I recently installed a 1070 GTX FTW on my system to replace my EVGA 680 GTX dating from 2012. To my surprise, my FPS performance is strictly identical to my old setup! So there must be an obvious problem that I am unable to identify. A few information on my rig:
Asus P8Z77, Intel I7 3770 OC at 4.2GHz, 16 GB RAM at 2133 MHz, Samsung SSD 1TB and a Corsair cooler.
 
I am exclusively using FSX and it is known as a CPU resources based software, but this very week, a thread on AVSIM forum was stating that this card I bought was responsible for an incredible FPS increase of more than double (I'd be very happy to enjoy half of that...). So I am totally perplex as to what can cause this showdown in my case and would indeed appreciate any guidance to troubleshoot this problem. I am using EVGA OC software but boosted only to 107%, I am reluctant to go beyond that at this time.
 
One AVSIM forum user hinted that the location of my GPU sitting on top of my CPU could cause thermal throttling back (although the CPU has the cooler on top). I noticed however that my temp never exceed 62°C. Any expert advice would be welcome.
 
Thank you.
Best regards,
 
Jean-Claude

Thank you for responding to my query.
I am running Windows 10 Anniversary Edition.
Sorry but I dont know what GFE means.
I am not using Xbox DVR and ignore what Shadowpiay is.
My BIOS for Asus P8Z77-VDL shows no update on Asus site (checked today).
No I have not reset either CMOS cache and BIOS to default. I have no idea how to do this and what the consequences/benefits are.
 
Thank you for your help.
 
Jean-Claude

Jean-Claude Trinidad
Thank you for responding to my query.
I am running Windows 10 Anniversary Edition.
Sorry but I dont know what GFE means.
I am not using Xbox DVR and ignore what Shadowpiay is.
My BIOS for Asus P8Z77-VDL shows no update on Asus site (checked today).
No I have not reset either CMOS cache and BIOS to default. I have no idea how to do this and what the consequences/benefits are.
 
Thank you for your help.
 
Jean-Claude

GFE = Girl-friend Experience, Doh! [Sorry, I've been waiting to finally use this one...! Lol]

Kidding -- It's Nvidia's 'Geforce Experience' software which governs shadowplay and a host of other features [e.g. supported game optimization].

[I would make you have the latest installed which is version 3.0]

Thanks to both for your suggestions. I shall try Sean's recommandations.
I am not using GFE (now I know what that is, thanks Irenics...) simply because it ignores what FSX is and offers no specific support for it... so it is really of no use to me and my PC is exclusively used for FSX!
Sean, I agree that neither CMOS nor BIOS should be touched unless something is broken, "if it aint broken...etc"
Thank you for that link Wirevogue, it's enlightening to a certain point, I knew FSX is extremely dependent on CPU, but a number of posts this week on AVSIM (forum of flightsimming enthusiasts) are saying that these 2 GPU 1070 and 1080 have drastically improved their FPS on their systems absolutely similar to mine... So I do feel frustrated to realise that I can't join the club after my investment especially since I have no clue as to why this happens! The graphics of course are way better than they were with my 680, but at some airports complex airliners are just remaining a slideshow making it close to impossible to fly them without reducing the settings.
 
Jean-Claude

Thanks
 
  The last BIOS, though, is from 2013 on the ASUS site so there might be some inherent issues.


I checked again this afternoon and when looking for BIOS updates on Asus site, there is nothing available for ASUS P8Z77-VDL.

I have two monitors:

• Samsung 24" connected with HDMI
• Epson projector connected with DVI

Both set on same resolution of 1920 x 1080 at 60Hz
 
Jean-Claude

One of the posters at AVSIM has a OC machine older than mine I7 9XX, mine is a 3770 K OC at 4.2 GHz. Best CPU (beside the 6700K) were the 4770 K that could be OC at up to 4.5 GHz. That difference in OC would not warrant the mentioned extra performance in FPS.
 
In any case the real question I am struggling with at this time is why my new GPU (EVGA 1070 GTX FTW) delivers the exact same performance FPS wise than my old 680 GTX with strictly identical settings both with Nvidia inspector and FSX!?
 
To explain and illustrate what I mean: before uninstalling my 680 and the Nvidia drivers, I created an FSX situation with the FlightSimLab A320X (highly complex FSX add-on released in August) at gate A21 at Aerosoft Frankfurt airport (highly detailed airport scenery add-on released two months ago) at 06.00 am (early morning demanding textures) and took note of my FPS: 15
After installing the new card and the new drivers, I started the same FSX situation, same plane, same time, same gate, so as to compare apples with apples, FPS: 15!!! 
 
