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Low 4090 performance in a prebuilt, how to improve?

Your Timespy GPU score seems close to the average? Photos below from 3D Mark.


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So my GPU is working properly?

I'd say yes. There's a bell curve for performance - you can expect to get above or below average. The curve is skewed by those who overclock or otherwise modify settings to get higher scores. If you're not a hardware enthusiast and bought the set-up to enjoy gaming - just play the games. Benchmarks seem to make people feel insecure about their hardware. The question you should ask yourself is whether or not the gaming experience is what you expected (within reason).
 
I'd say yes. There's a bell curve for performance - you can expect to get above or below average. The curve is skewed by those who overclock or otherwise modify settings to get higher scores. If you're not a hardware enthusiast and bought the set-up to enjoy gaming - just play the games. Benchmarks seem to make people feel insecure about their hardware. The question you should ask yourself is whether or not the gaming experience is what you expected (within reason).

I am not a gamer. Rather, I am an AI researcher. I use this PC to train neural network models. These model training jobs can take a day or more to finish for each job So I'm interested in making this PC at least up to par.
 
It is a Corsair Vengeance i7400 with their Corsair 4000D Airflow case. Its airflow should be pretty good. I'll check the connector later.

VENGEANCE i7400 Gaming PC, i9-13900K, RTX 4090, 2TB M.2, 64GB DDR5-5600 (corsair.com)

4000D AIRFLOW Tempered Glass Mid-Tower ATX Case — Black (corsair.com)


Rebar is enabled.. 5 minutes into Cinebench 2024:
View attachment 317682
Your CPU temperature has some really weird spikes. And every time it does the GPU load drops. My guess is the CPU cooler is not mounted properly or has bad TIM application and the cpu throttles occasionally. How high do these temperature spikes go (mouse over it). I assume 100°C. Maybe worth investigating the CPU instead.
 
I bought a prebuilt PC that has MSI Z690-A WiFi DDR5, i9-13900K, 4090, 64GB RAM, and 1000 Watts PSU. I ran it through Cinebench 2024 and the 4090 has a score around 30,500. The average score for 4090 should be around 34,500. I have updated all the drivers and OS. After a couple months of tuning, the GPU score is still around 31,500. I have tried GeForce Experience auto tuning and ASUS GPU Tweak III.

Any suggestions on how I can further improve it? Thanks.
Lotta specs missing from this
Others may have got to these questions already, but i'll ask em anyway - and please put them all in your system specs and edit the first post, don't scatter the info around multiple pages where people can't find it all.

Tick the 'yes' option, and edit them as you go. That way the correct specs are in every post you make.

1. What 4090? GPU-Z can help, but the exact model is needed.
2. What RAM? What is it running at? (CPU-Z for both)
3. What PSU? Exact model is required.


The advice part:
A: Get rid of any 'auto' tuning crap. MSI afterburner is useful for setting 'flat' curves, but those automated things are always trash, and not to be used.
B: Why no mention of any temperatures, CPU or GPU?
C: Is your CPU at stock power limits or unlocked? No idea if that board or your cooling can handle unlocked, but performance tanks massively when the 125W limit kicks in.
D: Use a spare drive and make a clean OS install. Avoid 'tweaks' from random internet guides as many break things and they're impossible to undo. Debloat only, like removing app-store apps (teams, onedrive, etc)



I'm not familiar with R24 yet, but you can use R23 on the 10 minute timer to find out your CPU temperatures and clockspeeds/wattages (and watch them in HWinfo, because they will drop if power limits are enabled or things thermal throttle)

GPU should be tested seperately to CPU, R24 seems to have both options. A slow CPU will slow down the GPU.
 
So my GPU is working properly?

For gaming your system seems to be fine looking at your Firestrike/Timespy scores but your rendering performance is definitely low. I don't know anyone who uses their pc here for the purpose you do so it's hard to say.

I've seen similar system to yours score 40k in CB2024 my guess is somthing going on in the CPU side.
 
