Should my 670 be doing this?

[Aegrus]

My EVGA gtx 670 appears to be overclocking and underclocking itself to extremes periodically. So, one minute I'll be getting triple-digit frame rates (like 300 in Portal, or 120 in Dragon age 2), and the next minute, my frame rate will die down to about 20 or less. A moment later, it picks back up. . .then drops. . .rinse and repeat.

 

My hypothesis is that my psu and fans just can't keep up with the overclock, so the card declocks itself massively to stay within acceptable parameters. I know this because Speedfan and Nvidia inspector told me that I was using at least 97% of my psu's capacity, and my gpu temperature was 70 degrees celcius ( and climbing) after 20 minutes of gameplay.

 

My question is this; why does my 670 overclock itself to such a huge and unsafe degree, if I can run games perfectly well at 60 fps? Does anyone else's card do this? As far as I know, they're designed to find a happy medium that keeps the frame rate as high as it can, while not exceeding cooling or power supply. So going to 300 fps, then crashing does not seem normal to me. (It crashed once- my entire pc turned off.)

 

Using EVGA precision X, I have locked my frame rate at 40 and set my psu to never use more than 80%. It's been working fine since then- on ultra settings, the most stressful games never use more than 70% of my psu's power, and my temperature never even gets to 60 degrees celcius. And I plan to replace my psu and add two more 120 mm fans to the two 120 mm fans (and one 80 mm) that I already have, in the hopes of removing or reducing the power/temperature bottleneck. But I'd really like to know if my card is defective for those huge frame rate jumps, or if they just. . .do that.

Edited August 20, 2012 by Aegrus

[Thor.]

My older 470's was like that, it would get so hot that it even blue screened on once, though it to was overclocked a little, until i went the way of Ati. Now i am getting awesome temps under 70c on extremely heavy load- idles around 36c. I think the nvidia in general tend to run hot. I watched and reviewed several nvidia cards before i decided to go ati . Its just the architecture, I'm not being biased here, i used to have two 470's in sli. its just the thing i was looking out for something cool and efficient. On topic Maybe you should look into water cooling if your case can't handle the heat from the card itself. Also what wattage is your psu?? Most Nvidia cards require at least 600watts minimum to run, and that's pushing it.

[Aegrus]

I have uninstalled the 670, and replaced it with my original Amd Radeon 6770. After looking at more reviews online, it looks like I definitely have a defective card- EVGA made quite a few, apparently. So many that they're upgrading affected people for free to the 670 FTW edition with their RMA process. Various people seem to be having similar problems as me- with their card getting inexplicably jumpy, often low performance in games that should be no problem to run. I got below 20 fps in the killing floor- the killing floor! My 6770 runs that at a stable 60 fps.

 

I wasn't sure if my 670 was behaving normally at first, because I've never actually had a high end video card, so I had no idea what to expect. But it sometimes runs games worse than my 6770- and that is bloody impossible for a functional, $400 card, when all the benchmarks claim 60+fps in anything ultra, low power consumption (some say a little less than my 6770, in fact), and low heat. The card works for most people, and they've given it amazing reviews- but amazing hasn't been my experience with it- so I'm RMA-ing it for a new one. Fingers crossed.

 

My psu is 700 watts, by the way.

 

I would just buy another AMD card, because my 6770 has run great for a year now-no complaints, but a big reason for upgrading my video card were the enforceable Nvidia effects (like ambient occlusion).

Edited August 21, 2012 by Aegrus

[Thor.]

If you still have the receipt for the card i suggest get a 7950 if you want a cool running card.. I used to be very biased against ati until now, they are great cards, i would suggest gigabyte fro that's the model i have and its slightly overclocked by manufacturer

 

its under 400$ on Newegg.cahttp://forums.nexusmods.com/public/style_emoticons/dark/thumbsup.gif and us

 

http://www.newegg.ca...gigabyte%207950

 

I suggest read the reviews http://forums.nexusmods.com/public/style_emoticons/dark/thumbsup.gif

Edited August 21, 2012 by Thor.

