Gigabyte R9 380 G1 Gaming 4GB Constantly Throttling [solved]

[EntropyZ]

Blanket statement, mine does not throttle

Neither did mine. But the card was unstable as hell, it would barely reach 70c and then make the driver hard-crash. I could run my GTX 660 OC'd at 90c and it just purrs like a kitten (I ran it like that for a stress test, something that the R9 380 couldn't handle). Maybe I should have tried undervolting it or something, at 70c it shouldn't make the system blow out after running at that in between 2-6 minutes. Or maybe it was the Elpida VRAM that was messing up. Those chips suck, but I think I would see artifacts before a crash, that never happened though.

I have never entertained the idea of undervolting a card until recently, so I tried that on the GTX 460, and I got GTX 470 performance with lower voltage! That's AWESOME! I think the 380 deserved a similar treatment, but I don't have the card anymore to test it. Shame.

 

[Shambles1980]

Blanket statement, mine does not throttle.

Fyi 380s are actually 285s

i did say "most" and "as far as im aware"

 

[eidairaman1]

Neither did mine. But the card was unstable as hell, it would barely reach 70c and then make the driver hard-crash. I could run my GTX 660 OC'd at 90c and it just purrs like a kitten (I ran it like that for a stress test, something that the R9 380 couldn't handle). Maybe I should have tried undervolting it or something, at 70c it shouldn't make the system blow out after running at that in between 2-6 minutes. Or maybe it was the Elpida VRAM that was messing up. Those chips suck, but I think I would see artifacts before a crash, that never happened though.

I have never entertained the idea of undervolting a card, but I tried that on the GTX 460, and I got GTX 470 performance with lower voltage! That's AWESOME! I think the 380 deserved a similar treatment, but I don't have the card anymore to test it. Shame.

i did say "most" and "as far as im aware"

I use a Sapphire R9 290 VaporX is why, well built card unlike the GA card in this thread, haven't even taken it apart to replace any thermal compound/pads.

ATi had crash detection however who knows if it's even in crimson drivers...

 

[EntropyZ]

Thing is though. You shouldn't need additional software just to be able to run full clocks on a card. I was forced to use Afterburner+RadeonPro+ClockBlocker for all games to run at least partially smooth. If only I knew what I was getting into by buying the R9 380.

I would go back in time, steal dat money and get a GTX 1080 now.

To it's credit though, what the card was really good at was crunching post-processing loads. Running heavy ENB presets was EZ.

 

[eidairaman1]

Thing is though. You shouldn't need additional software just to be able to run full clocks on a card. I was forced to use Afterburner+RadeonPro+ClockBlocker for all games to run at least partially smooth. If only I knew what I was getting into by buying the R9 380.

285s (380) were hindered with performance issues from the start just like the 280s. For some reason they were the oddballs out of the product lines.

 

[EntropyZ]

285s (380) were hindered with performance issues from the start just like the 280s. For some reason they were the oddballs out of the product lines.

When I was making the purchase decision, it went like this: "Whoa, almost 280X performance with less power usage, sign me up son!". When I started up Skyrim and Fallout 4 it was a downward spiral of failure because those games prefer high CPU and GPU clock speeds, AKA multi-threading is for jackasses. It was a micro-stutter fest.

I built a Ryzen system, guess what. If it's going to have an AMD GPU again, the next Bethesda Game Studios title is undoubtedly going to run like ass. AMD did say they were working with a bunch of devs on optimizing for their hardware. Seeing as most consoles use their SoC's it shouldn't come as a surprise they are trying to do something right. But if they mess up on optimization again, those few bad apples will spoil all of them.

 

[eidairaman1]

When I was making the purchase decision, it went like this: "Whoa, almost 280X performance with less power usage, sign me up son!". When I started up Skyrim and Fallout 4 it was a downward spiral of failure because those games prefer high CPU and GPU clock speeds, AKA multi-threading is for jackasses. It was a micro-stutter fest.

