overall decision getting that card for your current system.

that said you should not be dropping all the way down to 5mhz but 600mhz in some cases sounds about right depending on your settings.

I meant 500-600. I knew the card was a bit much for my present system. I am planning on rebuilding over the next few months and just wanted to get the biggest component (cost) out of the way first. I didn't realize it would bottleneck the GPU this severely though.

 

[sonofzeus26]

Use GPUz to monitor and tell you why it's throttling. It's got a key of you hover over where is says perfcap reason.

I actually checked that out last night and it said something about vRel I believe, (voltage?)

 

[Deders]

I actually checked that out last night and it said something about vRel I believe, (voltage?)

What PSU are you using?

 

[Jaydip]

Op I don't know what software comes with HOF but do you have evga precision? if not download this.

1.Set the power and temperature target to max
2.Click the voltage option and set it to max i.e 0.38 mv
3.Click the settings and check the gpu clock,load,vid,memory clock,memory load,temperature options to be shown in osd.
4.Download any free benchmark tool like Heaven 4.0 and start running the benchmark.Make sure you select the highest possible settings before starting the bench in Heaven.
5.Now observe the gpu clocks,temp and load in Heaven.Report your findings here.

 

[thilanliyan]

Right now it's operating at default 3.3ghz. I saw massive stuttering in Far Cry 3 last night but after changing prerendered frames from 1 to 2 it cleared a lot of it up, but not perfect. I may try 3 tonight. I didn't realize this would help. I wonder if there is an option for this in Nvidia panel to apply to all games.

First off with Far Cry 3, I have heard the game is a bit buggy and stutters even with single card setups, which is why you were able to sorta fix it with a software hack.

After doing software troubleshooting, if you still have the problem, then you may want to overclock your CPU a bit to see if some of the stuttering goes away. Also check the GPU usage while gaming like others have suggested.

 

[desprado]

Maybe it is the bad gpu.

 

[imported_Airjarhead]

Welp - I figured out my problem!
It wasn't the PSU.
It was HPET and CPU parking! I don't know why in all of my posting in forums, and Googling I didn't come across those solutions before, but that was it!
Now there is almost no stutter, the card overclocks much better, and I think the coil whine is gone! Oh, and my Core 0 (CPU) isn't 10 degrees hotter than the others anymore (which is just something I've learned to accept since moving from Sandy to Ivy).

OP- I'm not sure if AMD Mobos have HPET, but if they do, try turing it off:
http://www.mikemartin.co/system_guides/hardware/motherboard/disable_high_precision_event_timer_hpet

CPU Parking:
http://bitsum.com/about_cpu_core_parking.php

 

[toyota]

lol there is no way all of those issues are related to core parking.

 

[imported_Airjarhead]

I agree, that all of those things seem unrelated...yet...they are not present anymore!
BTW, I will add that if I alt+tab out of BF3 now, the stutter returns.

 

[futurefields]

lol there is no way all of those issues are related to core parking.

Don't you hate when you find a solution that is working for you, and then someone comes along and says something like this.

 

[toyota]

Don't you hate when you find a solution that is working for you, and then someone comes along and says something like this.

the point is some of those things have nothing to do with core parking. so I guess if I walk to the mail box and come back and my game is not stuttering or I dont hear coil whine then walking to the mail box fixed it?

 

[futurefields]

I don't know man, sounds to me like core parking could have caused those issues. perhaps the CPU wasn't communicating properly with the GPU causing the stuttering and etc...

Do Sandy Bridges cpu's also have this feature? I should check to see how it is running on my setup.