New Computer, underwhelming performance

I

Icewolf69

n00b
Joined
Apr 25, 2011
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Hey Everyone,

So i just built my new PC. It's on air right now, but planned on putting it on water in a few weeks. But wanted to stress test before i did to make sure everything is running ok.

Basically, I'm extremely underwhelmed by the performance of it in every game I've played.

Nearly every game i play, none of the video cards will work at a high usage percentage. Lots of stuttering or unsmooth gameplay. Big random drops in FPS, etc.

Here are the main specs of the PC:

i7-4930k @ 3.9 GHz (on corsair H80i cooler)
4x evga gtx 780 ti
Asus rampage black
32GB gskill 2666 quad channel RAM
Raid 0 samsung EVO SSD's
3x 24" monitors (5760x1200)
2x Corsair 1000w PSU's (3 video cards on one PSU, 1 card and CPU and everything else on the other PSU)

Games i'm having problems with:
Farcry 3: barely playable, huge drops in FPS that happen frequently. 120 FPS then dropping to 20-30, sometimes lower.

Batman Arkham city: Plays ok, but it's only about 62 FPS, only about 50-60% GPU usage

Titanfall: no surprise here, but this could be just the shitty game. 60 FPS but drops to 48-55 frequently

Metro 2033: plays like shit, low GPU usage, plays at about 100-120 FPS for a few seconds upon logging in, then drops to 15 FPS steady.

Tomb Raider: Plays probably the best out of anything, but still lower GPU usage.

Crysis 3: low GPU usage, stuttering even at 50-60 FPS



I've tried a few different driver versions, not much changes. The video cards get hot. I have floor fan blowing directly on them now. Without the fan the top card will hit 95. With the fan i'm still in the high 70's, low/mid 80's. The bottom card is the coolest, top 3 are always hotter, but that's no surprise.

I really wouldn't think that a CPU at 4GHz would be this big of a bottleneck, is this just quad-sli issues? I'm having some serious buyers remorse here.

If anyone has any suggestions it would be appreciated. I'm still loading other games to see how they play.

Thanks
 
Done a mem-test on the RAM?

1 of the GPUs might be faulty, test them each individually and check performance.
 
What is your CPU usage like?

Have you turned the power saving feature in Windows to always make the CPU run at 100% clock speed? This will keep the speed from jumping around.

Did you manually set your RAM speed or is it running at the default 1333?

Do you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard?

What driver version are you running with your video cards?

Have you disabled core parking in Windows (do a search, it is an easy registry change or you can use a utility to do it for you).
 
Spazturtle said:
Done a mem-test on the RAM?

1 of the GPUs might be faulty, test them each individually and check performance.
Click to expand...

I haven't done a mem test, but i have tried my ram from my old computer. It's much slower, and only 6GB, but performance was nearly identical.

Testing each GPU is a check-box on the list i've made. But i bought them all separately and they seemed to work fine. They were in my older computer though and after double/triple SLI i figured i wouldn't get full GPU usage because the other parts were so old i was getting bottle necked.
 
cyclone3d said:
What is your CPU usage like?

Have you turned the power saving feature in Windows to always make the CPU run at 100% clock speed? This will keep the speed from jumping around.

Did you manually set your RAM speed or is it running at the default 1333?

Do you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard?

What driver version are you running with your video cards?

Have you disabled core parking in Windows (do a search, it is an easy registry change or you can use a utility to do it for you).
Click to expand...

I haven't turned the CPU power saving feature off, i'll do that now

CPU Usage is generally 30-50%

RAM speed is set to XMP profile. I double checked the voltages and speed, and they do seem to be set correctly.

I do not have the latest BIOS, I will update that now

Driver version is 334.89 right now. About to go back one older. I've tried latest WHQL and Beta drivers

I haven not disabled core parking


I'll try these few things and post back
 
Try running in tri-SLI. It has been reported that having a fourth card in SLI can decrease performance in some cases.

I would run at least the 335.23 drivers. There have been a lot of documented improvements from NVIDIA when it comes to SLI profiles for the 700-series in the latest drivers.

Are your power supplies linked as to keep power modulated between the two?

Are you running excessive amounts of anti-aliasing in these games? You might want to check and see if you're hitting the VRAM usage wall.
 
Well i updated my BIOS, turned off core parking, changed video drivers to 335.23.