Check that you dont have max frame rates enabled on Nvidia control panel?

I had it set at 100 or 144 or something and was getting like low end of of time spy basic for a 4090.
 
run some game benchmarks and then see if its below than others
 
Hmm yea your cinebench score does seem low and i noticed your memory clock is odd
I would remove all overclock + overclock software just to rule that being a problem out
Oh and you mentioned running ultimate power plan? i would set that to balanced and reset the power plan settings too
And check on idle if gpu load is at 0% percent maybe you have background software running that uses the gpu?
Here is my cinebench score with an underclocked+undervolted 4090
34400 score @2610MHz gpu clock
1697442778807.png


So i tested how dependent cinebench gpu is on the cpu by running cinebench on just my 4 e-cores

1697443958819.png


CPU performance affects the gpu score so maybe nothing wrong with gpu but with cpu either bios settings or windows power settings are weird?
edit: i got even lower score same-ish as yours by running on e-cores
could be windows power setting that runs cinebench on just your e-cores for some reason
try reset power plan settings and change to balanced power plan
and also run cpu-z benchmark to check how your cpu single and multithread performance is
 
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I cannot edit my original post. So let me add more info about this PC. The following is the HWInfo64 from running Cinebench 2024. The PL1 is set at 180W and PL2 is set at 230W, as the default from Corsair. It has a small-ish 240mm AIO. If I further increase PL1 or PL2, I would get a thermal throttling. I increased the duration for short term max power from 3 seconds to 56 seconds. It seems to work okay.

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What is your case? Where is it located. Airflow can be an issue.
 
What is your case? Where is it located. Airflow can be an issue.
The case is Corsair 4000D Airflow. It is on top of my desk. The airflow should be okay, I think.
 
The case is Corsair 4000D Airflow. It is on top of my desk. The airflow should be okay, I think.
Is the GPU vertical or horizontal? A pic would be nice.
 
The following are from Cinebench 2024 GPU test. I set CPU to Balanced. The max GPU temp is 53.4C. All OC software has been removed. GeForce Experience has been reset. The memory clock speed does seem low to me...

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Is the GPU vertical or horizontal? A pic would be nice.
The GPU is horizontal. The below picture is from Corsair website. The GPU on my unit is ASUS 4090 TUF which looks a bit different.

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Odd can't see anything wrong
You could try setting cinebench process to high priority and see if that changes anything
Is your 4090's ECC enabled? i know it lowers memory throughput not sure how much performance is lost tho
 
From Cinebench 2024 single core benchmark. CPU is also in "balanced" mode.

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Both CPU and GPU performance levels seem low.

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For gaming your system seems to be fine looking at your Firestrike/Timespy scores but your rendering performance is definitely low. I don't know anyone who uses their pc here for the purpose you do so it's hard to say.

I've seen similar system to yours score 40k in CB2024 my guess is somthing going on in the CPU side.

The CPU utilization is low while running GPU test in CB2024. Could it still be CPU?

My use of this PC is more similar to rendering than gaming. The GPU needs to do continuous math calculations.

CPU-Z bench scores

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I end up with roughly 35.550 in the GPU test. My CPU score is useless as comparison (useless for me anyway, as I don't know yours) since it's a 7900X, but in the Multi Core bench I got 1753 and in Single 122.
 
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That might be it. For scientific purposes it might be a must though.
 
I think you could have ECC enabled, can be disabled in nvidia control panel (unless you need ECC of course)
edit: i tested enabling it and gave me a good drop in performance with similiar score 29xxx

You are a genius. I disabled the ECC and the score indeed jumped back up. But I do need ECC.

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Mystery solved. Not every day that happens on the interwebs.
 
Thanks all. I truly appreciate the support from all. I have learned a few things. This is my first gaming PC. Sorry for being a newbie...
 
Thanks all. I truly appreciate the support from all. I have learned a few things. This is my first gaming PC. Sorry for being a newbie...

Glad it was somthing so simple it's off by default so I didn't even think of it.
 
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