something wrong with my GTX 780TI

[AUXOV]

My 3-way GTX 780TI (EVGA superclocked version w/ Air Cooling Extreme) is way less powerful than I expected. When I maximize everything, I only got 75-100 fps half of the time in Borderlands 2 and occasionallly it drops to 45 fps during a heated combat . I noticed once I got 45 fps in Tomb Raider 2013. In metro 2033, the fps isn't very bad, but I feel the game is not running smoothly. Occasionally, the monitor screen will become black and the PC stops working. 3D Fur Mark shows the GPUs reach a max of 75, 78 and 78 Celsius, respectively during the stress test. I can't belived this is one of the best gaming video cards on the market. Is there something wrong with them? By the way, I got i7 4930K, 32G RAM and 1TB Samsung 840 Pro SSD, which can't be the bottleneck during these game experiences and test .

[AUXOV]

Messaggio originale di ☥ - CJ -:

An overclock like that running Prime depending on your cooler would be accurate.
However games do not stress the CPU to that extent.

The CPU is what feeds frames to the GPU, if you have 3 780 Ti's thats alot of frames that the CPU has to transfer. Having it overclocked should yield better results in games.

My suggestion would be, test your games with 1 GPU, then add another and go from there.
Games like BL2 dont require more than 1 780 Ti to achieve good FPS.

In all, 3 780 Ti's is pushing it for any game.

What monitor do you use? If you are only using one monitor, or only a monitor at 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 that would be a limiting factor as well. such a large amount of power would only do well in high resolution setups.

If one GPU is all the power a game needs, you will see barely if any performance gain at all with 2 let alone 3.

Monitor: only one BenQ XL2420TE 60/144 Hz 1920x1080

[AUXOV]

Messaggio originale di jakethebusker:

O/P What monitor are you running and what motherboard are you running those components on?

Monitor: only one BenQ XL2420TE 60/144 Hz 1920x1080
motherboard: ASUS X79 Sabertooth w/ heat armor & some radar

[[☥] - CJ -]

That would be why then. thats way to much GPU power for a single monitor setup.
Try it with 1 GPU and see what results you get, then enable a 2nd.

That much power is being wasted on a single monitor.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Yeah for one 144 Hz 1080p. you could have easily gone just with i7-4770K and one or two GTX 780 Ti. Would have been lot cheaper.
Triple and quad cards are more for running 4K and multiple 144 Hz 1080p. or 1440p. setups.

[AUXOV]

Messaggio originale di ☥ - CJ -:

That would be why then. thats way to much GPU power for a single monitor setup.
Try it with 1 GPU and see what results you get, then enable a 2nd.

That much power is being wasted on a single monitor.

How to enable 2-way SLI? In the Nvidia control panel, it only let me choose "max 3D performance" (3 way) or "disable SLI" (one GPU). Do I have to do something with the SLI bridges inside the PC case?

[[☥] - CJ -]

The only way would to be to remove 1 of the GPUs.
But if you dont want to do that then you'll just have to deal with the performance problems.

3 780 Ti's is extreme overkill for just one monitor.

[Azza ☠]

The first thing to check with SLI is the gaming motherboard...

ASUS X79 Sabertooth has 2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (dual x16), this is good as it doesn't share (which halves the bandwidth speed) and 1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x8 mode). From this we can see two graphic cards would be ideal. The third card will lost a few FPS by dropping down into half x8 mode. Note that PCI-e 16x is never really maxed out, but recommended. Some motherboard tends to share them so the bandwidth halves between two or more cards, you need to watch for this if performance is starting to bottleneck and show little to no improvement. I would advice your 3rd graphic card won't be much benifit to you and possible sell it unless your going tri monitor setup or greater.

First flash update your motherboard BIOS, if you haven't got the latest:
http://event.asus.com/2012/mb/USB_BIOS_Flashback_GUIDE/

That will improve the PCI-e performance... It even says on their website to 'Get the latest BIOS version for optimal support of PCI Express 3.0'.

