Overwatch - Performance Base GTX965m GPU Throttling??

[Mr_Hanky]

Hey all,

I have an SB performance base for a little while now (since January).

Main game I play is Overwatch, and I run at 1920*1200 with 'High' settings. Typically I can sustain 50+ FPS consistently in this mode, but recently I've seen it dipping as low as 19 FPS in the middle of critical in-game large battles - I'm obviously not very happy with this!

So, I decided to run GPU-Z in the background and log the GPU stats. It seems that once the GPU reaches around ~67 degrees thermal throttling is kicking in and the GPU drops from ~1150MHz down to 800, and then even dipping sometimes as low as ~500MHz mid-game. It seems to stay down low until the temperature drops down to ~57 degrees before the cycle repeats itself again.

Strangely, I seem to remember (but can't confirm) that when I first got the Surface Book, the GPU would routinely touch on high 60's (69degC) without a hiccup.

Does anyone have any insight as to what may have changed? I've tried with both the very latest nVidia drivers 382.53 and even rolled back to 382.33....

I have googled far and wide and I can't find any articles anywhere about GPU throttling on the Surface Book - in fact I even found a review which said that playing the Witcher 3, the GPU temp was stable at 61 degrees and the clock speed sat at a constant 950-1000MHz!

Honestly, any help at all would be appreciated. I'm loathed to reset my PC as I really don't want to reinstall all of my applications again.

Thanks in advance!

 

[JohnnyRedLight]

While I'm not an expert on the workings of the SB w/ PB, I'm pretty sure that GPU throttling in the 60s is not intended. When you had GPUZ open, it should tell you the reason it's throttling. My guess would be power.

That being said, did you try MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision X to try setting a custom fan curve to keep it cooler (if it is actually throttling from temp) or upping the power limit. I'll admit I've never had a mobile nvidia GPU so I'm not sure what access you are allowed via tunig programs.

 

[Mr_Hanky]

Thanks for the response...

So I've checked again in GPU-Z and it is indeed Thermal throttling - see attached pic.

Temperature is flatlined at 65/66degC when throttling is occurring... I'm beginning to wonder if I've got a dud GPU?

 

[JohnnyRedLight]

Thanks for the response...

So I've checked again in GPU-Z and it is indeed Thermal throttling - see attached pic.

Temperature is flatlined at 65/66degC when throttling is occurring... I'm beginning to wonder if I've got a dud GPU?

View attachment 136507

Can't really say if it's a GPU dud. That would not be very common.
Does it sound like the fans are working properly?
Do you have your power settings on "performance" or "Balanced"? Balanced might result in lower average framerate but may also eliminate some heat which may reduce the drastic core speed drops. This is all of course just speculation.

If afterburner/precision allows you to up the thermal limit, you would see less throttling but you would also have a hotter device.

Do you see the same results with other games?

 

[Mr_Hanky]

Firstly - thanks for your responses... answers below (and a possible fix - although I'm not really sure why this has worked..)

Can't really say if it's a GPU dud. That would not be very common.
Does it sound like the fans are working properly?

Seems like it - although not 100% strangely. When I run 3dMark I hear the fans clearly at 100% (or very close) and experience no thermal throttling...

Do you have your power settings on "performance" or "Balanced"?

Balanced might result in lower average framerate but may also eliminate some heat which may reduce the drastic core speed drops. This is all of course just speculation.

Pretty sure it's on "Balanced" but god suggestion - I will check.

Do you see the same results with other games?

Funnily enough - no! Although I may have inadvertently stumbled upon the "solution", of sorts...

There's a "Limit FPS" option in the video settings in OW. I'd set this to "300fps" (despite playing with VSync on and being limited to 60Hz).

Dropping this to "Display limited", which caps it at {refresh rate + 10} has resulted in no more thermal throttling while playing OW!

 

[JohnnyRedLight]

Funnily enough - no! Although I may have inadvertently stumbled upon the "solution", of sorts...

There's a "Limit FPS" option in the video settings in OW. I'd set this to "300fps" (despite playing with VSync on and being limited to 60Hz).

Dropping this to "Display limited", which caps it at {refresh rate + 10} has resulted in no more thermal throttling while playing OW!

That's fantastic. While, strange, it does seem reasonable that that might cause the problem. It's rendering the maximum amount of frames it can (running the gpu at 100%) "behind" the vsync for some reason. Probably an issue with Overwatch.

But... glad you found a workaround.