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]

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.

Let it run for an hour or so and see if it crashes or starts to artifact.
Are you getting a reasonable FPS?

 

[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.

Let it run for an hour or so and see if it crashes or starts to artifact.
Are you getting a reasonable FPS?

Yes.

By the way, after updating MSI Afterburner, FPS drops in Crysis 3 are gone. But FPS is still low. I get 30-40 FPS with everything on Very High and 4x MSAA.

Something occured to me, my PSU is a little bit old - about 3 years. Could that be somehow responsible?

EDIT: I checked this review and set my game according to the test settings here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290x-hawaii-review,3650-14.html
So with HIGH preset and FXAA I get the same average 60 FPS~ish but I don't know what's going on with unigine heaven. CPU maybe?

 

[Alec Mowat]

Maybe that's just the limit?

I'm thinking that CPU only get 60 FPS on Very High according to these benchmarks, with a GTX 680
http://www.techspot.com/review/642-crysis-3-performance/page6.html

 

[furkandeger]

Maybe that's just the limit?

I'm thinking that CPU only get 60 FPS on Very High according to these benchmarks, with a GTX 680
http://www.techspot.com/review/642-crysis-3-performance/page6.html

For Crysis 3 it makes sense, but I don't get Unigine; AFAIK it's not a CPU bound test and there shouldn't be that much difference between reviews or results people report. For example a guy with an FX8350 with R9 290 gets 1500+ with the extreme preset in Unigine while with a more powerful card I only get 1038 points. Something's not right I don't know why. Temperatures seem right, GPU load i %100, CPU load about %25 so I don't know what's the case here. I thought it could be drivers but I already refreshed them...

 

[furkandeger]

Maybe that's just the limit?

I'm thinking that CPU only get 60 FPS on Very High according to these benchmarks, with a GTX 680
http://www.techspot.com/review/642-crysis-3-performance/page6.html

For Crysis 3 it makes sense, but I don't get Unigine; AFAIK it's not a CPU bound test and there shouldn't be that much difference between reviews or results people report. For example a guy with an FX8350 with R9 290 gets 1500+ with the extreme preset in Unigine while with a more powerful card I only get 1038 points. Something's not right I don't know why. Temperatures seem right, GPU load i %100, CPU load about %25 so I don't know what's the case here. I thought it could be drivers but I already refreshed them...

 

[Memento Mori]

Hi was reading your post and i had the same card just the 290x asus direct cu oc version!
Valley was giving me like 1200 score while the 780 gives me like 1400 something!
Really dont know what is happening and had the same problem just that i sold the card!
I find myself regreting it a bit now if that was a problem that could be fixed!
Try the o/c with your cpu though and try to lower your memory clock a bit and oc the core!
Maybe that helps!
To be honest at gaming i didnt saw any major disadvantages!

 

[furkandeger]

Hi was reading your post and i had the same card just the 290x asus direct cu oc version!
Valley was giving me like 1200 score while the 780 gives me like 1400 something!
Really dont know what is happening and had the same problem just that i sold the card!
I find myself regreting it a bit now if that was a problem that could be fixed!
Try the o/c with your cpu though and try to lower your memory clock a bit and oc the core!
Maybe that helps!
To be honest at gaming i didnt saw any major disadvantages!

I suspect my PSU although there is not any value to indicate it's the problem... I don't know, everything looks perfect in stress tests; Crysis 3 started to act normal; but Unigine... I don't know maybe I am just overreacting.

Anyway, I will try a clean Windows installation in the upcoming days and post the results here.

 

[Memento Mori]

psu isnt an issue!
i have an antec 1000watt that was more than enough!
didnt reinstall windows though!
try that and tell us what you achieved please!

 

[furkandeger]

I think I might have found the culprit! I am not so sure but after running OCCT's Power Supply stress test, I saw my CPU was downclocking itself.

Here are the tables:

http://puu.sh/9PjCe/edc7437366.png

http://puu.sh/9PjDP/9477fd055c.png

http://puu.sh/9PjEI/2f00722c27.png

So, this is overheating I guess?

