780 Ti Throttling?

[Puck]

Hey guys,

So I have an MSI Twin Frozr 780 Ti that came in on Monday.

I got a stable overclock of +130 on GPU Core and +300 on Memory Clock after careful testing on Unigine Heaven. (Started Artifacting at +160 and +350 so I backed off). No Overvolting. Max Temperature in Unigine testing was 73 C.

Anyway, I was playing dark souls 2 to test if the clocks were stable. For awhile it was running buttery smooth on my 60 Hz monitor at 60 FPS with zero drops in frame rate.

Then it throttled to stock clocks and 30 FPS.

Then it kept dropping to 6-7 fps when my character moved, finally crashing the game.

I noticed in GPU-Z that I was getting VRel,VOp in my performance cap reason.

Max Voltage is 1.1870 V on GPU-Z...

EDIT=============

HWMonitor says Max Voltage is 0.975 V Under full load......

WTF?

=====================
I took the overclocks off, and ran the game at stock clocks, I still get the same Performance Cap reasons.

Screen shots of GPU-Z:

Any thoughts?

Is this an RMA?

Thanks guys.

 

[YouWhat]

I read somewhere before, a while back (so my memory ain't the best) but if ny swiss cheese brain is correct, the orange you seeing on perfcap is related to safe voltages, and it is hitting the limit on it, or it is not receiving enough power, although with your PSU, that should really be ample what it is getting fed.

Run GPU-Z with the log to file option enabled and keep an eye on perfcap, you should see vRel and vOp as messages which is Voltage Reliability and Operational Voltage messages if I am right.

 

[Puck]

That is correct. VRel and VOp both show up.

 

[YouWhat]

Forgive me as I going off memory here, but i think that means the card is throttling back due to power issues of some sort.

 

[Puck]

I don't know how to trouble shoot this problem. I would think an 80+ Gold 750 W PSU would be sufficient for the 780 Ti.

I can tell you that the GTX 770 never had any issues with voltage or power.

I overclocked that one and it ran at 1.200 volts without me messing with over voltage.

I guess the question is:

Is it more likely the card or the PSU?

 

[YouWhat]

If the only replacement part you have made is the gfx card, then that is the most likely.

Do you have a spare gfx card you can swap out, then push hard, eg stress test it, that way if it is PSU it should show up then doing same sort of thing.

Graphics card testing is best to be done on another machine, and then see if it does the same on that.

Also try uninstalling any overclocking software, reset bios (pull battery for this 1), and then try stress testing it again with everything as stock normal as possible and without any oc software for it installed.

Possibly also look on manufacturers website and check see if that card has an updated firmware for download, same with motherboard bios, and drivers too. Also check and double check all cabling, swap out the PCI-E lead for a spare if you can (if your PSU is modular), or try a different connection / lead on non-modular if you can, also if possible, try a different PSU on the graphics card, if it still happens, double check with the spare card *where applicable so you are making 100% certain on cause, as it might even be motherboard, where the new card has tried to draw too much power through PCI-E slot and damaged something on there*

Next if possible, check PSU on another machine if you can, and get it trying to draw as much power out of it as possible, this will then show if the PSU isn't quite playing on the same page as the rest of the hardware.

These are some of the first steps you should take to start fault finding with the graphics card and PSU.

 

[agent_x007]

Well, VRel and VOp are (for me) proof, that performance is caped by GPU Design.
I see them after "Feature Tests" from 3DMark Vantage (in some tests along with "VPwr"). See : LINK ?
BTW : My GTX 780 Ti is reference disign, with stock Vcore = 1,175V at full load.

I think U should check CPU/Motherboard temps.
Power delivery on motherboard or GPU (ie. Choke's or MOSFET's), may be overheating.

 

[Puck]

Okay guys. So I downloaded Unigine Valley and at stock clocks I'm artifacting... I'm submitting my RMA now. Thanks