Now i can't play any games. The PC just restarts itself. No errors are showing in event viewer....
 
I could be way off here...but i thought 4 way sli was never a great combination from the benchmarks i ever remember reading...personally i wouldn't do more than 2 cards...3 at the most...i think you should consider selling one of them at least...best of luck anyway
 
Icewolf69 said:
Well i updated my BIOS, turned off core parking, changed video drivers to 335.23.

Now i can't play any games. The PC just restarts itself. No errors are showing in event viewer....
Click to expand...

if you updated the bios...you probably have a setting that needs to be adjusted to get it stable...go thru and make sure voltages are set correctly ....sounds like one of them got set to the wrong value after you updated the bios...course im sure you already thinking that
 
Just an update, as i'm still having problems.

One of my sticks of RAM ended up being bad. After i took it out I haven't had any more random shut downs.

I've tried both the oldest and newest BIOS, no performance differences there.

Have tried geforce drivers 332.21, 335.23, 337.50, no big differences there.

Reformatted like 3 times, that's getting old.

Performance still sub par. still 40-60 FPS in Borderlands with like 30-40% GPU usage. GPU usage still low in Batman Arkham City. Titanfall will play low 50's high 40's FPS no matter what settings i choose, even low settings that make the textures look like a kid's watercolor painting. But that could just be Titanfall.

3dMark scores for Firestrike extreme are about 14000 which I think is low. I get good GPU usage in the benchmarks though. Maybe another forum member with quad 780 ti's could post their firestrike extreme scores?

Also getting a lot of crashes on games. Need to download a dump viewer to see what's going wrong because event viewer doesn't tell me much.

I ordered a Rosewill 1600w PSU to put everything on a single PSU to see if that fixes any problems. I'm really at a loss as to what to do other than that right now
 
Remove the other three 780s and just leave one for this test. Set your bios to default and only adjust the options needed to get to windows but don't overclock. Re-image your PC and only install patches/intel drivers/video drivers. Install a couple of games and test on one monitor and see what you get, add a second card and try again, then third and so on.
 
Modboxx said:
Remove the other three 780s and just leave one for this test. Set your bios to default and only adjust the options needed to get to windows but don't overclock. Re-image your PC and only install patches/intel drivers/video drivers. Install a couple of games and test on one monitor and see what you get, add a second card and try again, then third and so on.
Click to expand...

Pretty much what I was going to suggest. Try one card at a time, and see what kind of GPU usage you're getting. If you can get 100% utilization, add one card at a time until you see it drop. I had a similar problem on my single 780 gtx lightning card, it would never go higher than ~60% GPU utilization. Uninstalling and reinstalling drivers fixed it for me, but obviously you've tried that. Killer rig you built there, that's gotta be frustrating.
 
Modboxx said:
Install a couple of games and test on one monitor and see what you get, add a second card and try again, then third and so on.
Click to expand...

Before adding a second card, try your first card in each of the slots, just in case it's a bad motherboard.
 
B2BigAl said:
Pretty much what I was going to suggest. Try one card at a time, and see what kind of GPU usage you're getting. If you can get 100% utilization, add one card at a time until you see it drop. I had a similar problem on my single 780 gtx lightning card, it would never go higher than ~60% GPU utilization. Uninstalling and reinstalling drivers fixed it for me, but obviously you've tried that. Killer rig you built there, that's gotta be frustrating.
Click to expand...

Think i should use 3 monitor's from the beginning?

Any recommended games you think i should use that generally perform well GPU wise for you? thinking Crysis 3 should do it.
 
Icewolf69 said:
Think i should use 3 monitor's from the beginning?

Any recommended games you think i should use that generally perform well GPU wise for you? thinking Crysis 3 should do it.
Click to expand...

I would use only one just because most people here don't have 3 monitor setups so if you say i'm get 26fps in so and so, most of us want know if that sounds about right or no. I have a couple of 780gtx's and I mostly game at 1080p so i can gauge where you're at if you say i'm getting 40fps in AC4 1080p maxed out with 4xtxaa i would say that's about right.

You mention Arkham origins above which should be able to run at 60fps at 1080p maxed on your rig with one 780.
 
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What are the temps like with your cards when you're gaming? With 4 cards, I don't see a lot of room for them to get clean air, so they may be throttling down due to heat.
 
