R9 390 performance

[Mistury]

Hi, I purchased an R9 390 around a month ago and in games like GTAV and Total War: Attila the GPU usage is sitting at a maximum of 60% a lot of the time.

This is not a clockspeed issue nor is it heat related and it is certainly not anything else.

The weird thing is, when I set the MSAA to x8 on both games it magically hits 100% and offers around the same amount of FPS but with MSAA on max...

Is this a driver issue? To be honest I really don't think this should be happening with it. Maybe I should RMA it?

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

Sounds like a CPU bottleneck, what CPU do you have?

 

[frillybob101]

You are cpu bound in those games. Both those games are CPU heavy. MSAA it extremely heavy on the gpu so you go to 100% cpu usage.

What are your specs?

Try decreasing cpu bound settings to increase performance.

 

[Mistury]

I have an i7 3770, it is old but not old enough I don't think. It runs at the boost clock of 3.3.9Ghz. What are the typical CPU bound settings? Thanks.

 

[Groza Adrian]

Unit scale ,field of view etc etc...what temperatures does your cpu reach when gaming?

 

[Forgotten031511]

That's an older 3rd Gen i7 CPU. I would suggest upgrading to 5th or 6th Gen i7 CPU.

Complete system specs would be helpful...

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

That's an older 3rd Gen i7 CPU. I would suggest upgrading to 5th or 6th Gen i7 CPU.

Complete system specs would be helpful...

I don't think that's a good idea
The 3770 will be capable for a few years and a 5th/6th gen will make barely any difference.

 

[Forgotten031511]

I said it was a suggestion and asked for complete system specs.

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

His 3770 would NOT be causing 60% GPU load unless he is playing at lowest settings or something, yes GTA is CPU heavy but it wouldn't cause a MAX of 60% usage and skylake would make about a 5 fps difference, so it wasn't a suggestion that would actually help, at all, the problem lies elsewhere.

OP, how are your temps?

 

[Mistury]

I said it was a suggestion and asked for complete system specs.

i7 3770 @ 3.9ghz
MSI R9 390 @ 1100Mhz - Mem Clock @ 1630Mhz
8gb DDR3 RAM @ 1333.33Mhz (Motherboard supports a max of 1333.33Mhz)
Thermaltake Tough Power 850watts Gold Certified

 

[Mistury]

His 3770 would NOT be causing 60% GPU load unless he is playing at lowest settings or something, yes GTA is CPU heavy but it wouldn't cause a MAX of 60% usage and skylake would make about a 5 fps difference, so it wasn't a suggestion that would actually help, at all, the problem lies elsewhere.

OP, how are your temps?

That's the thing, my temps are completely normal... 60-65 at 60-70% usage.

What I don't understand is my R9 270 was at 100% usage all the time without MSAA having to be maxed out to get 100% usage.

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

I said it was a suggestion and asked for complete system specs.

i7 3770 @ 3.9ghz
MSI R9 390 @ 1100Mhz - Mem Clock @ 1630Mhz
8gb DDR3 RAM @ 1333.33Mhz (Motherboard supports a max of 1333.33Mhz)
Thermaltake Tough Power 850watts Gold Certified

All looks fine to me, have you tried reinstalling/updating your graphics drivers?

 

[Mistury]

I said it was a suggestion and asked for complete system specs.

i7 3770 @ 3.9ghz
MSI R9 390 @ 1100Mhz - Mem Clock @ 1630Mhz
8gb DDR3 RAM @ 1333.33Mhz (Motherboard supports a max of 1333.33Mhz)
Thermaltake Tough Power 850watts Gold Certified

All looks fine to me, have you tried reinstalling/updating your graphics drivers?

Yeah I used DDU and have tried multiple different drivers for it,, though from the 390 benchmarks on GTAV every single one of them dips in performance once there is an abundance of AI present, I'm thinking driver optimisation problem?

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

I said it was a suggestion and asked for complete system specs.

i7 3770 @ 3.9ghz
MSI R9 390 @ 1100Mhz - Mem Clock @ 1630Mhz
8gb DDR3 RAM @ 1333.33Mhz (Motherboard supports a max of 1333.33Mhz)
Thermaltake Tough Power 850watts Gold Certified

All looks fine to me, have you tried reinstalling/updating your graphics drivers?

Yeah I used DDU and have tried multiple different drivers for it,, though from the 390 benchmarks on GTAV every single one of them dips in performance once there is an abundance of AI present, I'm thinking driver optimisation problem?

My fps dips quite a bit when there's lots of AI, I can't remember if it's CPU or GPU bound (probably CPU), try disabling hyperthreading to see if your performance increases, some people do have issues with GTA 5 and hyperthreading.

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

I said it was a suggestion and asked for complete system specs.

i7 3770 @ 3.9ghz
MSI R9 390 @ 1100Mhz - Mem Clock @ 1630Mhz
8gb DDR3 RAM @ 1333.33Mhz (Motherboard supports a max of 1333.33Mhz)
Thermaltake Tough Power 850watts Gold Certified

All looks fine to me, have you tried reinstalling/updating your graphics drivers?

Yeah I used DDU and have tried multiple different drivers for it,, though from the 390 benchmarks on GTAV every single one of them dips in performance once there is an abundance of AI present, I'm thinking driver optimisation problem?

My fps dips quite a bit when there's lots of AI, I can't remember if it's CPU or GPU bound (probably CPU), try disabling hyperthreading to see if your performance increases, some people do have issues with GTA 5 and hyperthreading.

 

[bulletfoss]

My bet is AMD's new drivers - they have been causing clock problems.

Play the game in Windowed mode, if the performance improves when MSAA is off, then you are experiencing the issue.

You can use a program called "CLOCK BLOCKER" which prevents the clock speed dropping off.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/clockblocker-download.html
It worked for my brother, who had the same problem, with the same card.

It's an issue with AMD's power saving drivers, they HAVE acknowleged this on their forums with the response:
"we are aware of the issue and are hoping to resolve this soon"

 

[bulletfoss]

New AMD Drivers came out yesterday, will hopefully fix the issue, version 16.5.2:

Windows 10 (64-Bit): http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+10+-+64
Windows 8.1 (64-Bit): http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+8.1+-+64
Windows 7 (64-Bit): http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+7+-+64

 

[Mistury]

New AMD Drivers came out yesterday, will hopefully fix the issue, version 16.5.2:

Windows 10 (64-Bit): http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+10+-+64
Windows 8.1 (64-Bit): http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+8.1+-+64
Windows 7 (64-Bit): http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+7+-+64

It's still not great, but the GPU usage is way better than a few months ago, must be drivers.