Performance Problems with 680

[coltraz]

I am desperately seeking guidance with this problem. I had a PC built just before Christmas.

Specs:

ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AMD970/950 4DDR3 USB3 GbL HD Audio SPDIF
AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz (4.0GHz Turbo) X8 16MB 125W  - AM3+
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600MHz F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL
GIGABYTE GV-N680OC-2GD GeForce GTX680 2GB GDDR5 HDMI/DVI/DP (PassMark 4026)
Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2BAA 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal SSD

I had intended to install Skyrim, stick some nice mods on, sit back and get immersed like never before. I'd already been running skyrim on Ultra with my GTX460 but wasn't able to use things like HD textures without a big performance hit.

When I loaded up Skyrim the auto-detect settings maxed everything out to ultra quality. I started playing and I was shocked. As my character ran around on the tundra outside Whiterun, if I turned suddenly or sometimes even if I just went in a straight line, I'd get "lag". The game would stutter. Often. To the point it was not fun to play. I'm able to get better (but not perfect) performance by doing things like putting shadows down from ultra to medium, so that they look like horrible ugly blocks that I can't stand looking at, or setting view distance to high instead of ultra so I can see ugly smeared hills off on the horizons.

It really sucks. I didn't have that kind of performance hit with my 460...I didn't have to spend hours tweaking ini settings and graphics settings and trying to find values that are playable...now with my shiny new 680, I have to. I'm so disappointed and frustrated. I've tried all sorts of things - fps cappers, vsync on, vsync off, the list goes on and on. I really wanted the game to be smooth and laugh at whatever I throw at it. Is it because the 680 is still new and the drivers aren't optimized for Skyrim or something? Does it make sense that with this system I am encountering such issues?

Any assistance would be much appreciated...

ETA: I'm using the most recent NVidia Beta drivers released this month. No change.

[coltraz]

Testing 1 2 3 do you read me over.

[TFisher]

After reading your post I installed Skyrim again with HD textures pack and it runs great on my machine.
Solid 60fps (vsync on).

I just purchased my 680 last week so I thought I would see how it worked with the game.

When you installed the 680 did you run a driver sweeper of any kind? Might be some leftover items causing the issues.

I went from 2x 5870's to a GTX680. I removed the devices from Device manager,ticked the remove drivers box.
Rebooted in safe mode,ran driver sweeper 3.2.0. Rebooted and installed 310.70 beta. No problems. Now I use 310.90.

Might be worth a try to uninstall drivers and run driver sweeper,if you did'nt already.
Good luck. 

ps. I see your psu is not listed. Is it possible its not up the task of the new cards power requirement?

[TFisher]

Another possibility is in your Documents folder.There is a Skyrim folder in My games. Saves,etc,,,

Try deleting the "SkyrimPrefs.ini. If you look in that file it should have your video card listed.
Does it still show the 460? Delete it and run the game again. Back it up first!