Low performance on my 7870

[Supershinylad]

I recently built a new system for Christmas; CPU: i5-3470 GPU: XFX 7870 core edition RAM: 8gb supposedly 2133mhz, but I can only have 1833mhz, I've always felt this card had low performance since I've got it, I'm getting below 15 fps maxed out at 1080p on games such as hitmam absolution, the witcher 2, and Far Cry 3. My friend had recently got a pre-built computer, of which he has the same CPU, 4gb of RAM, and a 7770, yet in games like Minecraft, with the shaders, he gets 10 more fps, but I should be getting much more than he is. Is there anything that could be limiting my card? maybe through installation problems? I should probably add, I did get a little, and I mean a really little amount of thermal paste on the CPU, but it works fine so I assumed there was no fault. please ask of any details that may be important.

-Josh

 

[farrengottu]

well thermal paste problems wont make you run slow. it will make you run hot which will eventually cause crashes and restarts. though if your running above 70 Celsius then you need to fix something. in the upper 60s i would personally do something to bring it down. especially since that isnt a very hot processor to start with.

i bet your problem is software. perhaps you have some program bogging you down or really old drivers. or possibly your ram is in single channel mode. that might do it. check that and update windows and your gpu drivers. if its not significantly better then my next step would be to reinstall windows. maybe someone else has ideas that come before going that extreme.

 

[jordonc]

Definitely update those graphics drivers like farrengottu said. I also had some problems with my 7870 too, but while playing Dragon Age 2. I updated to AMD's 12.10 drivers and the problem was solved. 13.1 is out now, so give those a try.

 

[wanderer11]

Definitely upgrade to 13.1, it's like 12.11 without the few random issues. You're not going to be able to max out aa. Are you sure you and your friend are playing at the exact same settings?

 

[Supershinylad]

Definitely upgrade to 13.1, it's like 12.11 without the few random issues. You're not going to be able to max out aa. Are you sure you and your friend are playing at the exact same settings?

Yeah, that's what confuses me so much, I have the latest CCC drivers..

 

[rgd1101]

check temperature on the CPU, GPU when you play the games.

 

[wanderer11]

What is your gpu usage in game? Are you geting ~99% usage when you are getting 15 fps?

 

[Supershinylad]

What is your gpu usage in game? Are you geting ~99% usage when you are getting 15 fps?

Yeah, Always above 90% when actually in the game, when in menu's it deviates around 50, but I doubt that matters.

 

[neon neophyte]

definitely way under performing. my old 6950 performs considerably better

 

[wanderer11]

What PSU do you have?

 

[larkspur]

What's your motherboard, temps and PSU? Make sure you installed the graphics card in the x16 size PCIe slot that is closest to the CPU. Depending on your board, other x16 size slots may not have the bandwidth to properly feed your card.

 

[Supershinylad]

What's your motherboard, temps and PSU? Make sure you installed the graphics card in the x16 size PCIe slot that is closest to the CPU. Depending on your board, other x16 size slots may not have the bandwidth to properly feed your card.

My PSU is 600W, and I have it installed in the PCI 3.0 port, my MoBo is a MSI z77a-G43.

 

[wanderer11]

What is the make/model of the PSU? A seasonic 600W is night and day difference from a diablotek 600W.

 

[Onus]

For the graphics card to be at 90%+, are you running anything else that might use your GPU, like a Folding@Home or SETI@Home client?
Are the clocks going up to their 3D settings, or stuck down on their low, idle settings? The new Catalyst and drivers should have fixed this, but it is another thing to check. MSI's Afterburner can track this for you.

 

[Supershinylad]

For the graphics card to be at 90%+, are you running anything else that might use your GPU, like a Folding@Home or SETI@Home client?
Are the clocks going up to their 3D settings, or stuck down on their low, idle settings? The new Catalyst and drivers should have fixed this, but it is another thing to check. MSI's Afterburner can track this for you.

No, I'm not using anything else, and yeah they go up to Core: 1100mhz and Memory: 1320mhz.

 

[wanderer11]

Did you OC it yourself or did it come at those clocks? If you did then put it back to stock.

 

[Supershinylad]

Did you OC it yourself or did it come at those clocks? If you did then put it back to stock.

I did it, and ok I'll try.

 

[neon neophyte]

ya its probably your overlocking causing the problem. i know with my 6950 i can push the gpu up over a ghz with no problems but if i touch the ram i get a strange studdering in my games.

 

[Supershinylad]

Ok, without the overclocking of my GPU, I get an average of 10 fps with Hitman: Absolution fully maxed out and 8x MSAA at 1080p.

 

[ph1sh55]

I've had numerous issues with my 7850 getting conflicting drivers that really hampered performance when I first installed it. Actually I ended up having to uninstall catalyst control center + drivers through add/remove programs, then use a program called "driver sweeper" to wipe any remnant display drivers, reboot and let windows install the display driver (somehow it pulled the latest?) w/o the catalyst control center because ccc.exe was causing me tons of issues with visual glitches and using up a lot of cpu.

Something to try, I haven't had good experiences with ATI software, buggy as hell.

Also get a temperature monitoring program to monitor your GPU and CPU temperature. If they are overheating for some reason they usually will downclock or undervolt for protection.

 

[Supershinylad]

I've had numerous issues with my 7850 getting conflicting drivers that really hampered performance when I first installed it. Actually I ended up having to uninstall catalyst control center + drivers through add/remove programs, then use a program called "driver sweeper" to wipe any remnant display drivers, reboot and let windows install the display driver (somehow it pulled the latest?) w/o the catalyst control center because ccc.exe was causing me tons of issues with visual glitches and using up a lot of cpu.

Something to try, I haven't had good experiences with ATI software, buggy as hell.

Also get a temperature monitoring program to monitor your GPU and CPU temperature. If they are overheating for some reason they usually will downclock or undervolt for protection.

I don't think that this is the problem, my temperature's are fine, My GPU never exceeds 70C under full load, my CPU is around 40/50 when gaming aswell, for the CCC, it only takes 4,472K on my processor, and when I'm not playing games the processor is always under 5%, it's usually 0..

 

[ph1sh55]

ccc may not be the problem for you like it was for me, but driver conflicts very easily could result in poor performance without high cpu utilization.

Get this benchmark software for your card and run the preset tests
http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/

 

[wanderer11]

You have aa on 8x? No wonder. Turn it down.

 

[bdiddytampa]

yeah msaa is a hog, turn that down and try again

 

[neon neophyte]

silly us, we assumed when you were comparing your performance to your friends... that you had the same settings. *eyeroll*