Performance Bottleneck: GPU GTX 960 FTW 4GB

[alegav]

Hey Guys,

I have been lurking for a bit and reading some very informative overclocking guides, haven't tried anything out yet and after reading bad reviews on this site have UNINSTALLED AMD overdrive So to my question/concern. I just built what I consider a budget gaming PC, mainly to play The Division and Overwatch. I used to be a PC gamer back in the WOW days but once Halo 2 came out they hooked me back to console. Fast forward to today and I now have friends telling me to join the PC Master race so I did. I digress

So, the Division I can run it on Medium and hit a constants 55-60 FPS which still looks better than on my XBONE. I wanted to see where and if any bottleneck was present so I did some logging. I used performance monitor to monitor my CPU (created custom data collector set) and benched it for 30 mins. My CPU topped out at 55% the entire time while my video card was pretty maxed 90 to 99% just about the entire time. I used GPU-Z to grab the data from my video card. My assumption is that I have plenty of headroom on my CPU so it must be the GPU that's holding back my 60+FPS on Ultra settings. I wanted to attach the logs and just have someone else take another look and clarify that yes, I am reading the data right. Below is my build.

Then my next question will be, should I SLI my current setup, try some overclocking or grab a more powerful video card?

CPU: AMD FX-8370 (Stock)
CPU Cooler: AMD Wraith Cooler (Gen2)
VideoCard: EVGA GTX-960 4GB FTW Edition
MOBO: MSI 970 Gaming
PSU: EVGA 750W Bronse (SLI Ready)
RAM: 32GB DDR3 Kingston Value RAM 1600MHz (left over from last build)
HDD: WD Blue 500GB (Left over from last build)

If I missed anything that is relevant please let me know.

Thanks!

Alex

 

[Itachiii]

Hey Guys,

I have been lurking for a bit and reading some very informative overclocking guides, haven't tried anything out yet and after reading bad reviews on this site have UNINSTALLED AMD overdrive So to my question/concern. I just built what I consider a budget gaming PC, mainly to play The Division and Overwatch. I used to be a PC gamer back in the WOW days but once Halo 2 came out they hooked me back to console. Fast forward to today and I now have friends telling me to join the PC Master race so I did. I digress

So, the Division I can run it on Medium and hit a constants 55-60 FPS which still looks better than on my XBONE. I wanted to see where and if any bottleneck was present so I did some logging. I used performance monitor to monitor my CPU (created custom data collector set) and benched it for 30 mins. My CPU topped out at 55% the entire time while my video card was pretty maxed 90 to 99% just about the entire time. I used GPU-Z to grab the data from my video card. My assumption is that I have plenty of headroom on my CPU so it must be the GPU that's holding back my 60+FPS on Ultra settings. I wanted to attach the logs and just have someone else take another look and clarify that yes, I am reading the data right. Below is my build.

Then my next question will be, should I SLI my current setup, try some overclocking or grab a more powerful video card?

CPU: AMD FX-8370 (Stock)
CPU Cooler: AMD Wraith Cooler (Gen2)
VideoCard: EVGA GTX-960 4GB FTW Edition
MOBO: MSI 970 Gaming
PSU: EVGA 750W Bronse (SLI Ready)
RAM: 32GB DDR3 Kingston Value RAM 1600MHz (left over from last build)
HDD: WD Blue 500GB (Left over from last build)

If I missed anything that is relevant please let me know.

Thanks!

Alex

Hey Alex, it doesn't sound like a bottleneck to me, more like throttling. Can you download HWMonitor and post a complete picture of it after 20 minutes on prime95 blend test?

SLI and AMD don't get along usually. You might want to grab a GTX 970 since the 1070 is fresh in the market, 970's price is going down... fast!I'm also a but hesitated about your mobo. I will do some searching and I will come back to u !

 

[Johan45]

That board should be fine as long as you don't want a huge overclock and the Wraith cooler will only take you so far. As itachii said seems to me like the card is maxed out so I don't feel it's the CPU. Check your bios for HPC and APM. Make sure HPC is enabled and APM disabled that should take care of any throttling if that's an issue.

