Gtx670 bottlenecked by i5 2500?

skipsneeky2

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May 21, 2011
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Little over a month ago,i purchased off newegg a Evga gtx670 ftw 2gb to replace a 7850,at the time i had plans as well to replace the monitor which was 1440x900.

The gtx670 with that old monitor would stutter like crazy till the point i actually just boxed the card back up ,and reinstalled my 7850.

Recently purchased a dell u2412m and i assumed my gtx670 stuttered with my old monitor cause perhaps my cpu was bottlenecking it as it was a cpu dependent resolution,but oddly enough the stutter still occurs even now.

BF3 is where i notice as high as 90% cpu usage,even some maps like Metro i will see anywhere from 70-98% gpu usage,if i downclock my gpu clocks,the stutter isn't as often and if i lower them low enough,the stutter disappears and gpu usage pings 99%.

Would you guys say i am currently cpu bottlenecked?
 

skipsneeky2

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May 21, 2011
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Have tried reinstalling the game multiple times,tried the last driver sets,my psu is plenty as well....the stutter is major when i first jump on a map but sometimes if i wait like a minute or two prior to deploying ,its rather smooth but once in a while ingame it can pop up occasionally.

The game is installed on a 180gb intel 330 ssd,the i5 2500 and the build is based around a gigabyte h61 micro atx mobo so set up wise its identical just that the card has been swapped.
 

dmoney1980

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Jan 17, 2008
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have you looked at your PING? Also, have you tried single player campaign? Sounds like another issue....
 

Termie

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I know what you're talking about in BF3. It is NOT a hardware problem, and most certainly not a CPU bottleneck.

I was just experiencing that stutter a few days ago. I enabled Adaptive VSync as well as vsync in the BF3 options and it has since gone away. I will say, however, that my PING was pretty high when I had the issue, so dmoney1980 has a good point - check out your PING and consider switching servers to something closer as soon as you experience the stutter. If it goes away, it was the server, otherwise, definitely try vsync just in case.
 
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skipsneeky2

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May 21, 2011
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have you looked at your PING? Also, have you tried single player campaign? Sounds like another issue....

Ping in game typically is never over 65,neighborhood of 35-45 majority of the time so def not that.

I am thinking perhaps a conflict between the drivers and my ssd even at this point,it takes often enough a good minute or two before the fps can even stabilize so perhaps something is causing the textures to load slow?

I just feel like a idiot if i have to sit at the deploy screen for like 2 mins before i can even enter the game just to avoid the majority of the stutter but for the most part its a patch......like a old car with a carb and having to sit and warm the motor up or else it stalls.
 

skipsneeky2

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May 21, 2011
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I know what you're talking about in BF3. It is NOT a hardware problem, and most certainly not a CPU bottleneck.

I was just experiencing that stutter a few days ago. I enabled Adaptive VSync as well as vsync in the BF3 options and it has since gone away. I will say, however, that my PING was pretty high when I had the issue, so dmoney1980 has a good point - check out your PING and consider switching servers to something closer as soon as you experience the stutter. If it goes away, it was the server, otherwise, definitely try vsync just in case.

I will try this option even as much as i hate enaling vsync.

Edit:BF3 is the most ass backwards game i have ever owned or played in my entire life,every game besides this one acts funky if i enable vsync and you would think that could be the case for one of the most demanding titles currently out on the pc platform but no,enable adaptive vsync and all your stuttering and lagging issues disappear.

Thank you so much Termie,runs like butter now but yeah this game is ass backwards 100%,aren't games supposed to lag and sometimes stutter if vsync is enabled versus the other way around?
 
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Termie

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Aug 17, 2005
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I will try this option even as much as i hate enaling vsync.

Edit:BF3 is the most ass backwards game i have ever owned or played in my entire life,every game besides this one acts funky if i enable vsync and you would think that could be the case for one of the most demanding titles currently out on the pc platform but no,enable adaptive vsync and all your stuttering and lagging issues disappear.

Thank you so much Termie,runs like butter now but yeah this game is ass backwards 100%,aren't games supposed to lag and sometimes stutter if vsync is enabled versus the other way around?