Can't blame you.

I've had this system almost 3 years now, its as good as it will get unless I get 2 32GB kits and upgrade the card or add another.. I have no reason to move until It's time for a Threadripper

 

[EntropyZ]

The R9 290 is still a beast, especially when it's the Sapphire model. Just put a few more GB's of VRAM and you good.

 

[eidairaman1]

The R9 290 is still a beast, especially when it's the Sapphire model. Just put a few more GB's of VRAM and you good.

I'm thinking of returning to a bios mod project for this card to push it further, 1 CU is hard disabled so all i can do is screw with ram clocks/timings and core speeds.

I'd either grab a 3rd party design Fury and call it or a Vega 64 lol, but im not upgrading yet.

 

[Kanan]

I built a Ryzen system, guess what. If it's going to have an AMD GPU again, the next Bethesda Game Studios title is undoubtedly going to run like ass.

It's funny you mentioned Bethesda, because AMD has a cooperation going on with exactly that studio for optimising games (already happened on a few ones).

In defense of the R9 380 or 285: the Gigabyte model you had bought was faulty, there were better ones that worked proper. The only downside of 285/380s was their very low OC potential.

 

[EntropyZ]

It's funny you mentioned Bethesda, because AMD has a cooperation going on with exactly that studio for optimising games (already happened on a few ones).

Bethesda is the publisher, I was talking about the developer of the Elder Scrolls/Fallout series, Bethesda Game Studios, they are two different entities, though BGS does answer to the publisher, which is sad. Considering what is going on right now, so that doesn't give me much hope.

 

[Kanan]

Bethesda is the publisher, I was talking about the developer of the Elder Scrolls/Fallout series, Bethesda Game Studios, they are two completely different entities.

I'm talking about the same. What is the sense in having a cooperation with a publisher on optimising games? Ofc the cooperation is with Bethesda Game Studios and it's ofc about optimising their games.

Building on the success made with Doom's implementation of Vulkan, and the overall through-the-roof performance levels for that title considering its graphical quality, AMD today announced a long term strategic partnership with Bethesda, a major game publisher ("The Elder Scrolls" series, "Doom," and "Dishonored," etc.) This, according to AMD's Raja Koduri, will see Bethesda optimize its entire library of games (at least the recent ones), for AMD Ryzen 8-core processors, and the upcoming Radeon "Vega" GPU architecture. The first product of this new partnership will be the 2017 release of "Prey," the hotly anticipated survival-horror game.

https://www.techpowerup.com/231101/amd-announces-long-term-strategic-relationship-with-bethesda

Prey is running fine on AMD hardware, Doom anyway. It's very unlikely you're going to have problems with AMD hardware running new Bethesda titles.

 

[EntropyZ]

Prey is running fine on AMD hardware, Doom anyway. It's very unlikely you're going to have problems with AMD hardware running new Bethesda titles.

Yet not Bethesda Game Studios titles, they are a separate team which focuses solely on TES, Fallout and other new IPs that are coming out. There's Bethesda (publisher), Bethesda (developer) and finally Bethesda Game Studios (another developer).

BGS isn't getting the budget to optimize or redo their engine from scratch. This topic has been discussed on YT multiple times. BGS never responds to questions why their engine runs like crap on other than Intel/Nvidia hardware.

 

[Kanan]

Yet not Bethesda Game Studios titles, they are a separate team which focuses solely on TES, Fallout and other new IPs that are coming out. There's Bethesda (publisher), Bethesda (developer) and finally Bethesda Game Studios (another developer)

I think the cooperation stretches out to all games they publish etc. We will see, I still think it's unlikely. Also since AMD drivers are better than before any problems with games are unlikely in general or are fixed pretty fast.

 

[EntropyZ]

I think the cooperation stretches out to all games they publish etc. We will see, I still think it's unlikely. Also since AMD drivers are better than before any problems with games are unlikely in general or are fixed pretty fast.

