Not Convinced My HD4870 Is Playing Ball

[simon_t]

Hey All,

Hopefully you can help me with a few queries regarding my HD4870- I'm not sure it's playing ball with Windows 7.

I have the most recent drivers from the ATI website which they say are compatible with Windows 7 but I'm finding that I have 100% GPU load when doing what I would consider 'trivial' tasks for the HD4870.

Take the Sims 3 as an example. All the settings are on 'High' and my resolution is 1920x1080. I've gone to create a Sim and just left the game there- it's not doing much- the Sim is standing there waiting for me to edit and that's about it. I quickly switch yo GPU-Z- Apparently my GPU load has been at 100% (at 790/1100) causing my VDDC temperatures to soar t 125-130c.

I have an Acellero Twin Turbo attached to my card and it does a stellar job at cooling the GPU core and the memory but I'm well aware of the shoddyness of the VRAM cooling, which I'm working to resolve ASAP (I will be filing down one of those Zalman heatsinks so it's fits beneath the twin turbo).

But I digress...basically, what I want to know is whether this kind of GPU load is normal? I haven't tested it with any other games because of scared of the VRAM temps while I wait to get them cooled. Are there any known issues with ATI cards and Win7? I'm tempted to downgrade to Vista or even XP if people can provide me with any sort of evidence.

Another quirk I have noticed is with Ableton Live (version 7 and 8) Most people on these forums probably aren't familiar with the software but I thought I would put it out there anyway... essentially, the application is unusable- any instruments or effects running causing the GPU (of all things) to max out at 100% meaning that the application then becomes sluggish and unusable.

Many thanks.

 

[simon_t]

I am failing to see the problem, your gpu is running at full power making full use of it's power and you are unhappy?

It is only a piece of harware, how is it supposed to know when to stop?

Perhaps enabling v-sync will calm it down a little or underclocking your cpu so it receives less frames to process or something.

To my knowledge a gpu does not think and will just process what comes it's way. May be wrong though, never know.

Well I guess what you said may be true, but my understanding is that load is based on what it is being asked to render- seeing as the game is essentially idling, I would have thought GPU load would have dropped as well?

 

[simon_t]

It could just be that instead of having to a few complex things, it is having to do many simple things.

What fps are you actually getting when it is idling as you call it.

I'm not sure to be honest- how would I go about that information?

If that's just what graphics cards do then I'm happy with that- it just fully loaded without anything changing on screen, which I thought to be a little odd.