 

[Alec Mowat]

Hi was reading your post and i had the same card just the 290x asus direct cu oc version!
Valley was giving me like 1200 score while the 780 gives me like 1400 something!
Really dont know what is happening and had the same problem just that i sold the card!
I find myself regreting it a bit now if that was a problem that could be fixed!
Try the o/c with your cpu though and try to lower your memory clock a bit and oc the core!
Maybe that helps!
To be honest at gaming i didnt saw any major disadvantages!

I suspect my PSU although there is not any value to indicate it's the problem... I don't know, everything looks perfect in stress tests; Crysis 3 started to act normal; but Unigine... I don't know maybe I am just overreacting.

Anyway, I will try a clean Windows installation in the upcoming days and post the results here.

PSU would cause a shutdown or driver failure, not lower benchmarks.

 

[furkandeger]

Hi was reading your post and i had the same card just the 290x asus direct cu oc version!
Valley was giving me like 1200 score while the 780 gives me like 1400 something!
Really dont know what is happening and had the same problem just that i sold the card!
I find myself regreting it a bit now if that was a problem that could be fixed!
Try the o/c with your cpu though and try to lower your memory clock a bit and oc the core!
Maybe that helps!
To be honest at gaming i didnt saw any major disadvantages!

I suspect my PSU although there is not any value to indicate it's the problem... I don't know, everything looks perfect in stress tests; Crysis 3 started to act normal; but Unigine... I don't know maybe I am just overreacting.

Anyway, I will try a clean Windows installation in the upcoming days and post the results here.

PSU would cause a shutdown or driver failure, not lower benchmarks.

So what do you think of the OCCT test?

ALSO, I noticed that my fps doesn't change when I lower or disable anti-aliasing in Crysis 3. Feels like bottleneck but CPU usage is only %25.

 

[furkandeger]

Here is my 3D Mark 11 score, do you think it's normal?

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/8475748

 

[maxalge]

Here is my 3D Mark 11 score, do you think it's normal?

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/8475748

My rig gets better scores. >.>

Uber mode 290x should be getting graphics scores in the high ~14,000's to ~15,000's.

Your cpu scores are about right for stock.


Try overclocking your cpu to 4.5ghz and run the test again.

 

[furkandeger]

Here is my 3D Mark 11 score, do you think it's normal?

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/8475748

My rig gets better scores. >.>

Uber mode 290x should be getting graphics scores in the high ~14,000's to ~15,000's.

Your cpu scores are about right for stock.

When I did this benchmark, the card was on quiet mode with 40% fan speed. I will try with uber without the fan speed limit.

 

[furkandeger]

Hi was reading your post and i had the same card just the 290x asus direct cu oc version!
Valley was giving me like 1200 score while the 780 gives me like 1400 something!
Really dont know what is happening and had the same problem just that i sold the card!
I find myself regreting it a bit now if that was a problem that could be fixed!
Try the o/c with your cpu though and try to lower your memory clock a bit and oc the core!
Maybe that helps!
To be honest at gaming i didnt saw any major disadvantages!

I fixed it!

Looks like it was a driver issue after all! Here's what I've done so far:

I was on uber mode and switched to quiet mode. Noticed the temps are still the same and fan speed was going as high as 67%-75%. It felt weird, I didn't care though, thought it was some kind of driver "feature". To get the fan work at 40% (which is what should be) I enabled AMD OverDrive through CCC and put a speed limit to fan at 40%. After @maxalge indicated I should get higher scores with r9 290x on uber mode (I was on quiet with 40% fan speed), I thought I should try with uber once again and post. So I shut down the PC, switched to uber mode and booted it up. Tried the unigine heaven first, voila, I was not gettin 30 fps at the opening scene but 40! Then I checked CCC and the result was this:

http://puu.sh/9RjI7/82be7ad52c.png

There was no "Target GPU Temperature" line before. I think without the AMD OverDrive enabled, that setting was something like "auto" and it was keeping it around 75 degrees (notice that in the op, I have 75 degrees on uber mode) so the card was not running full. But now that the AMD OverDrive enabled, I unintentionally bypassed this "auto" target temp and fixed it on 95 degrees, causing the card to run at full potential.

So if anyone is actually having a similar issue, they should enable overdrive and keep these settings identical!


I can now get the similar results as in reviews with my card! Thank you for all you people for your help!