New RX 480 - Low Usage and Performance Issues

[Rezhyn]

Hello,

I recently purchased an ASUS RX 480 OC to replace a old 660ti. The rest of my system is up to spec for this card (see below) but ive had nothing but performance issues with this card. After an entire weekend of troubleshooting I believe my issues are due to the card not staying at high usage as seen from MSI Afterburner. When I watch benchmark videos or normal gameplay the persons usage stays at 99 to 100% however mine will frequently drop to basically any number whenever it wants. Now I dont exactly see immediate frame drop when the GPU usage drops, but if something happens on my screen like a gunfight or loading parts of the map my FPS will plummet to sometimes 25.

In general I feel my performance is lackluster - near matching my 660ti besides the hard frame drops. CSGO can sometimes go sub 100fps and H1Z1 on same settings as my 660ti can perform worse. If I benchmark on 3D Mark my GPU never drops below 98% usage and the setup scores around 4000 (healthy). Benchmarking on Wildlands I average around 98% GPU usage yet in game dont stay close to that, but the benchmarking results are pretty good.

My PSU is pretty new, my CPU is pretty strong (even tried OC), and 16GB RAM has to be enough. The GPU and CPU temps never go above 70, and my CPU has healthy usage (70-99%). GPU fans work normally. I really need some help figuring out this card and sending it back and purchasing a 1060 if need be.

Things ive tried:

- Reseating the card
- Using different HDMI port
- Overclocking/Underclocking on CPU/GPU
- Disabling power efficiency, setting high performance, maxing power output in Wattman
- Disable ULPS
- Updating motherboard BIOS
- Fresh installing windows/cleaning drives (3 times)
- Tried 10 different sets of drivers, ranging from very old to newest and default Windows ones (used DDU)
- Vsync on and off/different graphical settings
- CPU Core Unparking
- Disabling ReLive and Xbox DVR
- Killing processes of AMD in task manager
- Maxing fan usage and temps to try to stop throttling
- SSD and HDD (both functioning healthy)
- Disabling all background processes

My setup:

- ASUS RX 480 OC - Dual fans
- i5-4690k @ 4Ghz
- 16GB DDR3 RAM
- Z97 PC Mate Motherboard
- EVGA Bronze 600W PSU
- NXZT S340 Case with 3 fans
- Samsung LED 1080p@60hz monitor
- 2x 128GB SSD and 1 500GB HDD

 

[Iceman21]

So you have problem only in CS go ? Have you tried another game?

 

[rgd1101]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from Rezhyn : "New RX 480 - tons of issues"

Always been an Nvidia fanboy, but decided to give the RX 480 and AMD a shot...I regret it so much.

I uninstalled all drivers from Nvidia and installed the card, then went to the newest drivers (1.7.3). After launching a few games I noticed terrible performance and tried a few methods of fixing this including reinstalling the card, fresh wipe on drivers, and playing with WattMan settings (like turning off power efficiency and maxing out power control). Im talking lowest settings 50fps, and CSGO could barely hold 120 and had horrific screen tearing and glitching. After wasting my entire Friday night I just had my computer do a complete wipe and reinstall Windows before bed.

Day 2: Launch PC, install games, and Windows installed default drivers (1.6 or something). I noticed I could now change my saturation (silly I cant on newest drivers...) and noticed a huge increase in performance. I was maxing out games left and right, no issues with CSGO, all is good. Well I decide to update to newest drivers now to see if they're the issue and to get ReLive software + Wildlands optimization updates and look at that - horrible performance.

I now do a fresh installation of 1.7.3 drivers through the savable .exe and still have the issue - horrible performance and screen tearing. I ran MSI Afterburner in CSGO and my GPU is fluctuating everywhere between 20-80%.

After installing older drivers and playing The Division I notice I get super smooth crisp FPS doing a typical PVE mission or wandering around, but as soon as action comes around like in PVP my frames will drop and stutter to 30fps at some moments - something my older half as powerful card never did. Its like the GPU isnt running at max power like it should be (Radeon Chill has always been off).

Never had these problems on a weaker Nvidia card...please change my opinion on AMD. I dont see other RX 480 users having issues on these drivers.

Specs:
i5-4690k @ 4ghz
16GB RAM
Z97 PC Mate Motherboard
EVGA 600W PSU
I have the ASUS Edition of the 480 with two fans

 

[Rezhyn]

So you have problem only in CS go ? Have you tried another game?

Ive tried CSGO, Division, Wildlands, H1Z1, DayZ, and the Forest. Lackluster performance in all.

 

[Iceman21]

Monitor the cpu usage during gaming.

Check pci-e connectors (or try another if possible).

 

[Rezhyn]

Monitor the cpu usage during gaming.

Check pci-e connectors (or try another if possible).

The CPU usage is always healthy, sits around 70 to 95% or so. All cores sit around the same usage as well, and the temp sits at 65 to 75c. Ill try placing the card in the bottom PCI E slot.