clayton006


The link doesn't work. Are they saying bad video card for the hardware issue or a bad motherboard for the hardware issue?

 
Hmm, it works for me.... There wasnt a 100% fix, just suggestions. But there were multiple people describing the same exact issue as yours. 
 
And you know what i started having crashes this morning on my 3.0 system every time i would start a game. Did a clean install of 301.42 drivers and that fixed the problem. There might be some instability with with nvidia's new driver and pci-e 3.0. Try it out, if you havent already.

Yeah I've done a clean install of 301.42. Used
Driver sweeper to remove them in safe mode, then installed them as a fresh install in normal mode. I'll have to tinker around a bit when I get home on Monday.
Thanks for your help.

Ok i did some more pci-e 2.0 vs 3.0 testing and found more proof that 2.0 bandwidth does not limit GTX 670 4-way framerate performance. Here is Unengine Heaven benches vs my old 2500k @ 4.5/ pci-e 2.0 vs my new 3570k @ 4.5/ pci-e 3.0 (verified with GPU-Z)
 
2500k @ 4.5/ pci-e 2.0 5760x1080

 
 
 
 
3570k @ 4.5/ pci-e 3.0 5760x1080


 
 
In pci-e 3.0 the cards were running x8/x8/x8/x8. Unengine Heaven the 670s utilization was in the high 90% both in pci-e3.0 and 2.0. So that shows no 2.0 bandwidth limitations. One thing i did notice was VRAM utilization. In Unengine it was @ 300-400mb less in pci-e 3.0 compared to 2.0, both with Aero disabled. Thats huge with my 2gb vram limitaions. Heaven with 4xMSAA would hit vram wall (2048mb)in 2.0, in 3.0 vram was maxing @ 1725mb vram. With 8xMSAA in 2.0 Unengine would just crash at start-up, in 3.0 it play with vram around 2000mb and would hit wall every once in a while, but it would still play!
 
BF3 4xMSAA was right at 2gb wall @ 5760x1080 in 2.0. pci-e 3.0 vram was 1700-1800mb.  
 
So Vega there had to be some other factor that increase your framerate so dramatically. I would like to know what it was. When i tested i used your exact same BF3 settings, but you were in portrait mode and i was in landscape. Could that be it?

Too many different variables between our systems. Mine was a 3960X at 5GHz on X79 using native PCI-E 3.0 versus 2.0 lanes at almost twice the resolution as yours. (Oh and by the way, the PLX chip on your board allows the GPU's to communicate at PCI-E 3.0 speeds between each cards even if you have a PCI-E 2.0 CPU. With a PCI-E 2.0 CPU only the lanes from the CPU to the PLX chip run at 2.0 speed).  That's why your GPU-Z will show PCI-E 3.0 even if one has a PCI-E 2.0 CPU installed. 
 
But if you see in my video, between the tests the only single setting ever changed was the PCI-E speed setting. And the resulting speed increase as everything changes from PCI-2.0 to 3.0. Others have gotten similar results. 

Could it be driver related? Because in some levels in BF3 like "Going Hunting" i get high 90% GPU utilization and in Swordbreaker i get @60-70%, in both 2.0 and 3.0.

You will never get max GPU utilization really in all parts of games. You will get CPU limitation a lot of the time. Only benchmarks like Heaven 3.0 where the CPU isn;t doing much will your GPU's max out pretty much the whole time. 

So an update:
Good news, I'm running Tri-SLI with no issues with PCI-E 3.0 enabled.
 
Bad news: One of my video cards is bad. That sucks. When I get some sleep I'll have to give EVGA a call and start that process. I tried all cards in different slots and ran through at least 20 tests and determined one card was causing my issue. Glad to know that it's working a lot better now.
 
Even before putting on the latest 304 beta drivers the gameplay was already a lot smoother than my SR-2 (even down one card). I will say that a fourth card will still add value to my setup once I get this one taken care of.
 
I'll have to re-do my benchmarks because of having a bad card.

Well I'm still having weird issues. This time I've tracked it down to having vsync enabled. Anytime I let a game enable vsync it crashes and locks up the system quickly after launching it. It seems that if I disable vsync from games that I have no issues. Any idea on where to go from here? Is it something with the CPU like I need to disable speed-step or something because my CPU is clocking too low or something I need to set in the precision x software?

Do you have anything overclocked or all at stock speeds and voltages? Does Vsync enabled cause crashes in all games?