Velox said:
What are the temps like with your cards when you're gaming? With 4 cards, I don't see a lot of room for them to get clean air, so they may be throttling down due to heat.
Click to expand...

I've seen the top card hit 95/96. But it's usually mid to high 80's. Each card then goes about 10 degrees cooler as you go down. so the bottom card might only be 45-65. And yeah you're right, i assume it's hard to get air as well. I have a floor fan blowing on them to help.

I have no idea what temps the cards start to throttle. But there's no way for me to get them cooler unless i'm water cooling them.

And there's no way i'm putting blocks on them like this.
 
well I know in some of the games depending on your AA usage and your resolution you very well could be running into Vram bottleneck.

I would re-install windows and drivers try just one card. If it works then go to 2 cards, etc...
 
Ok here's the run down and stuff.

BIOS is set to default except for SATA set to RAID for my OS drive. BIOS is not updated and running original ship BIOS. No other settings altered. RAM is set to default Mobo speeds, which is 1333 MHz. That's half the speed the RAM is rated for (2666 MHz). RAM is quad chanel, but since one stick was bad, i'm only using 3 sticks of 8GB. I reformatted to windows 8.1 x64 Pro, MSDN via USB3.0 stick. Windows will not be activated.

Bare minimum drivers installed including intel chipset driver, management engine interface, sata controller, intel rapid storage driver, and gefore drivers 335.23 (newest WHQL).

Minimum programs installed including Chrome, Msi afterburner, Rivatuner statistics, Fraps, HWinfo x64, Steam, Origin, MS excel, 3D mark.

Games Installed:

Crysis 3
Titanfall
Borderlands 2
Arkham City (this is the second game, not arkham origins)
Bioshock Infinite

NO windows updates installed, windows update turned off. Only addons would be .NET or DirectX that are installed by steam/origin for the games.

Installed mobo drivers, rebooted. Installed graphics card drivers, rebooted. Installed games, rebooted.

FPS monitored by Afterburner and Fraps. FPS is recorded by fraps, imported into excel spreadsheet and min/max/avg are determined.
GPU usage and temp, and CPU temp monitored by Afterburner, but not recorded. Just going to eyeball this and write it down. Games will be benchmarked for 5 minutes while i run around a kill/do shit.

GPU's will not be physically removed from the mobo. I unplug the power, take it off the SLi bridge, and turn off that PCIe by the motherboard switch.

GPU numbering will be sequential from top to bottom. e.g. GPU1 is the top GPU, GPU2 is second GPU from the top.

GPU1, and all motherboard connections including hard drives are on corsair HX1050w. GPU2-4, if used, will be on a Corsair HX1000w. PSU's are linked with a PSU cable like ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DL3L2J6/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ). All possible power connections on the motherboard are used including the ATX 24-pin (duh), 8-pin CPU, 4-pin CPU, and Molex Asus "EZ Plug" for additional power for PCIe.

CPU parking will be turned off via Park Control (http://bitsum.com/about_cpu_core_parking.php).

GPU's are air cooled, case open, floor fan blowing directly on them. Ambient temp in room is about 71F (21.6C). CPU is cooled on a Corsair H80i enclosed water cool system, with only 1 fan due to space restriction (Asus, thanks for making your top board the size of a postage stamp).

For each GPU configuration, i'll play all 5 games, and a 3D mark test. I'll record the results and then add the next GPU.

All games will be absolute max settings, V-sync off, Physx low (or lowest setting), and in the case of Batman, an altered CFG file to remove FPS restriction. As far as I know, titanfall still can't have it's 60 FPS restriction removed. All games will be played in 1920x1200 on a single 24" samsung monitor.

Pre-Round - Installing windows
Had a BSOD on the first startup of windows setup. Was so quick i didn't see what the code was. After the reset it installed fine.
Got all the drivers and programs installed fine. No errors so far.

