GTX 980ti Underperforming need advice.

[ZombiePyroNinja]

I upgraded my gpu from a 780 up to a 980ti and am noticing that i'm not hitting the same average framerate some youtube videos are showing on reference cards. My buddy has a similar 980ti from ASUS which has identical clock speeds and using an i5 processor, but he is able to run games at a higher quality and keep a much better framerate by a large amount. I understand there's a difference in manufacturers but he is able to keep an fps of 55 in areas i'll hit 37 in GTA V. I even assumed it was my processor which is an i7 - 2700k @ 3.5 so I went ahead and overclocked it to 4.2 GHz and still suffer the same framerate in those games The ones in question are GTA V, Witcher 3, and even Dragon's Dogma a 4 year old game that was recently ported. A different friend of mine is running it on his 960 flawlessly at the highest quality. I have no clue what could be the issue and am curious if I should RMA the card. I tried to seek help in another forum and someone had asked about my temps, under load and stress the gpu only reaches about 60 degrees and the cpu (while overclocked) only reaches an average of about 55 degrees without ever climbing over 60.

Thank you for any help, it's very appreciated

(it's also worth mentioning I'm attempting to run these games at 1080 and not 4k and am struggling to stay above 60 fps)

My specifications are

P8z68-V LX Motherboard
I7-2700k
GTX 980ti EVGA ftw edition.
16 gb of RAM
Corsair 850w PSU

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Uninstall all "NVIDIA" from Control Panel > Programs and Features
Have "NVIDIA Forceware" be the last one you uninstall, reboot as needed.
Once all are removed and you've rebooted, download and install the latest WHQL Driver from Geforce.com/Drivers for your GPU family model and OS. During install choose Custom, un-tick boxes for 3D Vision and GeForce Experience, tick the Perform Clean Install box.

[Larry]

What are your friends CPUs? That i7 is dated... Even if you OC it it won't be as powerful as a current gen top range i5s or i7s. Plus i7, right now at least, is comparable to high end i5's with not much difference in gaming performance at all(If there's any which there's not in most cases).

[ZombiePyroNinja]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

Uninstall all "NVIDIA" from Control Panel > Programs and Features
Have "NVIDIA Forceware" be the last one you uninstall, reboot as needed.
Once all are removed and you've rebooted, download and install the latest WHQL Driver from Geforce.com/Drivers for your GPU family model and OS. During install choose Custom, un-tick boxes for 3D Vision and GeForce Experience, tick the Perform Clean Install box.

I have actually recently done a clean install of the driver using the Display Driver Uninstaller in safe mode and performed a clean install, however I did not un-tick the boxes for 3D vision and GeForce, would that make an honest difference in performance?

[ZombiePyroNinja]

Originally posted by Dr.Larry:

What are your friends CPUs? That i7 is dated... Even if you OC it it won't be as powerful as a current gen top range i5s or i7s. Plus i7, right now at least, is comparable to high end i5's with not much difference in gaming performance at all(If there's any which there's not in most cases).

I cannot remember which exactly off the top of my head and they are unfortunately not online right now.. but I have seen people on i7-2600k's running at a much higher frame rate on youtube with stock speeds.

[ZombiePyroNinja]

I also don't see NVIDIA Forceware on my uninstall programs list.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by ZombiePyroNinja:

I also don't see NVIDIA Forceware on my uninstall programs list.

Something is wrong if that is not listed then.

Re-run the NVIDIA installer. No big deal, just reinstall the entire software package.
When it is finished, reboot.

[ZombiePyroNinja]

3D Vision Driver or 3D Vision Controller Driver

[ZombiePyroNinja]

Unticked both
Still the same levels of performance.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Then I really don't know.
For GTAV can u screenshot your in-game settings pages and share them?
In GTAV there are 3 tabs of settings for visuals: Display, Graphics, Advanced


For Witcher 3 @ 1080p try these settings:
Firstly, put everything on the highest Visual setting (there is an Advanced menu in there too)
Then change these:
NVIDIA HairWorks = Disabled
VSync = Disabled
Display Mode = Borderless Window (if after u apply this, or launch the game u see the OS Taskbar, click on the game, then press ALT+ENTER)

Turn Shadow Quality and Foilage/Vegitation down one notch.
Apply, restart the game, then try it.

You will also want to change these in NVIDIA Control Panel:
Manage 3D Settings > Global:
Power Management = Prefer Max Performance
Threaded Optimization = On
Triple Buffering = Off
VSync = Off (if you ever put this on anything but off, turn triple buffering on)

VSync off in everything I am asking you to do for test purposes, to help ensure nothing is getting in the way of capping the FPS. As you can always change later as needed. For example, changing NVIDIA's VSync to Adaptive to get a more stable FPS and help eliminate screen-tearing.

