XPS 8700 nVidia GTX video card upgrades,

http://www.overclock.net/t/1514085/official-nvidia-gtx-970-owners-club 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/board/155/geforce-900-series/ 

https://www.google.com/#q=site:techpowerup.com+GTX+970

Hi all,  was one of the early responders to the XPS 8700 Black Sceen of Death with Nvidia GTX 970/980 card.

Now that Dell has released a compatible XPS8700 bios, that is no longer an issue.

But there are still other (not related to Dell Problems that crop up with the GTX 970/980.

Notbly 4K monitors using the Display port can have Windows initialization problems that basically resize and or restack your "Windows".

Also Power Supply needs (or not).

So we can discuss this sort of thing here.

Best Regards,

Gary

Best

System 1:

XPS 8700 core i7 4770 8GB Win 8.1
MSI GTX 770 (MSI N770 TF 2GD5/OC)
Driver 9.18.13.3788 (GeForce 337.88)
1920x1080 - DVI
seasonic X650 Gold ((SS-650KM Active PFC F3))

System 2: 

XPS 8700 core i7 4770 8GB Win 8.1
MSI GTX 760 (MSI N760 TF 2GD5/OC)
Dual 1600x1200 monitors DVI x2
Driver 9.18.13.3788 (GeForce 337.88)
Seasonic X650 Gold ((SS-650KM Active PFC F3)) PSUs.

System 1 will get a GTX 970, System 2 will get the 770 and the GTX 760 will move to a lower-end system.

Have you guys experienced increase boot up time after starting from a shut down? I use to boot up almost instantaneous, now it takes several seconds.

Ever since I updated my BIOS to A10, every time I reboot there is a progress loading bar that appears during the Dell splash screen. I don't particularly mind it and waiting several seconds, but I am wondering if this is normal?

Have you guys experienced increase boot up time after starting from a shut down? I use to boot up almost instantaneous, now it takes several seconds. Ever since I updated my BIOS to A10, every time I reboot there is a progress loading bar that appears during the Dell splash screen. I don't particularly mind it and waiting several seconds, but I am wondering if this is normal?

Quick answer is yes but this time, I don't mind the longer boot process. I was always on A03 bios except for once when I ugraded to A06 and this one was very bad as it took like 50 second for my XPS to be operational compared to A03 which only took 25. That was double the time. I then reverted back to A03 because I didn't see any advantage to A06. But with A10 which take about 33 to 35 seconds, we don't have any choice than to stick with it if we want to use our 900 series card. But the difference is not so bad for me anyway. I can live with that.

Back to GTX 970 questions.

I'm looking for a new monitor in addition to GTX 970. Trolling the nVidia and EVGA and MSI  forums I've read a number of issues with 4K monitors and Display Port.

Is anyone running a "great" 4K monitor  with a GTX 970 in an 8700? and if so are there issues, or concerns as Gary described above?

I don't mind the longer BIOS boot time because I rarely cold-start my system, but it isn't any different than what A08 was. I still have one A08 system so I could time it, but I doubt anything would come of this complaint.

My workaround is to not shutdown the system but to put it to sleep. the time to sleep (not hibernate) is very fast as is the time to wake a sleeping system up. 

I setup a shortcut on my taskbar and mapped a keyboard hotkey to sleep the system.  I enabled wake on keypress or mouse movement, and when I walk away from the computer, I usually put it to sleep.

edit: I just timed the sleep/wake times.

6 seconds after selecting sleep shortcut until the system is off.
from sleep, 5 seconds after any keypress until I see the login splash screen, and after I enter my password, 2-3 seconds until it is back where it was. This system is using wired ethernet, has wifi and bluetooth disabled and has a fixed IP address on my LAN so there is no waiting for the WiFi or the network to re-negotiate.

These times are on an 8700 running win 8.1 with the OEM 1TB HDD. Sleep/wake was even faster when this system had an SSD but I moved it temporarily to another system.

here is the sleep shortcut I use. 

C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0

Hibernate is disabled. enabled wake on keyboard and enabled wake on LAN. 

Hi Dan-H and All,

Finally got my EVGA GTX 970 FTW.

It installed without a hitch using the new bios.

And I have been using it for 7 days, runs very cool in normal use with the GPU temp currently at 44C or 116F and the fan speed at zero according to the EVGA OC Scanner.

Running the maxed out Particle test at 395 fps GPU temp gets up to 73C / 163F and stabilizes with the fan at about 30% or 1350 RPM and GPU power draw at 85 to 90% of normal specified max current draw (base overclock for the FTW max of 145watts).

This test is specifically designed to run the board at it's maximum and definitely illustrates that even then the power draw is very low and the GPU heat is also very low.

XPS 8700 enclosure heat is also negligible with plenty of cooling from the standard fans.

During this test with fan speed up to 31 percent the fans were not audible and my system is virtually silent.

My presumption that the 460 watt Dell power supply is adequate for a single 970/980 board very much appears to be verified as it is rated for more than twice the 145 watts specified of which I was only able to pull about 120 watts in a maxed out test in the base FTW overclock.

The stock Dell 8700 XPS 460 watt power supply is rated at 320 watts of available 12 volt video board power.

It will probably draw a bit over 145 watts if I go to the FTW's high overclock speed, but not much.

