R9 290X underperforming ???

[furkandeger]

Hi, first of all, here is my setup:

AMD FX 8350 @Stock
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 CPU Cooler
ASUS M5A99X EVO R2.0
KINGSTON HYPERX 4 X 2GB CL9 1600MHZ
SAPPHIRE R9 290X BF4 EDITION
HIGH POWER PERFORMANCE 600W
CORSAIR 400R
Windows 8.1 Pro x64

Here is the problem, i see people get abot 50 FPS or ~1500Points from the Extreme preset of Unigine Heaven benchmark, but I only get ~1000 points and about 40 FPS. In addition to that, I am at 30-40 FPS in Crysis 3 Very High 4x MSAA and I experience some fps drops especially in Crysis 3 to about 20 FPS even in High preset (which should normally give a stable 60-70 FPS).

Here are some screenshots after 10 minutes of Crysis 3 gameplay:

http://puu.sh/9OcFE/7aed394972.png

And this is CPU usage (not of all 8 threads but they are all the same):

http://puu.sh/9OcGv/e48d75818c.png

And this is GPU usage after a couple of minutes of Unigine Heaven 4.0:

http://puu.sh/9OdbP/c9ef717dfe.png

What could my problem be? I think I cannot get the most out of my 290X.

BTW, I already tried reinstalling drivers, fresh install etc.

 

[Alec Mowat]

Open the task manager when the game is open and see how much RAM the system is using.

Also, make sure all the RAM is installed and usable in Windows. You can see that from System in the control panel.

 

[furkandeger]

Open the task manager when the game is open and see how much RAM the system is using.

Also, make sure all the RAM is installed and usable in Windows. You can see that from System in the control panel.

I can see in MSI Afterburner that RAM usage has reached 4366 MB at max. Also 8 GB is available to be used.

 

[Alec Mowat]

Open the task manager when the game is open and see how much RAM the system is using.

Also, make sure all the RAM is installed and usable in Windows. You can see that from System in the control panel.

I can see in MSI Afterburner that RAM usage has reached 4366 MB at max. Also 8 GB is available to be used.

What kind of videocard did you upgrade from?

I recommend completely gutting all of your drivers, delete the directories they installed from, download the latest beta drivers from AMD's site and reinstall and reboot.

 

[furkandeger]

Open the task manager when the game is open and see how much RAM the system is using.

Also, make sure all the RAM is installed and usable in Windows. You can see that from System in the control panel.

I can see in MSI Afterburner that RAM usage has reached 4366 MB at max. Also 8 GB is available to be used.

What kind of videocard did you upgrade from?

I recommend completely gutting all of your drivers, delete the directories they installed from, download the latest beta drivers from AMD's site and reinstall and reboot.

I upgraded from GTX 460. But I already did what you said. I used Display Driver Uninstaller to sweep all Nvidia and AMD drivers in safe mode and installed 14.4 driver.

 

[Alec Mowat]

Is this card new or used?

 

[crisan_tiberiu]

The 8350 its a very good overclocker, try to push it a bit higher and see what happens. The first thing that crossed my mind was GPU temp, but its not even close to 80degrees (no0t to mention the 95 degrees design). And i am not sure, but i guess everyone else when they benchamrk and show scores i believe they use their 290x's in "Uber" mode ^^, maybe yours is set to quiet mode.

Edit. Your card is designed to run @ 95 degrees on the stock cooler (witch you have). I can see that yours runs @ arround 70-75 degrees. Maybe you have a lower target temp set in the drivers and that causes you lower performance to maintain the target temperature.

 

[furkandeger]

Is this card new or used?

It is used.

 

[furkandeger]

The 8350 its a very good overclocker, try to push it a bit higher and see what happens. The first thing that crossed my mind was GPU temp, but its not even close to 80degrees (no0t to mention the 95 degrees design). And i am not sure, but i guess everyone else when they benchamrk and show scores i believe they use their 290x's in "Uber" mode ^^, maybe yours is set to quiet mode.

Actually it finds about 95 degrees in quiet mode, it is about 75 because it is already in uber. I didn't try to push the 8350 but stock speeds should also be fine for a stable FPS right?

Just saw your edit, as I already mentioned, in uber mode fan runs about 65% so it gets about 75 degrees, in quiet mode fan runs at about 40% hence 95 degrees.

 

[Alec Mowat]

Is this card new or used?

It is used.

Was it used for Bitcoin mining?

I have a feeling the card isn't running 100%, that's why it was sold.

You should consider a good RAM test. I would recommend memtestCL
https://folding.stanford.edu/home/download-utilities/

It's command line based, so it's a bit tricky to use.

 

[furkandeger]

Is this card new or used?

It is used.

Was it used for Bitcoin mining?

I have a feeling the card isn't running 100%, that's why it was sold.

You should consider a good RAM test. I would recommend memtestCL
https://folding.stanford.edu/home/download-utilities/

It's command line based, so it's a bit tricky to use.

I've just run memtestCL on default here is the result:

http://puu.sh/9OgxP/6c271c7e7b.png

 

[Alec Mowat]

Bad RAM.
You are only testing 128 MB of RAM, assuming it has 2 GB at least, and it's already finding 40k errors.
The card is bad.