It looks like my ram doesn't like running at 1600MHz in this board. Could be a dual channel memory in a quad channel board type thing. Looks like most things go back to normal when I set the memory to run at 1333MHz.

So I found out that I have to install only 6 DIMMs since I'm putting in triple channel memory. Now my memory checks out fine, just PCI-E still has some weird bugs going on. If I do vsync on most often than not RE5 will crash (driver lockup). Batman plays okay at 8132x1600, but if I play it at 2560x1600 at some point it will lock up. It's like if my GPU's aren't being used to the max at some point (or a few reboots later) they will lock up. I've tried reinstalling 301.42 multiple times (the latest beta drivers made the behavior worse). I'm thinking for whatever reason, my combination doesn't like PCI-E 3.0.
 
I doubt the motherboard could be bad, but it is a revision 1 board. Any idea what impact that would have?

It looks like since I'm installing the six sticks (for my triple channel memory) and avoiding the memtest errors, that my motherboard was setting the single sticks of ram at 1T command rate, and the other four sticks (each pair on a separate channel) as 2T command rate. I've now manualy set them down to all be 2T. Do you think the difference in command rate running at 1600MHz could cause some of my stability issues in games? I would think so but just curious what the community has to say.

I should mention that even with the different command rates and having 6 sticks only installed I haven't had any issues in memtest or prime95 stress testing. My thought is though that those programs may not be stressing the part where the command rate may have an impact? Just a thought.

1Tvs2T is a pretty big deal for memory and could cause issues yes.

Yeath that's kinda what I figured but I figure I would ask for the sake of it.

So I've found out even with the command rate I cannot run 1600MHz on my RAM without the video card drivers crashing. 1333MHz is fine and rock solid.
Also I don't have a bad card video card, but every time I put a fourth in and enable PCI-E 3.0 using Nvidia's method I keep getting driver crashes at the desktop. Are there any specific settings I need to enable in the BIOS to allow four cards to work properly in this setup (all PCI-E stuff is set to GEN3). I have a feeling I have a bad motherboard to be honest.
I know in my SR-2 I had to turn on my memory low gap to 3GB to get four working. I'm not sure that even applies here, but want to know the community's take on it.

So I'm taking my motherboard in to be swapped out. The fourth card chokes the system every time. Could this also be a joint CPU issue? If I only plan to get up to 4.8ghz is there any reason to go with the 3960X over the 3930k (I know cache size is different). I just didn't know if it would help with PCI-e 3.0 compatibility.

I dont think the i7 3960X would cause much difference even if you use it instead of 3930k. Speaking from personal experience. 

That's kinda what I figured, but I didn't know if 3930k owners were having issues with 4-way SLI in PCI-E 3.0
vs
Owners of 3960X owners with 4-way SLI in PCI-E 3.0. I imagine my board would most likely be the culprit of my issues with PCI-E 3.0 vs my CPU.
 
I'll just switch my board out for now and if that doesn't work I'll contemplate getting a 3960X or another 3930k.

Would it be better for my to dump the X79 and go with IVY bridge instead like:
EVGA Z77 FTW -and- i7 3770k  ?
That way I know its guaranteed to be compatible with PCI-E 3.0? I know the Sandy Bridge E has more lanes, but I want to make sure I can run my four cards at a minimum x8 PCI-E 3.0

I read that nvidia released a patch to re-enable PCI-3.0 support for X79. Have you tried that?

Yeah, same behaviour as the registry edit for me. Any combination of 3 cards is fine. As soon as I add the fourth card and do a clean remove, and re-install of the drivers, then enable PCI-E 3.0 using the exe or the registry edit results in not being able to boot into windows, or booting in and then the desktop will lock up. This is both with the 301.42 and the latest beta 304.XX (can't remember the number).
 
Four cards with PCI-E 2.0 is fine.....

sorry to hear that..that is unfortunate! Looks like you need a board that someone has already tested quad-GPU setup on it.  Going Ivy-bridge to me looks more like down/side-grade though! Wish you good luck anyway!

Yeah I know Vega has a similar setup as mine (only he has a 3960X overclocked way higher, and GTX 680's vs my GTX 670's) but I would believe that a 3930k should operate PCI-E 3.0 as well as a 3960X. I was trying to see if he had any specific BIOS settings or BIOS revision that would help, but I don't think there is much configuration he has done on that front (other than tweaking for his OC).