Glad that helped. I don't understand it either, but I figured it was either something wrong with BF3 or Nvidia's drivers for BF3.
 

skipsneeky2

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May 21, 2011
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Glad that helped. I don't understand it either, but I figured it was either something wrong with BF3 or Nvidia's drivers for BF3.

I noticed we have the same card.:)

Where is a good place to start as far as a oc goes for the core and memory?

Using evga precision x 3.04 with a aggressive fan profile.
 

Termie

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I noticed we have the same card.:)

Where is a good place to start as far as a oc goes for the core and memory?

Using evga precision x 3.04 with a aggressive fan profile.

What does your card boost to at stock? That would give you an idea how much headroom you have.

I've seen people claim as high as 1300 with the 670FTW, but frankly I doubt that's stable in actual gaming. It's very easy to hit very high clocks in 3dMark that don't hold for a minute when gaming.

My card can hit around 1215-1230 depending on the game, but at stock it's 1189, so it's not much of a range. I've never found the limit of the memory. I've overclocked it up to 6800 and it's never caused a performance hit or crash. I haven't tried to find the upper limit though.

Ideally, you should keep the temps below 70C, because the voltage may be cut when you pass 70C, dropping the boost. Ironically, this doesn't happen on my card, and in fact it's usually at 1.162v even below 70C, even though nominal voltage is 1.175v. Thus, my card doesn't downclock above 70C, so I'm not worried about the temps. It fluctuates between 67 and 72C while gaming, with about a one-to-one fan speed to temp ratio.
 
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skipsneeky2

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May 21, 2011
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What does your card boost to at stock? That would give you an idea how much headroom you have.

I've seen people claim as high as 1300 with the 670FTW, but frankly I doubt that's stable in actual gaming. It's very easy to hit very high clocks in 3dMark that don't hold for a minute when gaming.

My card can hit around 1215-1230 depending on the game, but at stock it's 1189, so it's not much of a range. I've never found the limit of the memory. I've overclocked it up to 6800 and it's never caused a performance hit or crash. I haven't tried to find the upper limit though.

My boost hits 1189 as well at stock,so basically like a 40+ core offset and a 50+ memory offset is where to start?

I know kepler is a pain in the ass to oc,the 7850 at least you could put it to 1050 core and 1.225v and know its gonna happen period lol like i did to mine.

Heck i wouldn't even know if a oc so damn small is even worth risking stability for.
 

Termie

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My boost hits 1189 as well at stock,so basically like a 40+ core offset and a 50+ memory offset is where to start?

I know kepler is a pain in the ass to oc,the 7850 at least you could put it to 1050 core and 1.225v and know its gonna happen period lol like i did to mine.

Heck i wouldn't even know if a oc so damn small is even worth risking stability for.

I'd use Heaven 3.0 to test for stability. It's a huge GPU load and will artifact or crash pretty quickly with an unstable overclock.

I'd start at +20 on the core and work up slowly from there. For instance, set a few profiles in EVGA Precision, each with an extra +10 on the core, and flip through them while Heaven is running until the system crashes. You can do the same with the memory (but probably shouldn't do it while also changing the core). I'd assume any 670FTW can get at least +50 (meaning 6300 on the memory), so yes, start there and move up +50 with each test.
 

skipsneeky2

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May 21, 2011
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I'd use Heaven 3.0 to test for stability. It's a huge GPU load and will artifact or crash pretty quickly with an unstable overclock.

I'd start at +20 on the core and work up slowly from there. For instance, set a few profiles in EVGA Precision, each with an extra +10 on the core, and flip through them while Heaven is running until the system crashes. You can do the same with the memory (but probably shouldn't do it while also changing the core). I'd assume any 670FTW can get at least +50 (meaning 6300 on the memory), so yes, start there and move up +50 with each test.

Thanks for the help.:thumbsup:

Still shaking my head about that vsync fix lol,maybe i will enjoy my card at stock for a while and when i honestly need the extra legroom,i will see what it can do.