I am puzzled, not the slightest performance increase, even if FSX relies on CPU heavily, I would have expected some improvement (10 to 25% or 3 FPS!!!), especially in view of the positive experience of other simmers mentioned previously where those FPS improvements appear to be two to three fold. 
 
Jean-Claude

Jean-Claude Trinidad
One of the posters at AVSIM has a OC machine older than mine I7 9XX, mine is a 3770 K OC at 4.2 GHz. Best CPU (beside the 6700K) were the 4770 K that could be OC at up to 4.5 GHz. That difference in OC would not warrant the mentioned extra performance in FPS.
 
In any case the real question I am struggling with at this time is why my new GPU (EVGA 1070 GTX FTW) delivers the exact same performance FPS wise than my old 680 GTX with strictly identical settings both with Nvidia inspector and FSX!?
 
To explain and illustrate what I mean: before uninstalling my 680 and the Nvidia drivers, I created an FSX situation with the FlightSimLab A320X (highly complex FSX add-on released in August) at gate A21 at Aerosoft Frankfurt airport (highly detailed airport scenery add-on released two months ago) at 06.00 am (early morning demanding textures) and took note of my FPS: 15
After installing the new card and the new drivers, I started the same FSX situation, same plane, same time, same gate, so as to compare apples with apples, FPS: 15!!! 
 
I am puzzled, not the slightest performance increase, even if FSX relies on CPU heavily, I would have expected some improvement (10 to 25% or 3 FPS!!!), especially in view of the positive experience of other simmers mentioned previously where those FPS improvements appear to be two to three fold. 
 
Jean-Claude

Did they post any proof? Or are they just saying they got a boost in fps? Maybe you should try recreating their scenario?

Sorry, apparently links are not allowed since they vanished from my post above, I apologise. I cant recreate the scenario the other user reports because we dont own the same FSX add-ons (sceneries, planes) and yes there were screens of the performance as proof. I also communicated with the poster and he tried to help me since he was extremely complementary of this card and had a similar rig as mine, to no avail.
 
Jean-Claude

Done, thank you but no result...
 
What strikes me as an anomaly is that when I open my EVGA X OC software, I see the following information when I run FSX in Window mode:
Power 19%
GPU clock 1607 MHz
Memory clock 4284 MHz
GPU Temp 36°C
GPU usage 6%
Bus usage 2%
 
My settings on this software are:
Power target 107%
Temp Target 88% (priority set on temp)
GPU clock offset +109 MHz
MEM Clock offset +282 MHz
 
So if I try to understand those figures, some just dont make sense to me such as Power, GPU and bus usage or are they normal, and if not where should I look to unlock that power?
Thank you.

Jean-Claude Trinidad
Done, thank you but no result...
 
What strikes me as an anomaly is that when I open my EVGA X OC software, I see the following information when I run FSX in Window mode:
Power 19%
GPU clock 1607 MHz
Memory clock 4284 MHz
GPU Temp 36°C
GPU usage 6%
Bus usage 2%
 
My settings on this software are:
Power target 107%
Temp Target 88% (priority set on temp)
GPU clock offset +109 MHz
MEM Clock offset +282 MHz
 
So if I try to understand those figures, some just dont make sense to me such as Power, GPU and bus usage or are they normal, and if not where should I look to unlock that power?
Thank you.

Power & gpu usage are low because your gpu isn't being used very much. Did you ever optimize your game with geforce experience?

Jean-Claude Trinidad
In the first one, the user is reporting - with screenshots - a huge improvement in FPS with the very same card and an I7 970 chip OC at 4.2 GHz, totally similar to mine.

It's not totally similar to yours. The i7 970 has six cores and a 12MB cache. Your 3770k has four cores and an 8MB cache. Since I believe FSX is highly threaded, he's got at least 50% more cpu oomph than you have. Also, have you compared how much and what speed of RAM you have compared to him? If it's intensely cpu bound it's quite likely that RAM speed will have an effect too.
 
I know you've got this one scenario set up where you're not seeing any improvement, but it sounds like you specifically crafted a scenario that so thoroughly saturates your cpu with work that I'm not sure you're leaving any room to show a gpu improvement.
 
So, have you set up other scenarios where there is a finer balance between cpu and gpu performance, and tested that?

Also, I just recently purchased FSX on Steam a couple weeks ago, but haven't done anything with it yet. If you can craft a scenario that doesn't require me going out and buying a lot of add-ons and show me how to run it I'll run the same thing as you and we can compare.
 
I've got a 1080 SC that's overclocked, but we can probably figure out how to factor in that difference in the results. The primary difference would be that I'm running an 8-core (16 hardware threads with hyperthreading) cpu with very fast RAM. If my machine performs much better than yours by an amount that greatly exceeds the difference between a 1070 and a 1080 then it's almost certainly because of the cpu.