Well it took them a month to optimize their driver for Fallout 4. Way after release. Pretty much every review of Fallout 4's performance shows that frametimes are superior on a GTX 960 vs R9 380. Too bad it was never re-tested after the dust settled. It's still a GameWorks title to this day, Nvidia was pretty smart in securing FO4's performance.

And as you say. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. Though I am just fed up with having my all-time favorite games just tank in framerates on my selection of hardware. BGS had 8 years to do something significant, yet they never did, it's not the hardware that is holding us back today, it's the software. You sometimes need to go two generations forward just to be able to run without stuttering, especially when you go into the territory of mods.

I wonder if it will be possible to get a VEGA 20 card at a decent price at some point, maybe i'll just wait until Navi. Or maybe Nvidia will steal my wallet. I've been having a hard time getting a good GPU that will last longer than a year. The GTX 460 has served my up until this point and can still reasonably play games, so long as I set the settings right. Fermi and Kepler look like they aged pretty bad, because most newer games prefer the architectural changes and additions of Maxwell and Pascal, maybe just the clock speed jumps, or maybe both.

 

[Kanan]

I wouldn't stress Fallout 4 too much, it's for all that matters a pretty much sole exception.

Fermi and Kepler look like they aged pretty bad, because most newer games prefer the architectural changes and additions of Maxwell and Pascal, maybe just the clock speed jumps, or maybe both.

Fermi didn't age bad, it just run out of speed and vram (later). Basically Fermi was outdated once GTX 680 arrived, because 28nm GPUs were so much better.

Kepler is always listed with very low stock settings on GPU core because of reference cards tested in pretty much every review, besides a few. Kepler with OC or let's say a decent custom card like the Windforce, on a GTX 770 or GTX 780 Ti, is still pretty fast and mostly beats their competition that was 290/390(X) and now is 480/580. I'd still not trade a 780 Ti for a RX 480 or 390X. Maybe for a RX 580 because of higher clocks and better efficiency with multi monitor.

I think Vega 20 will be better than Vega10, if you mean the 12nm refresh. And AMD cards are supported long, because AMD rarely switches architectures, so if you're looking for future compatibility AMD is a good option. But Nvidia too. All recent Nvidia GPUs up to Fermi and even older aged pretty normally, Maxwell just aged a tad better perhaps. After all it's basically the same architecture Nvidia still uses today, Pascal is just Maxwell with 16nm and a few refinements in VR and AC.

 

[LocoDiceGR]

My 380 rocks in every game.

Throttle in a custom or blower style? I never go pass 70c.

 

[Swamp Monster]

Hi, EntropyZ!
It seems I had the same clock-throttling problems as you have with R9 380, maybe to a lesser extent as I have not noticed massive stuttering. I only thought I could get some extra FPS out of it if it wouldnt be throttling. I thought this was normal and this is just how this model behaves, similar to Fury Nano throttling in a way.
But I have experienced crashes too while gaming. GPU temp goes to about 66c under load, I could not OC it much also, whatever power limit I set. 1050MHz was stable on FireStrike and Superposition, higher than that caused restarts and/or automatic Wattman resets. GPU were throttling even when clocks in all power states were manually set to the same value.

1) It turns out I made a huge mistake, assuming FAN speed in "auto" in Wattman truly means automatic... I have always left it at Auto, because I thought It should not be relevant, as GPU temp never went over 66c, give or take few degrees. I was wrong there again.
Actually Fan speed slider is set to MAX 1200RPM when "auto" speed setting is applied, even when the slider is greyed out.
When I clicked manual speed, I realised that Fans can spin up to 6000RPM!
2) The way my card works, is by default, it seems to have hidden temperature target about 66c, which it holds by throttling. Setting power limit higher, actually makes things worse in some cases, as it allows card to get hotter faster.
Changing FAN setting to Manual, MAX 5500RPM, allows to cool GPU properly and all problems are gone. Now I can OC from 980 to 1120MHz with power limit +20% and MAX allowed voltage of 1.193V, while GPU temp is 56c. No throttling!
Default settings should just work, but it is not the case, unfortunately.