In initial tests with the Oculus Rift DK2, operation is such that in the Oculus Demos, head tracking is flawless with no lag and there is no jitter or tearing and animation has no visible quirks or lag.

Because of the full render universe that the Oculus requires to support head tracking, a really fast video card is priority one and this card seems to fulfill that necessity.

In fact, from what I have seen so far there are no artifacts, problems or timing issues at all with the Oculus.

My previous GTX 750 had definite issues, this card does not.

I will report further when I have had additional experience with it.

As for 4K monitor problems, from my understanding it is the 4K monitor, the Display Port and Windows that have trouble with each other (and it is not limited to 970/980's).

If you do not use the display port you won't have the problem (of course you need to use the display port to get 60FPS on the inexpensive 4K monitors).

Ultimately it is Windows making some bad presumptions relating to the display port and (probably) assigning inadequate video memory spaces  to the various Windows and then compensating by reverting the window format to stacked rather than distributed, resizing the windows in the process.

It only seems to occur when the machine goes to sleep or at least when it powers down it's video and then is woken up.

But from those encountering it it is very annoying and a major pain to continually compensate for.

Some people have disabled the screen saver and power down modes completely.

As best I can tell it doesn't make any difference which 4K monitor you are using, if you are using it with the display port.)

I have not heard of any problems related to the display port with non-4K monitors.

Best of luck in any case and please report your experiences here.

Gary

Hi Gary, 

The highest temperature that my MSI GTX970 Golden Edition has reach is 68C playing Assetto Corsa for hours at full resolution with GPU usage at 99% at all time except when finishing a race and returning to the main screen. I might just try the particle test that you did just to see how high my card will go in temperature. Just to nit pick, 44C equals 111F and not 116.

I will edit my post when I get the results and see if my results match yours.

**Edit**

I ran the full 3D Mark test and my card never went above 67C. The fans hit a high of 1550 rpm once.  I'm trying to find that particle test that you did. Is this in 3D Mark?

msi kombustor has a particle simulation stress test. Not sure if that is what Gary is running or not.

Hi all,

EVGA supplies an OC Scanner X program for their boards, that is what I was using for the particle test.

It purposely max's out the Video board (why the FPS is so ridiculously high) so you can see how your temperatures and fan speed work out.

I am very happy with the performance of my board at this point no surprises and it runs very cool and for the first time my Oculus DK2 can be used without inducing motion sickness from lag and jitter.

Head turning within a video game so far tracks without any apparent delay and no jitter or breakup of any kind.

It truly provides a feeling of being inside the game space.

Moving with a controller does require a specific mindset because it is also instantaneous and can be vertigo inducing if not done smoothly and with a mindset that incorporates it.

In a truly immersive environment like the Oculus provides any sudden unexpected or anomalous motion can have a seriously unsettling effect as it tends to rip you loose from the immersive experience.

At least with this board exploring the Oculus's capabilities is no longer graphics hardware limited.

The temp it is reporting varies from moment to moment and I reported the C temperature and then several seconds later the F temp (it provides both).

Really happy we finally got these to work with the 8700 - Thank you for your support Chris.

This video board really transforms an inexpensive widely available computer into a graphics power house.

Best Regards,

Gary

I just ordered the XPS i7 4470 8GB Win 8.1 (same as you) and I plan on putting the seasonic X650 Gold ((SS-650KM Active PFC F3)) in it with a GTX 970. Did you have any problems with the PSU? And if you have already put in the GTX 970, how'd that work out?

I take it when I initially put these components in it wont work because the driver problem, but when I update that, everything should work right? What exactly do I install, if anything at all for this driver issue I've read about.

Thanks,

Kevin.

I just ordered the XPS i7 4470 8GB Win 8.1 (same as you) and I plan on putting the seasonic X650 Gold ((SS-650KM Active PFC F3)) in it with a GTX 970. Did you have any problems with the PSU?

The seasonic X650 gold PSU is a very snug fit. the cable for the top USB and audio will block some of the modular power ports but there are more than enough to power the system.

The right angle power to the HDD is right angle in the wrong direction so if the HDD is in the factory installed location, you have to bend the cable in a slighly awkward angle but it will work. I later moved the HDD to HDD position 3 and removed the cage for the other HDDs. .

Other than that the PSU fits well. The seasonic PSU has a hybrid silent fan mode and I could not hear the PSU over the (somewhat noisy) OEM dell case fan. 

I ordered my new XPS 8700 Special Edition on December 31st. I also ordered three Dell S2715H monitors for a triple monitor setup. After finding this post, I decided to also order the EVGA GTX 970 FTW.

Once everything arrives I will report here and let everyone know how it goes. I appreciate everyone's posts as I would have undoubtedly tried installing another PSU. It's still hard to believe that a 460w PSU is going to work. I am keeping my fingers crossed. My exact specs will be as follows:

*Note* Upon receiving my Dell I will be updating the bios to the XPS A10 version before I switch out the video card.

I then plan on removing the 2TB hard drive that Dell will have operating system installed on and install the Samsung 500 GB SSD. I will then install a fresh copy of Windows 8.1 Pro onto the SSD.

Windows 8.1 Pro

16GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600MHz (4GBx4)

Samsung 500 GB 840 EVO SATA Solid State Drive

4th Generation Intel Core i7-4790 processor (8M Cache, up to 4.0 GHz)

EVGA GTX 970 FTW

460W Standard Dell PSU