 

[alegav]

Hey Alex, it doesn't sound like a bottleneck to me, more like throttling. Can you download HWMonitor and post a complete picture of it after 20 minutes on prime95 blend test?

SLI and AMD don't get along usually. You might want to grab a GTX 970 since the 1070 is fresh in the market, 970's price is going down... fast!I'm also a but hesitated about your mobo. I will do some searching and I will come back to u !

Will do!! I also noticed I didn't attach my logs I'll fix that shortly. Ya I'm hoping to not have to grab another card (not sure if I can return mine any longer) but it is what it is thanks again!

That board should be fine as long as you don't want a huge overclock and the Wraith cooler will only take you so far. As itachii said seems to me like the card is maxed out so I don't feel it's the CPU. Check your bios for HPC and APM. Make sure HPC is enabled and APM disabled that should take care of any throttling if that's an issue.

Ya I figured if I wanted any substantial overclocking I would have to to a better heatsink or perhaps liquid cooking. I'll check those settings later this evening (at work the moment)

Thanks for all the help guys. A great welcoming from the forum as well!

 

[Johan45]

Usually someone around willing to help. Glad you like the place

 

[alegav]

Hey Guys,

I attached the logs. Once is in excel so you can filter to find what you need. The other is a graph. If you change it to "Report" view you can see that for the 30 min test you can see the average was 52.79%. Wouldn't let me attach certain file types so here is a link to DL

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jzzs635iulp5xm7/AABuHLCgEsrgdUmW3V9PhjV8a?dl=0

 

[Lochekey]

What resolution are you playing at. I'm gonna assume 1080. If you are running higher than that you are really gonna hurt on the graphics side because the 960 just does not have the grubby to push that many pixels at high/ultra settings.

 

[alegav]

Ya just 1080 over here no 4k just yet, yes I did take that into consideration as well.

 

[bob4933]

Your 32gb of ram is probably gonna cause more issues than any problems it will solve. You really gotta overclock those amds pretty hard to get the most out of them. With that much ram, it's probably gonna cause some hiccups and messing with ram timings and weird cpu/nb voltages to get it super stable.

That said, 960s in sli doesnt make much sense with the new gpus coming out. Id grab an rx 480 when it comes out.

 

[caddi daddi]

I think I would be looking at a better, single card setup, the gains in sli and crossfire are just not worth it, unless of course you are like me and just like to run multi card rigs.
the only places I have found multi card fun to pay is 970's at 1440p, but a single 980 plays smoother and 760's in sli to bench against a $1000 titan.

 

[alegav]

Your 32gb of ram is probably gonna cause more issues than any problems it will solve. You really gotta overclock those amds pretty hard to get the most out of them. With that much ram, it's probably gonna cause some hiccups and messing with ram timings and weird cpu/nb voltages to get it super stable.

That said, 960s in sli doesnt make much sense with the new gpus coming out. Id grab an rx 480 when it comes out.

Thanks for the advice, just curios whats the issue with the RAM? Too much is not always a good thing?

I think I would be looking at a better, single card setup, the gains in sli and crossfire are just not worth it, unless of course you are like me and just like to run multi card rigs.
the only places I have found multi card fun to pay is 970's at 1440p, but a single 980 plays smoother and 760's in sli to bench against a $1000 titan.

Ya I figured that's what most people would say, and rightly so. Unfortunately I would have to eat the cost of this card and then shell out a few more hundred to get a better single card. Its not completely out of the question but I would like to exhaust my efforts first .

 

[alegav]

Hey Hey, attached are the results of the prime 95 test for about 23 mins.View attachment HWMonitor.txt

 

[Lochekey]

To much ram can be hard on the imc and can require extra voltage and tweaking to get it stable when trying to overclock the cpu.

You might look at selling the 960 you have to recoup some of the cost of a new card or you could keep it and use it for something else like folding or benching.

