Finding Bottlenecks in my Build

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1

Hopefully this is the right place to put this. I couldn't find a general hardware discussion forum.

 

I'm trying to figure out why my GTX 780 lightning is providing minimal performance increase over my GTX 570.

 

CPU: i5-2500k stock

GPU: MSI GTX 780 lightning stock

RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 240-pin DDR3-1333 1x8GB

Motherboard: MSI P67-gd65

SSD: Samsung EVO 250GB

PSU: Corsair TX750

I understand the 2500k gives me a small bottleneck and depending on the game it might be a big bottleneck. However, the performance I am getting is far worse than would be expected if that were the only issue. There are plenty of benchmarks with this same CPU/GPU combo who perform much better than mine.

 

2

The i5-2500k is actually a very good CPU, competitive with any up-to-date i5. This is not a bottleneck, this is likely a driver or power issue. Have you updated drivers after upgrading your 570?

3

Yea I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8 so I had a clean slate and my drivers are up to date.

 

I've had the PSU for a while but I'm not sure how I could test to see if it is causing a bottleneck.

4

Check connections on the card? Try your old 570, if you still have it?

5

The TX750w is a quality unit, and 750w is plenty for an i5 and a gtx 780z

6

What is "minimal" What kind of scores are you getting, and were you getting before?

 

7

My unigine valley benchmarks are low:

1080p 8xAA Maxed -

FPS AVG: 62.2

Score: 2601

FPS Min: 25.9

FPS Max: 112.7

I usually see people with 780s getting roughly 20 FPS more than me(still stock clocks)

 

Here are some other benchmarks I did today:

Unigine Valley 1440p(forced my 1080p monitor):

FPS AVG: 39.1

Score: 1636

FPS Min: 15.4

FPS Max: 76.9

CS:GO 1080p 4xMSAA Maxed:

FPS AVG: 208

FPS Min: 148

FPS Max: 288

Warframe 1080p Maxed(Early game, not many enemies/explosions on screen):

FPS AVG: 87

FPS Min: 69

FPS Max: 101

I also have Assassins Creed 4 which runs 1080p maxed with around 40 FPS avg and dropping down to as low as 20 FPS.

 

Unfortunately I don't have Metro/Crysis/Battlefield to benchmark, but I can try and get some more graphic intensive games to benchmark if needed.

 

8

I would say its down to your older system and your 1333 memory. The lightning is a great card. In some respects better than the classifieds but I would say its down to probably the pcie bus and the ram. Plus check if your hitting the expected boost clock on your 780. It could be something to do with the card not ramping up.

9

While not running any 3D applications my core clock is at 979.8 Mhz and ramps up to 1097.4 Mhz when I am in a game. The memory clock stays 1502.3 regardless.

 

This is according to GPU-Z.

I had a feeling I might be skimping on the RAM. I have Patriot 2x2GB 1600 I could try out. I know I have had trouble in the past with the motherboard so it wouldn't be unlikely that the PCI-E bus might be damaged. It'd just be nice if I had a way of testing it to see before shelling out some cash.

10

Is the card running at 16x? 

Is your CPU Overclocked?

I would def try and use at least 1600MHz ram, and try and clock your CPU to at least 4GHz. and try again. Your scores aren't terrible.

11

The difference between 1333 and 1600 is small but in some games it does make a difference. Honestly if you want to run a gpu like a gtx 780 then I recomend starting off with a good motherboard. If you cheap out like many do then the board will cause problems sooner. I think a cheap board will support high end cards for 2 years while a high end will do maybe another year. Give or take a year. There is a reason why people are now buying tuf and ws motherboards now.

12

The only thing I can think of is the speed of the ram and the fact that you aren't running two sticks in dual channel mode. If you want, you can overclock that cpu to 4.2ghz with a hyper 212 evo or plus. They are about 30 dollars. sometime you can find them on sale. Overclock your cpu and ram and see what happens. If you want better performance you could pick up another stick of ram and run the two sticks in dual channel mode.

13

Yea if your running only 1 stick then yo are basically running at half the speed. Its dual channel slots for a reason.

14

how about temps?

i personaly dont see the ram speed as a bottleneck.

15

You seem to be correct, no big difference in gaming. 
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/1fcs77/discussion_ram_single_vs_dual_channel_speed/

To me, it sounds like the GPU is running in 4x mode on the motherboard

16

I have it running in the main 16x slot so unless the mobo is forcing 4x then it shouldn't be running in 4x.

17

for Nvidia cards, running 4x is impossible. The drivers will not allow it.

 

18

i would say monitor the temps carefully, msi had vrm throttle issues in the past.

Also check wenn you are gaming, if your gpu gets utilized to 100%.

19

I would also look when you are gaming if your ram is 100% utilized

 

20

I would run Memtest just to be sure there's no issue with the DIMM