Round 1 - Single GPU
*Note* I found out that FRAPs was causing all my games to crash on load. Was going to get real data for min/max/avg, but that's not possible now. Instead i'll eyeball average FPS

3DMark (Firestrike Extreme)
*program crash on first and second run. "Unable to start - Unkown error. workload single init returned error message: Process exited unexpectidly."
*Same error on second run
* 3rd run, runs as expected.
GPU1 Usage: 99%
GPU1 Temp: 72
CPU Temp: 38
Score: 5163

Borderlands 2
GPU1 Usage: 40-50%
GPU1 Temp: 72
FPS (only thing fraps worked, real data here) Min: 38, Max: 297, AVG: 80 (i'd say average was more around 45-60 when i was playing. I died a few times and the high framerate when zoning into game and stuff was really high and pushed the average up i think)
Note: Not maxing VRAM

Bioshock Infinite (Ultra)
GPU1 Usage: 97-99%
GPU1 Temp: 83
FPS: 120-140

Crysis 3 (SMAA 4x)
GPU Usage: 98%
GPU Temp: 83
FPS: 45

Batman Arkham City (Tessellation Normal, everything else maxed)
GPU1 Usage: 50-70%
GPU1 Temp: 75
FPS: 55
Note: Not maxing VRAM

Titanfall (textures only very high (game uses insane ammount of VRAM, insane textures fills all my VRAM, even in 4x sli)
GPU1 Usage: 60-70%
GPU1 Temp: 78
FPS: 60
This is hands down the best the game has ever played. Frame rate was 60 even in big battles. I've never tried it on a single card, and the game is optimized like shit so there's no big surprise here. There's not even a HUD in 3-monitor and I only get 45-50 FPS in quad-sli.


--------------------------------------------
Round 2 - Dual SLi

3DMark (Firestrike Extreme)
GPU Usage: 98/98
GPU Temp: 77/64
CPU Temp: 44
Score: 9271

Borderlands 2
GPU Usage: 25-40
GPU Temp: 69/56
FPS: 55-60
VRAM:700mb

Bioshock Infinite (Ultra)
GPU Usage: 88-96
GPU Temp: 85/69
FPS: 110-220 (about 150 avg)
VRAM: 1200mb

Crysis 3 (SMAA 4x)
GPU1 Usage: 50-98
GPU1 Temp:86/70
FPS: 90, 60 outside
VRAM: 1700

Batman Arkham City(Tessilation Normal, everything else maxed)
GPU Usage: 30-45
GPU Temp: 70/57
FPS: 55-60
VRAM: 1500

Titanfall (textures only very high (game uses insane ammount of VRAM, insane textures fills all my VRAM, even in 4x sli)
GPU Usage: 70/17
GPU Temp: 73/30
FPS: 60
VRAM: 2800

--------------------------------------------
 
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IMO remove the raid. Not really needed with modern SSDs. Correct me if I'm wrong but it disabled trim and reduces random 4k reads
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
IMO remove the raid. Not really needed with modern SSDs. Correct me if I'm wrong but it disabled trim and reduces random 4k reads
Click to expand...

No, not on the X79

Bioshock Infinite (Ultra)
GPU Usage: 88-96
GPU Temp: 85/69
FPS: 110-220 (about 150 avg)
VRAM: 1200mb

Crysis 3 (SMAA 4x)
GPU1 Usage: 50-98
GPU1 Temp:86/70
FPS: 90, 60 outside
VRAM: 1700

Batman Arkham City(Tessilation Normal, everything else maxed)
GPU Usage: 30-45
GPU Temp: 70/57
FPS: 55-60
VRAM: 1500

Titanfall (textures only very high (game uses insane ammount of VRAM, insane textures fills all my VRAM, even in 4x sli)
GPU Usage: 70/17
GPU Temp: 73/30
FPS: 60
VRAM: 2800
Click to expand...

Those look good. The only one that seems a little off is Arkham city you shouldn't be under 60 in that game at all.

Pre-Round - Installing windows
Had a BSOD on the first startup of windows setup. Was so quick i didn't see what the code was. After the reset it installed fine.
Got all the drivers and programs installed fine. No errors so far.

Round 1 - Single GPU
*Note* I found out that FRAPs was causing all my games to crash on load. Was going to get real data for min/max/avg, but that's not possible now. Instead i'll eyeball average FPS
Click to expand...

Smells like memory.
 
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The Batman being at 62-63 fps thing is probably the defaukt Unreal engine fps cap... which is exactly that.
 
socK said:
The Batman being at 62-63 fps thing is probably the defaukt Unreal engine fps cap... which is exactly that.
Click to expand...

I took off the cap in the cfg files. It'll run over 60. It had short bursts into the 100's. 3 and 4 way SLi coming probably monday because results aren't looking too good, want to try to switch some video cards around.
 
