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3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy

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hvitekristsdod
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2021/10/11 19:07:01 (permalink)
Hey guys,

I'm trying to diagnose why my GPU is underperforming in TimeSpy, but can't quite figure it out.

Here are some results:
TimeSpy:
https: //www.3dmark.com/spy/23484508

Port Royal:
https: //www.3dmark.com/pr/1266703

Everything is running at stock, with two exceptions:
1) The 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra bios is flipped to the "OC" position
2) XMP is enabled in the BIOS, so the RAM is running at 3600MHz

The 9900K is otherwise stock, and I haven't fiddled with any settings in Precision X1, other than ensuring my BIOS is up-to-date.

My other specs are:
Corsair RM850x PSU --> 3 separate PCIe power cables running to the GPU
Gigabyte Aorus Z390 Elite with latest BIOS
9900K is being cooling by a Noctua NH-D15

In Port Royal, GPU utilization remains 99% or so. In TimeSpy, it jumps all over the place. Temps for the GPU and CPU do not look concerning.
The CPU test also seems fine for 9900K in isolation, so I'm really not sure what's going on...

For comparison, my friend is running a 3080 FTW3 Ultra (non-Ti) with a stock 9600K and his TimeSpy scores are around the same as mine, with much more consistent GPU utilization.

Here's an example breakdown of the TimeSpy run:
https: //imgur.com/CMZRXfx

Thanks in advance for any help or advice! Let me know if it would be helpful to provide any other info!
post edited by hvitekristsdod - 2021/10/11 22:34:43
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    hvitekristsdod
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/12 00:01:04 (permalink)
    Hey all, just wanted to post the solution to this in case anyone stumbles upon this thread.

    This might be a Gigabyte board-specific issue. After tinkering around for a while, I realized that the "High Performance" power plan gave me the expected results (19,885 GPU score, 99% utilization), but I much prefer "Balanced" and I wasn't convinced this was really the issue.

    So after heading into the BIOS settings, I disabled "Speed Shift" for the CPU. I kept all other power saving state options enabled (EIST, etc.). Then in Windows, I changed the power plan back to Balanced.

    Results are good, same as with the High Performance power plan.

    TL;DR if you have similar issues and you have a Gigabyte motherboard, disable Speed Shift in your BIOS.
    EDIT: See later posts. I recommend leaving Speed Shift on, but disabling C1E enhanced halt state instead. Equivalent performance restoration, but you won't lose the decreased CPU ramp-up latency benefits of SpeedShift.
    post edited by hvitekristsdod - 2021/10/12 21:48:31
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    kevinc313
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/12 06:25:18 (permalink)
    Crazy, was it actually down clocking the CPU under the GPU benchmark?
     
    I've got a couple gigabyte MB's and they are generally crap.
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    hvitekristsdod
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/12 07:01:41 (permalink)
    Yeah, that’s right—with Speed Shift, it wouldn’t stay at 4700+ MHz. As soon as I disabled it, it stays solid the entire benchmark. It still downclocks as you’d expect it to outside of the benchmark (probably because of EIST). I have heard good things about Speed Shift so I wonder if it’s just broken on Gigabyte boards?

    Also, it introduced a ton of visible, horrible stutter which completely cleared up once it was turned off.
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    kevinc313
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/12 07:19:50 (permalink)
    hvitekristsdod
    Yeah, that’s right—with Speed Shift, it wouldn’t stay at 4700+ MHz. As soon as I disabled it, it stays solid the entire benchmark. It still downclocks as you’d expect it to outside of the benchmark (probably because of EIST). I have heard good things about Speed Shift so I wonder if it’s just broken on Gigabyte boards?

    Also, it introduced a ton of visible, horrible stutter which completely cleared up once it was turned off.



    Interesting that it wouldn't clock up.  I run my 9900K at stock but no speed shift so I idle at 5ghz, 4.7ghz all core.  
     
    On some systems where you don't have the ability to turn off speed shift, you can induce full boost at all times by setting CPU minimum processor power state to 100% in power settings, say on a business laptop/workstation.
    post edited by kevinc313 - 2021/10/12 07:27:43
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    hvitekristsdod
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/12 10:12:28 (permalink)
    Just wanted to provide another update here.

    If you'd like to leave SpeedShift on (seeing as it's newer, and supposedly better than EIST), you can alternatively keep SpeedShift on and turn off EIST + the C1E halt state. This seems to keep performance exactly the same, and still downclocks the CPU to 800MHz or so, while still hopefully retaining the benefits of SpeedShift over EIST.

    I'm assuming this problem is unique to Gigabyte/Aorus. Doesn't seem to make any difference with my friend's MSI Z390, whereas it's absolutely wild how much it affects me.
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    hvitekristsdod
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/12 21:44:55 (permalink)
    Final update here.

    Got a friend to test this on his non-Gigabyte motherboard. By default, C1E enhanced halt is disabled on his mobo, and SpeedShift is enabled. He gets the same incredibly bad performance if he turns C1E on.

    I'm not sure if C1E is supposed to work with SpeedShift or not, but as of right now (latest Windows 10 update, 3xxx series GPUs), it does not. Gigabyte should probably also leave C1E disabled in the default BIOS settings.

    I would personally recommend disabling C1E and leaving SpeedShift on, because it is notably better than SpeedStep/EIST. More info:
    https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeyT9rUcwtE

    I hope this helps some others.
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    GloR1ouS_
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/13 01:44:12 (permalink)
    Honestly I don't know why you would run balanced with a 3080 TI. It literally limits pcie power which is probably why your score was low. It can effect fps/input. Thats like buying a car that wants premium gas and you throw in regular.