 

[EntropyZ]

I never had any throttling problems, the card just seemed to drop to 2D clocks out of the blue just because it thought I suddenly stopped playing a game. On a benchmarking suite it seemed fine. But if I try any sort of gaming, once I hit a certain FPS marks the card would rubberband clock speeds like crazy. Only turning off all power saving features helped that. NOTE: The Crimson driver was still new and didn't have the option to turn off Powerplay A.K.A power efficiency. The Tonga silicon was rushed and the driver updates to fix the clock speed problems arrived late. Not that it matters now, because that is history. I don't have the card anymore to know how it runs today. It was a great way to start the year (not) when I bought it just before Christmas. I'm still salty over it.

Spoiler

 

[Kanan]

That Gigabyte had a faulty bios, still has nothing to do with Tonga - it was fixed later by Gigabyte, bios provided to download on their website and also bios / model number changed on future cards. Tonga ran fine, as in, 95%. It just had low OC capabilities and performance wasn't what people were expecting.

edit: to not sound like a asshole: I'm actually sorry that you had bad luck with your GPU and a bad time. I guess it happens to everyone at least once in a lifetime.

 

[EntropyZ]

A note on the BIOS files, for as long as I had the card, any files newer files from the website to flash the card with would 100% fail, as in ATI/AMD flash would not recognize the files and refuse to flash the chip. I don't remember which revision the card came with, but it was already flashed to the newest until the next release file came out, which just would not flash.

I knew what performance I was supposed to be getting via game benchmarks. What I didn't expect was 3D clocks drooping.

 

[Kanan]

That's really bad luck then. I would've simply RMA'd then, best and guaranteed solution.

 

[EntropyZ]

Nah, you don't come across being defensive and what not, just stating the facts. And I am perfectly fine with being proved wrong if need be.

I was going to bring the card for RMA until I just had to sell it for personal reasons not just the ones I already talked about. Hope the guy playing CS;GO at 200 fps or something is happy with it.

Here I sit with my GTX 460 until truly there is something worth the money or upgrading to. As it stands today, there's no 200 euro GPU on the market which would do what I need and serve me for at least 3-5 years after.

I only switched from a 900p to 1080p monitor this year, and it's Freesync. I want to take advantage of it but high-end VEGA is out of reach for me.

 

[Kanan]

I hope the guy isn't having the same problems, yeah.

How much do you want to spend / what you're waiting for? Isn't it odd to have such a slow/old GPU? GTX 460 ... that's HD 5850 level or slower, must be pretty much impossible to play anything new with it.

 

[EntropyZ]

I hope the guy isn't having the same problems, yeah.

How much do you want to spend / what you're waiting for? Isn't it odd to have such a slow/old GPU? GTX 460 ... that's HD 5850 level or slower, must be pretty much impossible to play anything new with it.

Haha, Tekken 7 runs smoothly @ 1080p medium, it's pretty impressive when overclocked, I'd consider it GTX 470 level and beyond. Most games now take advantage of the optimizations made by recent architectures, so running those games is pretty much impossible. Open-world games are definitely not an option. Playing Skyrim Special Edition or Fallout 4 on it is a slideshow. Dragon Ball: Xenoverse runs fine too. Most games past 2013 have low framerates, unless you go bottom barrel settings and low resolutions.

It's not so bad, I am replaying a lot of the stuff to pass the time.

I did want to get the GTX 1080, but when I look at it from futureproofing standpoint, it doesn't have full DX12 support (only some features via driver). That's a dealbreaker. Also, no Freesync. Sure, most of what I play is DX11 and DX11 isn't going anywhere, DX12 isn't a replacement, it goes alongside DX11.