 

[furkandeger]

Bad RAM.
You are only testing 128 MB of RAM, assuming it has 2 GB at least, and it's already finding 40k errors.
The card is bad.

It has 4 GB, but seems like it is indeed faulty. Warranty will cover it right?

 

[Alec Mowat]

Bad RAM.
You are only testing 128 MB of RAM, assuming it has 2 GB at least, and it's already finding 40k errors.
The card is bad.

It has 4 GB, but seems like it is indeed faulty. Warranty will cover it right?

Used card?
Do you have the original receipt?
Is it damaged from overclocking or just faulty?

It might, but it could be trouble getting an RMA for a used card, especially if bad overclocking caused the issue. Doesn't hurt to try.

 

[furkandeger]

Bad RAM.
You are only testing 128 MB of RAM, assuming it has 2 GB at least, and it's already finding 40k errors.
The card is bad.

It has 4 GB, but seems like it is indeed faulty. Warranty will cover it right?

Used card?
Do you have the original receipt?
Is it damaged from overclocking or just faulty?

It might, but it could be trouble getting an RMA for a used card, especially if bad overclocking caused the issue. Doesn't hurt to try.

I have the receipt. They don't have to know it is used, right? Is there a way they could understand if there was bad overclock?

 

[Alec Mowat]

They most likely won't be bothered to check, unless something on the board is obviously burnt. I would get it RMA'd.

 

[furkandeger]

BTW, I read somewhere memtestCL has a bug and it falsely reports errors on random blocks with GCN cards.

http://devgurus.amd.com/thread/159124

http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/755418-compiling-fixed-version-memtestcl.html

Could that be the case here? Seeing the link you gave me is dated 2010, I think there's a possibility of this. Are there any other tools to test VRAM?

 

[Alec Mowat]

BTW, I read somewhere memtestCL has a bug and it falsely reports errors on random blocks with GCN cards.

http://devgurus.amd.com/thread/159124

http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/755418-compiling-fixed-version-memtestcl.html

Could that be the case here? Seeing the link you gave me is dated 2010, I think there's a possibility of this. Are there any other tools to test VRAM?

I don't think so, they are reporting ~500 errors, you are getting 45K.

I also checked the forums for the Folding site, and there does not seem to be any similar issues posted. Anyone who had a bad score in memtestCL also failed to fold.
https://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=24884&p=248533&hilit=memtest#p248533

My guess is that the card was used for bitcoin mining and started to fail, which is why he sold it. I can say from experience (after Overbaking a fried 8800GT) that those errors are generally legit.

 

[crisan_tiberiu]

I dont think that bad ram can cause lower performance... usualy its BSOD or i dont think the PC will boot with tose kinds of errors, (heavely damaged vram etc))^^. You can also check in MSI Afterburner Vram Usage to see if all the ram is used (or arround 1,5 - 2 GB while gaming, unless you are on 4K).
Also, i wont make any conclusion untill you do a fresh install of Windows, update your MB BIOS, latest MB and GPU drivers and give it another try.

 

[furkandeger]

BTW, I read somewhere memtestCL has a bug and it falsely reports errors on random blocks with GCN cards.

http://devgurus.amd.com/thread/159124

http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/755418-compiling-fixed-version-memtestcl.html

Could that be the case here? Seeing the link you gave me is dated 2010, I think there's a possibility of this. Are there any other tools to test VRAM?

I don't think so, they are reporting ~500 errors, you are getting 45K.

I also checked the forums for the Folding site, and there does not seem to be any similar issues posted. Anyone who had a bad score in memtestCL also failed to fold.
https://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=24884&p=248533&hilit=memtest#p248533

My guess is that the card was used for bitcoin mining and started to fail, which is why he sold it. I can say from experience (after Overbaking a fried 8800GT) that those errors are generally legit.

What you say makes sense but I guess it's hard to accept the bitter truth. Still, I would like to test with other tools as well just to be sure. I ran OCCT with error checking for a couple of minutes and It found no errors.

 

[Alec Mowat]

Use the MSI burntest that comes with MSI Afterburner

 

[crisan_tiberiu]

i just downloaded memtestCL and runned it on my Radeon 7850, and, i reached 39k errors, so its definatly bugged, so i wont relly on it ^^

 

[furkandeger]

i just downloaded memtestCL and runned it on my Radeon 7850, and, i reached 39k errors, so its definatly bugged, so i wont relly on it ^^

Wooow that's such a relief!! Thank you for that.

I will try the burn test and report.

 

[Alec Mowat]

i just downloaded memtestCL and runned it on my Radeon 7850, and, i reached 39k errors, so its definatly bugged, so i wont relly on it ^^

Wooow that's such a relief!! Thank you for that.

I will try the burn test and report.

That is good, but we need someone with the same card to confirm with certainty. It also stats on the site that factory OC cards will give faulty results (which is his).

 

[furkandeger]

i just downloaded memtestCL and runned it on my Radeon 7850, and, i reached 39k errors, so its definatly bugged, so i wont relly on it ^^

Wooow that's such a relief!! Thank you for that.

I will try the burn test and report.

That is good, but we need someone with the same card to confirm with certainty. It also stats on the site that factory OC cards will give faulty results (which is his).

I tried furmark and no problems with it as well.