[Aegrus]

Anandtech and Tom's Hardware both put the 7950 at 1-5 degrees cooler than the 670, with the 7950 consuming slightly more power. However, actual users put the 7950 at about 15 degrees or more cooler than the 670- some up to 30 degrees celcius cooler- and I believe it, because the 7950 has 3 large fans built in. ;D

 

I can't have a card that draws more power than the 670 with my current psu. . . but the $50 I save over the 670, combined with whatever I sell my 6770 for- would be a nice step towards buying an 850 watt psu. . .

And the user reviews on the EVGA 670 are much, much worse than the critic reviews. Heating seems to be a serious issue with the 670, and I'd rather not see my rather expensive pc start on fire. Also, 670s crash- I know this first hand.

 

If I go with the 7950 I'll lose enforceable ambient occlusion, but if I get a cooler running, more stable card in return, for $50 less? Who cares. Ambient occlusion is nice, but most modern games have options for it anyway, and most of my older games are pre-2005, and thus can't use it. The performance on the 7950 is a little worse than the 670, but they can both still run any game on ultra above 60 fps (with a 1080p monitor or worse, and mine is 1600x900), and I usually cap my games at 40 fps just out of taste, so this doesn't really affect me. (For some reason, 40 fps looks smoother than 60 to me. I heard somewhere that it's because at above 40, your eyes stop 'filling in' missing frames, but I have no idea if that's true.)

 

And I couldn't be happier with my AMD 6770- It's reliable, and gets higher fps than benchmarks suggest. It's a little sad that it just doesn't have the horsepower to max many modern games.

 

. . . I bought my 670 online, from Newegg, through amazon. Hopefully they'll let me return it without exchanging. Because if at all possible, I'll be gettng a 7950.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Aegrus

[Thor.]

Or you can invest in both and get yourself a new psu, and save you the hassle of not having enough power, more is usually better.. Its better to be safe then sorry.

 

 

 

http://www.newegg.ca...N82E16817190030

 

Also future proof, if you consider going the crossfire or sli way http://forums.nexusmods.com/public/style_emoticons/dark/teehee.gif

 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2012 by Thor.

[Aegrus]

Right. Well, tomorrow I'll be dropping the 670 off at the local ups store so they can return it for a refund. If that goes according to plan, I'll save up a good chunk of cash, and then buy a 7950, a couple more fans, and a new psu all at once. No offense, though, but I'd rather not buy a 1000 watt psu for $100. It's a great deal, but it was either dao or blew up on a third of the people who reviewed it. :( Edited August 21, 2012 by Aegrus

[Thor.]

LOL finally found a review that doesn't blow up in your face lol, lol...

 

 

I know antec is a good make i have myself and its 2 years old and counting..

 

 

http://www.newegg.ca...N82E16817371036

i don't think the sli-crossfire label really matter, my Antec originally was Sli only but it seems to run just as efficient as if it was sli

 

I'll keep looking, that psu seems to be designed for my case in general, but if you keep looking you might find something that catches your eye.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Thor.

[Thor.]

oops dang i did it again, to many tabs http://forums.nexusmods.com/public/style_emoticons/dark/ohdear.png Edited August 21, 2012 by Thor.

[Rennn]

Wait... it doesn't look like that 7950 has a dvi-d port, unless the dvi-i port is also dvi-d?

What connections does your monitor have Aegrus?

 

Btw, that 7950 is 384-bit, so it should theoretically keep Skyrim stable at a ugrids of 11-ish, I saw someone else with a 384 bit card say that Skyrim was stable for them at a ugrids of 13.

 

Edit: Omg Thor, you played Skyrim for 33 DAYS?? Almost 800 HOURS??? :woot:

Edited August 21, 2012 by Rennn