 

[Itachiii]

Hey Hey, attached are the results of the prime 95 test for about 23 mins.View attachment 180452

If I'm reading that right, and I like to think that I am, you get 57°C and 1,37V at stock clocks, therefore I don't think it's a throttling issue or that there's an issue at all! Some games are more CPU dependant and some other games are more GPU dependant. A quick example: When I'm playing League I barely see my GPU getting used more than 57% while my CPU is hitting 97-99%. So as everyone here said, FPS-wise, the problem is more likely your GPU. You might want to sell that 960 and grab a 970

 

[alegav]

That's great news, thanks for taking the time and looking into that for me I really appreciate it. So..... anyone want to but a GTX 960 jk. I'll see if I can offload this and not lose to much on it and jump up to a 970.

In other news, I am going to be replacing my HDD with a Samsung 850 Pro and Lochekey pointed out some potential RAM issues. I have been trying to wrap my head around memory latency and running memory at OC speeds but it has just gone WAY over my hardware knowledge. Is it work even OCing RAM at all? Can anyone recommend a budget conscious Dual Channel 16GB DDR3 setup? I have been looking at the Ripjaw Series from G.Skill but to be honest I do not have much experience with that brand. I was just going to pick a setup from this list (compatible memory modules for my board) https://us.msi.com/file/test_report/TR10_3193.pdf and go from there.

Thanks again

Alex

 

[Itachiii]

That's great news, thanks for taking the time and looking into that for me I really appreciate it. So..... anyone want to but a GTX 960 jk. I'll see if I can offload this and not lose to much on it and jump up to a 970.

In other news, I am going to be replacing my HDD with a Samsung 850 Pro and Lochekey pointed out some potential RAM issues. I have been trying to wrap my head around memory latency and running memory at OC speeds but it has just gone WAY over my hardware knowledge. Is it work even OCing RAM at all? Can anyone recommend a budget conscious Dual Channel 16GB DDR3 setup? I have been looking at the Ripjaw Series from G.Skill but to be honest I do not have much experience with that brand. I was just going to pick a setup from this list (compatible memory modules for my board) https://us.msi.com/file/test_report/TR10_3193.pdf and go from there.

Thanks again

Alex

Not being in the QVL list doesn't mean it won't work They can't test all the kits from every manufacturer to see if they work. G.skill, you can't go wrong with them You can pretty much get any kit you want, I would avoid Kingston since you're running an AMD, there used to be a few issues when you tried to OC a Kingston kit with an AMD CPU (not sure if it still happens tho).

I would go with Samsung 850 EVO, since Pro is pricier. Unless if you're planning to do really much of reading/writting, 850 Pro isn't worth the extra money

 

[alegav]

Ill save the extra $$ then and just grab the 850 Evo and look into some G.skill RAM. Looks like most people are running 16GB's Do you see a need for more? I know this depends on what I am doing. Its mainly just gaming and standard computer related tasks. No Photoshop or video editing.

 

[Itachiii]

Ill save the extra $$ then and just grab the 850 Evo and look into some G.skill RAM. Looks like most people are running 16GB's Do you see a need for more? I know this depends on what I am doing. Its mainly just gaming and standard computer related tasks. No Photoshop or video editing.

No need for more then. As the guys above said, the more you increase the GBs of your RAM, the more difficult it becomes to OC it stably! Stick with 16GB of Ripjaws and you're golden

 

[Soulcatcher668]

I would not purchase an Nvidia 970 unless you get a really good deal on a used card. It is not enough of an improvement between the 960 and 970 to justify the move.

The 1070 destroys it in all benches as well.

 

[Itachiii]

I would not purchase an Nvidia 970 unless you get a really good deal on a used card. It is not enough of an improvement between the 960 and 970 to justify the move.

The 1070 destroys it in all benches as well.

Depends on the gaming he does and res he plays at. 1070 destroys a Titan as well! For the gaming he does a 970 is plenty but he could go for a R9 380X as well. Either way he can do the job.