AMD FX-8120 Gimping Performance in Gaming?

[Blkfx1]

I'm posting this thread with hopes to get a question answered. Ive recently upgraded to FX-8120 CPU (got it for free) and added a second GPU to my setup (HD 6950 2Gb).

Right now I'm running a CFX with 2 HD6950's OC'd at 865/1325 with the FX-8120 OC'd to 4.0ghz

I have been doing some benchmarks.. 3Dmark11, 3D Mark vantage,Unigine Heaven, and metro 2033 front line.
Ive been comparing my scores to ones from the net and I'm getting considerably lower results.

I was comparing my scores to several websites results. Here is one of the reviews i used. I know it isn't a super official review but its one all the same.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1665100

As you can see from those benchmarks. The individual was able to achieve around 50-60 AVG FPS on Metro 2033 Front line benchmark with the crossfire. Right now I'm averaging 16-19FPS. I didn't expect to get the same results.. but i did expect to come somewhere close. Especially since our OC's are almost the same on the GPU's.

Ive noticed reduced FPS score in pretty much every game I play compared to others with equal or lesser machines.

I have checked all my components.. which all seem to be running fine. I have tried various different drivers and CCC application profiles. So Ive came the conclusion.. that it may be this CPU.

So.. now I am posing the question to you all on the forum. Is my CPU gimping my performance or is it something else?

BTW- I am new to the forum. So if i have posted in the wrong place I do apologize. Thanks in advance.

 

[joedastudd]

First welcome to the forum.

Yes your cpu is bottlenecking your system.

The FX's generally perform the same or worse then PII x2 and x4's for gaming. They in turn perform worse then the i5's and i7's.

 

[cile007]

if you wana see test grafick cart you can se results on this site http://www.hwcompare.com/9822/geforce-gtx-590-vs-radeon-hd-6990/
is reali god 😀

 

[bumnut53]

Do your results improve if you remove the OC ?

 

[HEXiT]

remove 1 of the gfx cards and see if performance picks up. if you get roughly the same results with 1 card as you do with 2 then it could be a bottleneck cause by the single threaded performance hit that the fx is sadly known for...
they really arnt very good gaming parts. especially when it comes to 1 or 2 threaded games. if you can send it back RMA and get a p2 960t.
i do find it bizarre that your pairing a low end budget cpu with 2 relatively high end gfx cards...

 

[Goldengoose]

To be honest, looking at toms recent benchmarks of CPU performance vs other CPU's, there isn't a huge difference in gaming with a better/worse CPU - most games are more graphically intense. You do get stuff like WoW and starcraft II that need alot of processing power but they are few and far between.

 

[13thmonkey]

when you upgraded I'm wondering whether you should have reinstalled, due to the differences in architecture. if you should have done there may be a way of forcing windows to re configure itself. How many cores is windows recognising?

 

[Blkfx1]

@Hexit
I was really just checking it out. I had a 1090T go bad on me at one point and I had managed to get the FX 8120 for free. I didn't really want to pay for any CPU. I didn't check the CPU out before installing it(my stupid mistake). Ive read a couple mixed reviews on this CPU when It comes to gaming.

@13thMonkey
Windows 7 right now is recognizing all 8 cores. Ive done a clean install since I upgraded. I had to switch my boot drive to my SSD.
@Bumnut53
I noticed lower FPS without the OC.. not by much but it was indeed lower.

 

[Jingkun]

Realize its been 2 months so not sure if you're still having this problem, but try removing the new card you got and check again. I've had my fair share of boards where the only slot reachable for cfx is an 8x slot. I had a foxconn am2+ board before my 8120 and the only reason I never went cfx was because my top slot for my graphics was a full x16 slot and beneath it in order was x1, x8, x8, x16, pci but the x8 slots are full x16 size.
I haven't had a single problem gaming with my 8120 and I dont know what half these people are talking about the 8120 being a budget chip, but my experiences with it are that at mild oc settings I'm still stomping over half the i7 line, and that includes the $1000 i7 chip my friend bought 6 months ago. Maybe I just wound up on an intel biased board <.<

Anyway if you pull the new card and get roughly the same or slightly better results then you might want to check your board mapping.

Remember that in cfx the lowest common denominator wins.
I found this out back with my 2900s I had an xt and a pro, the pro was a 1gb card and the xt was a 512mb but a higher core clock. So what it did was defaulted both cards to the lower clock speed of the pro which wasn't much of a loss, then it kicked half my vram from the pro and clocked back the mem speed since the pro used gddr5 and the xt used gddr3;

so naturally in this case if one of the used slots is 8x then its going to default the other card to 8x despite it being in an x16 slot, hence the bottleneck.

Almost forgot, I've done all my gaming with my 8120 up till now with a 5850 1gb card and just finished playing arkham city without a hiccup. JUST upgraded to a 6990 this morning so haven't put that through its paces yet.

Hope this information helps you or at least someone down the line.