If u play any PhysX games, in NVIDIA-CP you will want PhysX set to GPU rather than Auto or CPU. If you play Arma1, 2, 3, DayZ-SA; set PhysX to CPU, as any other setting might cause those games to hang or crash.

[astronomas]

I think that at this point the main question is: is GPU deffective or something is bottlenceking in your system (like CPU, RAM, ect). Running a synthetic GPU benchmark might help you, because they are designed to hammer GPU but not max out CPU, so you should get comparable results to other 980Ti tests.

Try running for example Valley benchmark (free version is available online) and posting your results and settings at which you ran it here. What GPU temperatures during the are? Are they much different from other test results of 980Ti you can find online with same settings?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Yes that helps too; I don't see anything, based on your listed specs, that would be a bottle-neck. With that CPU and amount of RAM, all those games should be hovering at or exceeding 60+ FPS averages at 1080p; however...

Download and run Unigine Heaven[www.majorgeeks.com]
select profile preset EXTREME and click Run.
When it first comes up after the initial loading screen, wait a few seconds, then click Benchmark. This takes roughly 5-7 mins to complete. When it does you get a screen like this:
http://i.imgur.com/sAtkn7u.jpg

Then press F12 key to take a screenshot, that will end up being saved here:
C:\Users\YourUserName\Heaven\screenshots

Then u can upload to IMGUR.com and then share the link provided after the upload

Mid-Range to High-End GPU users are asked to use that Extreme profile as that way the score should be consistent with hardware. Same settings and resolution basically. So as to allow for much easier comparison based on overall hardware specs.

[ZombiePyroNinja]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

Yes that helps too; I don't see anything, based on your listed specs, that would be a bottle-neck. With that CPU and amount of RAM, all those games should be hovering at or exceeding 60+ FPS averages at 1080p; however...

Download and run Unigine Heaven[www.majorgeeks.com]
select profile preset EXTREME and click Run.
When it first comes up after the initial loading screen, wait a few seconds, then click Benchmark. This takes roughly 5-7 mins to complete. When it does you get a screen like this:
http://i.imgur.com/sAtkn7u.jpg

Then press F12 key to take a screenshot, that will end up being saved here:
C:\Users\YourUserName\Heaven\screenshots

Then u can upload to IMGUR.com and then share the link provided after the upload

Mid-Range to High-End GPU users are asked to use that Extreme profile as that way the score should be consistent with hardware. Same settings and resolution basically. So as to allow for much easier comparison based on overall hardware specs.

Sorry for the incredibly late reply
Hitting F-12 saves a .tga 3D image to screenshots?
if it's all the same I just saved it and screencapped it.
http://imgur.com/bsKfB8n
I have no clue why it's saying my 980 ti has 4 gigs of vram however

[ZombiePyroNinja]

I also tried a benchmark at 1080p
http://imgur.com/gQ411dp

[[☥] - CJ -]

Double checked the PCI-E connectors? tried reseating the GPU?
Any BIOS updates for your motherboard? which there should be.. If there is, i use the AI Suite to update it myself..

You can try defaulting the BIOS settings, and making sure memory remapping is enabled, which it should be anyway..

How many processes do you have running in the background?
Are you on Win7 8 or 10?

I dont trust factory overclocked GPUs, you could always try downclocking it a little bit and test the results.

Power settings for Windows and NVIDIA CPU set for Performance?
-

I have no issues with my SLI 660 Tis on Witcher 3 on High/Ultra settings, so it could be your system in 1 way or another.
-

use MSI Afterburner and enable the on screen displays, make sure when in game the GPUs clocks are raising to the stated clocks, if not that could be a possible problem.

[ZombiePyroNinja]

Windows 10, I could try reseating the gpu when I get home
In terms of processes, I can't provide exact numbers now, but I know I'm running less processes than anyone else in this group of three people.
I've tried afterburner and the clocks seemed correct for what was advertised, sometimes climbing over it
As for the rest I'll be able to do in a couple of hours and post the results. After digging around more on YouTube I found a guy running the exact CPU and a 980 ti who has an almost identical benchmark in heaven
I just didn't think the i7-2700k could effect it that nominally if it's the case but I'd like to cover my bases before realizing it's too late to RMA or return the card.
Keep the advice coming, I seriously appreciate all the help you guys are providing.