Are you running your cpu stock? Try overclocking maybe that will help
 
Modboxx said:
No, not on the X79



Those look good. The only one that seems a little off is Arkham city you shouldn't be under 60 in that game at all.



Smells like memory.
Click to expand...



Can you elaborate? What about raid 0 with SSD helps on x79? If the drives are already pushing close to 500mb /s what will raid 0 do? Does trim work with raid now?
 
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Tgrove said:
Are you running your cpu stock? Try overclocking maybe that will help
Click to expand...

The CPU is stock, but I don't want to overclock, that's just going to introduce another variable into the equation. I don't think most of these games would even require an overclock.

the 4390 isn't even a very good overclocker. Could probably get 4.5, maybe 5. But that's with some pretty high vcore.


with 3way SLi so far Crysis isn't using much GPU on any of the cards. Frame rates still aren't that smooth.

Also, for some reason, when i reboot my sli gets disabled in nvidia control panel. i have to enable it each reboot....
 
Have you plugged in the extra power port for your pci slots to account for the extra cards, and also.Have you turned up the voltage on your motherboard in the bios?
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
Can you elaborate? What about raid 0 with SSD helps on x79? If the drives are already pushing close to 500mb /s what will raid 0 do? Does trim work with raid now?
Click to expand...

Performance is the same as any other Raid0 setup better sequential and worse random 4k but Trim does work on the X79 :D
 
Auburn_Tigers said:
Have you plugged in the extra power port for your pci slots to account for the extra cards, and also.Have you turned up the voltage on your motherboard in the bios?
Click to expand...

Yeah it's an extra molex, and it is plugged in. That's in the long post at the top of page 2.

I have not increased any mobo voltage no.

Auburn: yup, already tried 2 cards. First post on this page. some games low GPU usage, others stutter, some play ok.

I thought about a bad SLi bridge as well. I switched it out with another one i had (only have 2) with the same results.

I also tried switching the PSU that GPU3 is on and had exact same results.

Crysis is only doing 30-50% gpu usage, 60-70 FPS with stutters

Also, i switched my third GPU in with the 4th to see if that would fix low frames in 3-way SLi, it didn't. Same low GPU usage and frame rates in Crysis. Bioshock infinite has high FPS, but it has a weird intermittent stutter.

I RAM memtest on the RAM a few days ago, and the 3 sticks that are in the PC now didn't throw any errors. But for good measure I put in some really old slow ram. This also made no difference in GPU usage or FPS
 
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Icewolf69 said:
The CPU is stock, but I don't want to overclock, that's just going to introduce another variable into the equation. I don't think most of these games would even require an overclock.

the 4390 isn't even a very good overclocker. Could probably get 4.5, maybe 5. But that's with some pretty high vcore.


with 3way SLi so far Crysis isn't using much GPU on any of the cards. Frame rates still aren't that smooth.

Also, for some reason, when i reboot my sli gets disabled in nvidia control panel. i have to enable it each reboot....
Click to expand...

i don't know op, this article suggests that with that many video cards, an overclock of the cpu might be imperative.
 
Modboxx said:
Performance is the same as any other Raid0 setup better sequential and worse random 4k but Trim does work on the X79 :D
Click to expand...

I see. I didn't know. But I rmember the ich10 having a 600mb/s ceiling. Did that change? ( I had 3 vertex 1 drives in RAID 0)
 
Yea the reason I ask is I had a somewhat similar issue with my gtx 690 and surround setup that was alleviated by a nice overclock, it was basically a must that I overclock on an i7 3820
 
Ok i'll try to overclock it tonight and report back. I'm worried about how much I'll be able to with only a Corsair h80.

Anyone have any good guides on overclocking the 4930k?
 
I'd test your system with one GFX card at a time. Also make sure none of the memory sticks are faulty. Are using the Ultra (highest) settings on each game?
 
Icewolf69 said:
Titanfall (textures only very high (game uses insane ammount of VRAM, insane textures fills all my VRAM, even in 4x sli)
GPU Usage: 70/17
GPU Temp: 73/30
FPS: 60
VRAM: 2800

--------------------------------------------
Click to expand...

Just a heads up, your usable VRAM won't be any higher with multiple cards, because each card needs to store the same information.
 
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