You might want to check all your drivers are nicely up-to-date and working while your at it:
http://www.asus.com/nz/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_Z87/HelpDesk_Download/

You basically mainly want the latest:
Flash BIOS 1901 - Enhance compatibility with some PCIE device (important)
Intel Management Engine Interface (check)
Intel Chipset Software (check)

A single GTX 780 is enough for me to run all the latest games on 1440p with ultra settings and zero lag. You might find your setup is unstable or overheating if your getting 45 FPS in Tomb Raider 2013, specially if on 1080p only.

You might be best downloading the GeForce Experience Software:
http://www.geforce.com/geforce-experience

Then updating the graphic drivers to the BETA version which offers a lot of boost and SLI performance (Still in BETA so check if it helps and is stable for you). Apply optimal setting to the games at the same time. It might cut back a bit on the extremely high / maxed out anti-aliasing or something else you might of set, which could be lagging/bottlenecking the game settings. This will pick the optimal settings best to suit your calculated hardware - it's a good starting point and quicker than manual tweaking from scratch or setting all to max ultra.

Ensure there's penty of airflow and space for the motherboard and graphic cards, that it's not overheating, etc. Again, cutting back to two cards, even if just for testing purposes, will help here - reducing power usage, heat levels and increase stablity. Ensure the cards all have the extra PCI 6-8 pin 12v power supplied from the PSU and the SLI bridge inbetween firmly in place.

You should be able to get around 106-182 FPS for your Tomb Raider 2013 on ULTRA settings at 1920x1080 (1080p) with 2-way SLI GTX 780 Ti. I use a single GTX 780 (not even Ti) and get around 64 FPS on ULTRA with that.

[VisciousFishes]

I make Azza above me right. I run a single GTX780ti and it's amazing. I game at 1080p @60hz and get a pretty steady frame rate of 45 - 60 (v-sync enabled) at all times. Especially on Tomb Raider.

As for the Geforce Experience, I am using that to keep all my settings bang on perfect for all games it supports. I also use it to keep up on my drives and I have seen a more stable frame rate on the beta drivers than on the official "you must have these" drivers. The 335.xx WHQL drivers are absolutely pants for a 780ti. I can't imagine how terrible they would be for an SLI rig.

My other half has that exact motherboard you have and is running it sweet as you like. The extra fans should be helping to keep your temperatures down. Have you over clocked your CPU? Have you made sure your plugged into your SATA 3 (6GB) plugs on the mobo for your hard drives?

I have never run an SLI set-up so I cannot be sure about how they work. My understanding is that some games naturally perform better on a single GPU than on a multi-GPU set-up. It's a sad but true fact that cramming all that performance into your machine will not always lead to getting good performance out of your computer.

I have a few guides for you to look at though that may help you out. They're about reducing lag, optimising your system and what exactly all the settings do.

http://www.geforce.co.uk/whats-new/guides/stable-pc-gaming#1

http://www.geforce.co.uk/whats-new/guides/how-to-get-rid-of-lag-guide#1

http://lifehacker.com/5985304/get-the-most-from-your-games-a-beginners-guide-to-graphics-settings

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

[Steve Mahanahan]

I hated the Geforce "experience" software. It seems redundant to me. I can see how some of the "features" are nice little additions, but I try to keep a very trim PC. I also know where most cfg files are and can get more out of altering a CFG than what the "experience" gave me. I am also not a fan of nagging "Update available". If it is not broken, I prefer not to fix it, no matter how simple it can make it.

I highly advise trying the "experience", but also keep in mind that you certainly can install drivers without.

I agree in advance that I am paranoid about drivers that check in and force updates. I hate flash and all the other things that go "ting" down in the bottom right. I hate windows update also.

[stealthy]

I had 3 way SLI with 260 gtx and it was crap, I had 295gtx by Gainward, which is 4 cards 2 made into four, crap, Your system sounds very good, try tweeking different elements motherboard, etc etc is SLI enabled,? and of course you will need a big PSU at least 1350 watt plus, running 2 GTX 780ti Gigabyte Wind jammers with 16gb Ram SLI Crappy HDD, and a CPU 4770k, wonderful results.