Titan Z SLi ... low usage problem

Hey guys

I've got an issue with my 2 x Titan Zs in 4 Way SLi. The usage never goes over 60% in games on any of the 4 GPUs.

Running a fresh install of Win 8.1 x64 with full updates. Latest nVidia drivers 347.52.

I run BF4 in 1920x1080 with all settings maxed and I get 80 to 100 FPS but it should be way over this, over 200 in fact... Therefore low usage would explain the issue, but why? I also run a 120hz screen so I need 120 FPS at least, yet all I get is 80FPS and low usage on the GPUs. Same for Far Cry 4.

I run a 1500W PSU but maybe its not giving enough juice? Temperature is generally under 70C on any GPU when gaming.

High spec machine so there should be no bottlenecks. X99 MB with i7-5960X, 32GB DDR4 Ram.

Any ideas anyone?

 

It doesn't sound like the hardware is the issue. The next thing coming to my mind is simply poor 4-way SLI scaling.

 

When quad SLI it works, it's glorious but most of the time it's just a pain in the ass.

For 1920x1080, even with 120hz screen, you only need 1 Titan Z. 2 is completely and utterly pointless. I get higher framerates with a 780TI.

Unless you are going triple monitor or 4K just get rid of one of the cards. It's really the only sensible thing to do.

 

For quad-SLI, you need to be running 4K..... It's a complete and total waste of money for 1080P.

 

You guys are absolutely correct. I forgot the real reason I got this setup - 4K! I switched back to a 1080p 120Hz Samsung screen as I didn't like the new Samsung 4K at 30Hz (still waiting for the DP cable to arrive so I can do 60Hz 4K). I suppose these 2 in 4 way just don't scale well in 1080p. Cheers

 

Probably not that they're not scaling well at 1080p, it's that the rest of the system becomes the bottleneck for such a huge amount of GPU power at 1080p

 

Dual titan z at 1080p.....lol. Id sell both of them, 2x780s on one card is rubbish for the price of them. Sell them now before gm200 and 390x arrive.

 

Random guy arrives with top end system and doesn't know why he's not getting high GPU usage at 1080p? Sounds legit. :3eyes:

 

Roflmfao ^^

 

you need to OC that cpu 4.4ghz+, atm its probably underpowered to feed all 4 gpus and yeah weak 4SLI scaling..

Btw one titanZ is more then enough @ 1080p 120Hz. You can sell 2nd and save that extra cash for Maxwell GM200 in 2-3months, much better investment.

Well unless you need Double Precision FP64 part of TitanZ.

 

4gpus will get bad scaling on 1080p. Take 1 card out and try again. 4k should scale well.

 

Boutique PC/Alienware

 

He's just got too much money in his hands ^^
But yeah, you should apply the changes others noted here and try with 4K again, it might look completely different.

 

OP 4 way on your cards in BF4 should scale fine

Make sure your CPU is running @4.3 or higher

You are using PCI-E 3.0

FC4 is a turd of a game on any setup so don't base any conclusions on it.

You really need to get your 4k monitor up and running as at this resolution 4 way Titans are superior to anything else available for smoothness.

 

Sounds like to me your not putting absolutely no where near to put the cards to down to make it work alot harder.

Try this.

Use Dsr, try going to like 4k resolution, if your playing BF4, Put everything set to maximum, put the internal resolution, since you have 6gb vram(mirrored), put it like to at least 130%+, Then go into nvidia inspector, bf4 and farcry 4 should have sli codes already built into nvidia inspector on the latest revision.

Under sli in nvidia inspector, Put sli-aa to enabled, all others to 4 gpus/afr2, the last setting you could put it to auto-select but shouldn't matter.

If you want to go further, do 4XMSAA + 4SGSSAA(enhance the application settings) or higher for your quad setup, make sure you use the infamous sonic 3d racing hex codes for the AA:


THIS:

0x080012C1


Your gpu's should now be well over 50% usage on all gpu's, If not, Keep increasing the internal resolution a bit and or increasing the nvidia inspector aa to higher level then what I mentioned before.

They key thing what I saying here is, I am trying to put more stress on to your gpu's so the usage will go higher.

The settings you were describing eariler, the titan-z's are saying, what kind of resolution is this, this is nothing for our cards, thus, not using any where its potential.

The cards are laughing at it.

your cards, At least 2560X1600(depending on game)/4k or higher.

If your doing 1080 without dsr, your aa has to be at least set to the following with
nvidia inspector, like this, so your gpu's can fully stress it self, rather then sitting there and saying: come on man, theres nothing here to work for:

Enhance the application settings +

16xS [Combined: 2x2 SS + 4x MS] + 4xSGSSAA

or

32xSS(2x2SS + 8xMSSAA) + 8XSGSSAA


Try that, report back.

Oh, btw, love your cards, I would love to own them if the price went down a bit on them.

But I am waiting to see what nvidia is going to do after the new radeon hits the shelves.

If you ever planning on selling them in the future, please let me know asap, .

 

For my BenQ 144Hz monitor I had a hard time maintaining 130-140fps 1080p in bf4 with my 2 980s in SLI. It's the game plus some bottleneck from my 3770k (even at 4.5ghz). Long story short, I ended up returning one 980 and now using one of them at around 100-150fps.

 

Sli works well over here with my 2 970's.

Despite the 3.5gb allocation problem, I have hit slightly over 4gb vram and seems to work well.

I believe on one game I own seems to stutter over 3.5gb of vram.

But some games I have played seems to work alright, from what I have observed.

 

Thanks for all your input guys. I connected up my 65" 4K TV via HDMI 2.0 and managed to run 60Hz. At 4K resolution with all graphics settings maxed out in both BF4 and Far Cry 4, the cards were managing around 60FPS, however rarely they would drop to 50 or so. The usage was now up to 90-100% at all times on all 4 GPUs so all is good!

You know what though, 4K doesn't look anything special at all and this is the second time around I'm checking it out. Sure the edges are more smooth but that's really about all there is to it. In my opinion, for gaming, 1080p 120Hz is much better then a 4K 60Hz experience.

Furthermore, these 2 Titan Zs generate way too much heat. I have set the 2 case fans (and they are BIG fans - Alienware Area 51 R2 case) manually to about 50% speed to dissipate the heat from the case as the cards even on idle go to 70-75C if I set automatic case fas speed. My legs are sweating most of the time as the whole area under the computer desk is hot from the heat. And the computer sounds like a jet even at 50% case fan speed.

I think I will just get myself a single GTX 980 OC for now and sell these 2 behemoths.

I can finally attach an image and this is what I get in 1080p Ultra in BF4. 50% and under usage always. I don't understand, why doesn't it just do its 100% efficiency/usage even in 1080p?!?! Also, why does GPU1 always heat up a lot more then the other 3 GPUs?

 

^
Sell on titanz, keep 2nd for now and wait for Maxwell GM200 chips aka GeForce GTX 1080? should be out soon (max around May, but i think it will be sooner, end March - early April).


Dont bother with GTX980 now..

 

Keep both Titan Zs and enjoy a game of Crysis 3 @2160p.