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    MDG73
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/13 04:06:53 (permalink)
    GloR1ouS_
    Honestly I don't know why you would run balanced with a 3080 TI. It literally limits pcie power which is probably why your score was low. It can effect fps/input. Thats like buying a car that wants premium gas and you throw in regular.

    Not everybody wants their graphics card to be on full throttle all the time. What's your point?

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    #9
    hvitekristsdod
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/13 06:53:03 (permalink)
    GloR1ouS_
    Honestly I don't know why you would run balanced with a 3080 TI. It literally limits pcie power which is probably why your score was low. It can effect fps/input. Thats like buying a car that wants premium gas and you throw in regular.


    “It literally limits pcie power which is probably why your score was low.”

    I am unsure how you came to this conclusion, as this is not true.

    The power saving features, when working as intended (as above, you can see the fix is rather simple) have absolutely zero performance impact on any of the benchmarks, with the added benefit that the CPU downclocks and conserves energy when it is idle (which is 99% of the time).

    I completely agree with MDG. The heat, voltage and general degradation is not worth sticking to high performance when it makes no difference. This a problem with the C1E state, which should simply remain disabled. It looks like gigabyte might be the only board partner not doing this already.
    #10
    GloR1ouS_
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/13 08:36:46 (permalink)
    I have seen this same issue multiple times on different forums. A lot of these same threads are always about the 3000 series cards having low 3dmark scores when not on high performance or ultimate power plan. Heat is what degrades your chip. I ran an i7 920 at 4ghz for 6 years and it still held that oc for another 4 for my brother. (On high performance) My 10900K peaks at 65c at 5.2ghz under a max load. Gpus can hit 105c on the vram or core before thermal throttle. 65C on your gpu is quite nice and nothing to really be concerned about. A small fan profile would probably keep its idle at 30. Ive always had my gpus on max power and never had an issue either. If you choose to use a power saver and still get on par fps on actual games, 3dmark doesn't actually matter.

    The low 3dmark score doesnt just effect speedshift settings either. Ive always turned it off and any other power saving option for the CPU and still my msi 3080 was scoring 14000 graphics in 3dmark. High performance completely fixed it on an ASUS board with a 9900K.
    post edited by GloR1ouS_ - 2021/10/13 08:43:05

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    hvitekristsdod
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/13 08:42:46 (permalink)
    What you are saying is true and fair, and running High Performance mode will definitely preclude experiencing certain problems.

    For me it is less of a question of heat, and more of environmental friendliness. I understand different people will care about this to different levels.

    If this is something someone cares about, though, I can tell you with certainty that the culprit is the C1E enhanced halt state. I’ve ran the suite of benches in Balanced and High Performance, and there is no difference in scores, frame rate stability or perceived smoothness once that feature is turned off. It’s simply misbehaving.

    Luckily, its absence doesn’t impact SpeedShift from doing its thing and lowering your voltages and clocks.

    This might be a 3000 series specific problem since I didn’t have issues with the 2000 series, but it’s possible that it only really manifests when you’re approaching CPU limits.

    The FTW3 gets about 20K graphics score after making this fix, in both High Performance or Balanced mode w/ C1E off.
    post edited by hvitekristsdod - 2021/10/13 08:44:41
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    rjbarker
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/13 15:50:59 (permalink)
    You really should OC that 9900K as it will allow your 3080 to "spread its wings" ;) Even just a simple x50 OC all cores..
     
    Intel Speed Shift is notorious for causing your CPU to downclock while running TS,,,,,you can actually visually see this during the run (jittery).....
    Ensure your mobo BIOS is running latest fw....
     
    I OC my CPU using Manual Mode (vs Adaptive).....disable SVID.....disable Speed Step and Speed Shift....when running benchmarks close any monitoring software including virus crap...and of course Gsync (but you maybe notified by Futuremark if its active.....run it "clean".....
     
    This is a great n simple OC'ing guide for your 9900K.....
     
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM5XO96b4G0
     
     
     

    I9 12900K EK Velocity2 / ROG Z690 Apex/ 32G Dominator DDR5 6000/ Evga RTX 3080Ti FTW3  EK Vector / 980 Pro 512G / 980 Pro 1TB/ Samsung 860 Pro 500G/ WD 4TB Red / AX 1600i /  Corsair 900D & XSPC 480 * 360 * 240 Rads   XSPC Photon 170 Rez-Vario Pump Combo - Alienware 3440*1440p 120Hz/ W11
     
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    hvitekristsdod
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/13 15:58:53 (permalink)
    Speed Shift itself works fine and won’t downclock the CPU as long as you’ve disabled C1E. The run has no visible stutter or jitter, either. (But, it will stutter like absolute crazy if you leave C1E enabled.)

    I appreciate the 9900K OC tips, but I’m personally not interested in overclocking (I know, sacrilege to this forum).
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    rjbarker
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    Re: 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra / 9900K: Low GPU usage in TimeSpy 2021/10/13 20:58:39 (permalink)
    hvitekristsdod
    Speed Shift itself works fine and won’t downclock the CPU as long as you’ve disabled C1E. The run has no visible stutter or jitter, either. (But, it will stutter like absolute crazy if you leave C1E enabled.)

    I appreciate the 9900K OC tips, but I’m personally not interested in overclocking (I know, sacrilege to this forum).



    .......I just finished flashing my Max Extreme Board to prep for W11.....reset all of my OC settings ran TS and got a crap score.....as in 1.2K lower....****?!.....checked my settings in BIOS and forgot to disable Speed Shift....although I had remembered to disable Speed Step and C1E states......so disabled Speed Shift and all back to normal......
     
    If you're not into OC'ing should have got a 9900 (ditch the K) ....save some $$ ;)

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