Widescreen Gaming Forum

So i just built this PC about a week and a half ago and i am having some issues playing games with surround.

System Specs
i5 3570k OCed to 4.5 GHz(70 C temps under load max) - Prime95 36 hours tested
Asrock Extreme4 z77 Motherboard
2 EVGA GTX 670's( 301.42)
16GB g.skill ripjaws 2133(current clock)
Crucial M4 SSD 256GB
Win7 64bit

Essentially i've been playing World of Tanks, Alien vs Predator, Crysis(MWLL Mod), and BF3. All the games listed have these dramatic drops in FPS at what seems random times. I play all on high graphics at 6040x1200 resolution so i know im pushing the limit, but literally the frames go from 40-60+ to 10 in a matter of moments. After about a minute or 2 of this it will "recover" and my FPS will be at the higher more consistent rate. I just, last night, re-installed windows and all drivers fresh.


Can anyone give me advice as to what this could be?

So i just built this PC about a week and a half ago and i am having some issues playing games with surround.

System Specs
i5 3570k OCed to 4.5 GHz(70 C temps under load max) - Prime95 36 hours tested
Asrock Extreme4 z77 Motherboard
2 EVGA GTX 670's( 301.42)
16GB g.skill ripjaws 2133(current clock)
Crucial M4 SSD 256GB
Win7 64bit

Essentially i've been playing World of Tanks, Alien vs Predator, Crysis(MWLL Mod), and BF3. All the games listed have these dramatic drops in FPS at what seems random times. I play all on high graphics at 6040x1200 resolution so i know im pushing the limit, but literally the frames go from 40-60+ to 10 in a matter of moments. After about a minute or 2 of this it will "recover" and my FPS will be at the higher more consistent rate. I just, last night, re-installed windows and all drivers fresh.

Can anyone give me advice as to what this could be?

One very important thing you don't list is your power supply. A lot of problems can be caused by a bad quality/ faulty PSU.

_________________
P8Z68-V Pro | 2600K | HR02 | HD5850 | 2x4GB Vengeance LP | 128GB M4 + 6TB | X-Fi > HD595 | AX850 | Tai Chi | PB278Q | G110 + Deathadder 2013
P8Z77-V | 3570K | Mugen 2 | HD5850 | 2x4GB Vengeance LP | 500GB | X-750 | Fractal R3 | U2212HM | G110 + G400
P8H77-I | G860 | 4650 | 2x2GB XMS | 320GB | CX500 | Prodigy | T22B350EW | MX518
DC3217IYE | 1x4GB Vengeance | 64GB M4 | TX-42VT20E

The other possibility is that you're nudging up against the VRAM limit of the cards. When you push over, it swaps to system RAM, then if the scene gets less complex again, it'll drop below needing to do that and the framerate recovers.

If it is VRAM limiting the FPS you could try disabling desktop Aero to give yourself a couple of hundred more MB of VRAM.

I am interested to hear if that work as I am currently sitting on the fence on whether to get Sli 670 2GB or wait for the 4GB versions.

_________________
Intel 3930k (stock speed), Asus P9X79 LE, 16GB of some ram. 240gb SSD and 1TB Raid 0. Silverstone Fortress FT02 case.

2 x Sapphire 7970 Dual-X OC/Boost

3 x Dell 2412 in 3P 3600x1920 (3880x1920 bezel corrected)

Unfortunately it was another bad card. after some more software troubleshooting and general shooting in the dark i went back to review the cards themselves. i pulled my newly arrived RMA card and enable surround on just 1 670(my original from Amazon). Load a few games and it exhibits the same exact behavior. I lowered resolution to a single monitor(1920x1200), lowered graphics almost as low as they can go and got the same results. Stuttering and wildly varied FPS making most games unplayable. I switched back to the RMA card and had no issue what so ever. Alien vs Predator played like a dream. Graphics maxed (4x AA 16x AF) at 6040x1200 was getting roughly 50-60 fps. While not the newest game in the world it was definitely no slouch. Stability had returned to my other games as well. End result 0 for 2 on new EVGA cards from amazon. The bright side of this was the stellar support from EVGA. No problems RMAing both cards. Lucky for me 1 670 drives most games, even with surround, well.

Gilly,

Power supply is a cooler master 1200. Overkill for this sytem.

Paradigm Shifter,

Someone else suggested this and i did see utilization in most games hit the cap of vram usage(AvP and BF3), but i did not experience any issues after using the RMA card exclusively.

pox67,

As far as i can tell right now this 670 kicks ass(just 1). I dont have any of the more know graphically heavy games you see in benchmarks so i may not have the best perspective,


thanks everyone for taking the time to make suggestions. Here is to hoping the new card is a seamless install.

Yeah as you said the 1200W will be fine, but you would be surprised the number of similar systems using like 620W Corsair HX or something.

_________________
P8Z68-V Pro | 2600K | HR02 | HD5850 | 2x4GB Vengeance LP | 128GB M4 + 6TB | X-Fi > HD595 | AX850 | Tai Chi | PB278Q | G110 + Deathadder 2013
P8Z77-V | 3570K | Mugen 2 | HD5850 | 2x4GB Vengeance LP | 500GB | X-750 | Fractal R3 | U2212HM | G110 + G400
P8H77-I | G860 | 4650 | 2x2GB XMS | 320GB | CX500 | Prodigy | T22B350EW | MX518
DC3217IYE | 1x4GB Vengeance | 64GB M4 | TX-42VT20E

I picked up 2 Gigabyte 670's last weekend and may have the same issue.

In some games I get a small freeze every second or so. In Skyrim it happens only on the menus but in Deus Ex HR it happens in menus and gameplay. Very annoying and makes DX:HR unplayable.
Even at lowest graphics settings I see DX:HR go from 180FPS down to 10 and back up again.
Other games though are completely fine: Saints Row the Third and Hard Reset.

It isn't a VRAM issue as I am monitoring that and it is always under the 2GB limit.

Jalec, did your freezes happen all the time or just now and then?

_________________
Intel 3930k (stock speed), Asus P9X79 LE, 16GB of some ram. 240gb SSD and 1TB Raid 0. Silverstone Fortress FT02 case.

2 x Sapphire 7970 Dual-X OC/Boost

3 x Dell 2412 in 3P 3600x1920 (3880x1920 bezel corrected)

DX:HR is all fixed after the beta 301.48 drivers.

Menus in Skyrim are still slow and jerky though...

_________________
Intel 3930k (stock speed), Asus P9X79 LE, 16GB of some ram. 240gb SSD and 1TB Raid 0. Silverstone Fortress FT02 case.

2 x Sapphire 7970 Dual-X OC/Boost

3 x Dell 2412 in 3P 3600x1920 (3880x1920 bezel corrected)

may i ask if this is resolved, and what mouse is being used here, I was getting a stutter and frame drop from my g500 report rate changed it to 150 and dont have this issue,

just a suggestion

hmm, i use a 670 single card with some ultra settings, some high, some medium and it's at a steady 50-60 fps at 5760x1080 (in battlefield 3)
avp is pretty much maxed out and i'm getting similar frames. i noticed by the way that at my settings with my resolution battlefield 3 uses a maximum of 1785 or so gpu memory out of 2gb.

i am using the 3.04 beta driver. the only thing i can think of is that you have some issue with sli while running surround, or just sli in general. i would try the 3.04 driver?

also are you using the same pci rate for both slots, for instance dual x16 lanes or 8x8 for example? your board might only support 1x16 and 1x4 pcei speeds when 2 cards are installed, that might cause these problems.. you'll have to check.

.