Not sure why this post got moved as it has more to do with discussing the 670 4GB video cards, and less to do with multi-monitor, but not a big deal......
 
Update:
Swapped motherboards, still no luck. Posted my complete issue to the Nvidia forums:http://forums.nvidia.com/.dex.php?showtopic=232315
I'm going to try swapping the CPU next.

So I may have figured it out. Very strange problem indeed. It turns out, one of my 670's would not boot to windows in any x8 slot. They would only boot into windows when in a full x16 slot. All my other cards would boot into any slot on their own or together in PCI-E 3.0. So when I turn on PCI-E 3.0 I only have 32 lanes and when the slot that the "bad" card is in gets dropped down to x8 things start going crazy. RMA in process...

New Patch for X79 & pic-e 3.0. http://www.tomshardware.c...79-PCIe_3.0,16091.html

Apparently you were not the only one having the problem with X79 platform.

Yeah i've used that exe, my new video card comes in today. I'll start another post with my x79 results with my 670's. I can say that even with three cards in PCI-E 3.0, batman runs a lot better and so does skyrim (so not only just the 304.48 drivers that helped out batman made it better, the PCI-E 3.0 is a big deal here).

Good to here that about Batman & Skyrim. I found that the 3770k even at 4.9ghz was bottlenecking the 670 4way in pci-e 3.0. So i bought a 3930k / Asus Rampage IV Extreme X79. It gets here Monday

got the 4gb 670 sc ( 4x) and fixed them on asus R4 x79 to power my 3x30 mon ( HP zr30w)
 
i will not go through benchmarks but i just wanted to share with u how things go.
 
after doing a fresh windows install and updates, official drivers were installed and things were not easy after 
  
 
the good
- all cards are working as intended , i tested them seperatly
- no flickering , no TDR issues like my previouse 24 asus    monitors and zotac 3 way 680 gtx
- very good temps and noise levels  even in 4 way sli with fan profile
 
 
the bad
-official latest driver refused to start sourr setup unless card2 is free of mon connection , so unless  card1 , card3 , card4 are hooked there will be no sourr
- none of the cards was pushed  to the max during heaven benchmark, which had me to try the pci3 hack, however so many lockups with pci3 hack ,so i  had to roll back
- none of the cards had aload more then 70% during heaven
- very poor perf in warcraft ( load was limited to 50-60% on each card with vsysnc off , D3 didnt push the cards eaither and the load was not more then 50% each at vsync off ( will install more games tonight).
- the new beta 3xx.79 made d3 betterwith vsync on/off better but still very bad loads on cards.
 
- extra pcix is fixed to the mobo , psu is 1500 w,  mobo got the latest bios  update,
- cpu ( 3930) was tested at stock speed, 4.3ghz and 4.8 ghz , the extra power got zero effect on the cards loads  and was not the resone to  bottleneck the 4 cards. ( at least for now)
 
heaven got the highest load on the cards comparing to the games due which is normal and the max load i saw  was 70% but drop down to 30% most of the time.
 
for now i can only think about the pcx3 hack that didnt work for me ,but  with the release of the new asus z77 extreme4  , all what i can do is to wait
 
will do more tests and try the 3 way sli 

sambatico



- very poor perf in warcraft ( load was limited to 50-60% on each card with vsysnc off , D3 didnt push the cards eaither and the load was not more then 50% each at vsync off ( will install more games tonight).
- the new beta 3xx.79 made d3 betterwith vsync on/off better but still very bad loads on cards.

- extra pcix is fixed to the mobo , psu is 1500 w,  mobo got the latest bios  update,
- cpu ( 3930) was tested at stock speed, 4.3ghz and 4.8 ghz , the extra power got zero effect on the cards loads  and was not the resone to  bottleneck the 4 cards. ( at least for now)

heaven got the highest load on the cards comparing to the games due which is normal and the max load i saw  was 70% but drop down to 30% most of the time.

for now i can only think about the pcx3 hack that didnt work for me ,but  with the release of the new asus z77 extreme4  , all what i can do is to wait

will do more tests and try the 3 way sli 

it almost seems like the cards are still stuck in pci-e 2.0. Did you verify 3.0 with GPU-Z? I used Nvidia's 3.0 X79 patch and every once in a while they would slip back down to 2.0. Still tweaking my rig, havent got mine quite right yet either. I wouldnt go to IB, i found my 3770k even at 4.9 bottlencking my 4 way sli.