Why on earth is my 290x running so badly?

[minibrief]

Heyy.
I usaully wouldn't delve onto a PC forum as i'm quite good with hardware and have many friends who can usually solves problems but this one has pushed me too far.
I recently (three days ago) bought a r9 290x to replace my ageing gtx 570 and i was reasonably surprised when my new 'massively' better graphics card got only marginally better fps in most games and even worse in others.

Before you jump to the obvious driver conflict. i made sure that i had removed all of the nvidia drivers before my 290x arrived. i used software (Guru3d's Display Driver Uninstaller) and also manually removed other nvidia related things by following these steps: http://www.overclock.net/t/1150443/how-to-remove-your-nvidia-gpu-drivers i don't know if the drivers are still a problem but i can't commit to formatting my PC quite yet.

Another reason that i've pondered but i see no reason for such a low performance value is my current CPU which happens to be a pentium g3258. i know it's not exactly brilliant and knew it would bottleneck a high end card but i somehow don't think that an average of 25fps on gta V can quite be contributed to my cpu. it's also overclocked at 4.3 ghz using oc genie.

Yet another thing i've tested is the graphics card it's self. my first thought was that the card was faulty so i fired up 3dmark firestrike to see what score my 290x got and it surprised me with quite a good score of 11000 so i've come to the conclussion that my card isn't faulty.

some other quick avg fps in games:
grid autosport :50fps
Dirt rally: 30 fps
War Thunder planes: 70fps tanks :50/60fps
World of tanks: 70fps
Sniper elite nazi zombie army 2: 50/60fps

so what on earth can it be?!?!? all and any suggestions are more them welcome but appreciated as i have ran out of ideas totally. I'll try and provide any other information that i've missed out so feel free to ask me. Thanks peeps!

system specs:
Cpu: intel g3258 (clocked at 4.3ghz)
Motherboard: MSI Z97S SLI Krait edition
Graphics Card: Asus R9 290X DirectCU II
Memory: 2*8gb hyperX fury
PSU: BeQuiet Power Zone 850W
HDD: seagate barricuda 2TB
Monitor: some ancient AOC 1080p thing
Cooling: over kill with a H100 for my cpu and two intake 120mm two outtake 120mm

 

[clutchc]

Yes, it could indeed be the G3258. Unlike its bigger brother the i3, it only can access 2 threads at a time. Greater clock speed can make a difference, but not that much. It was probably already maxed out keeping up with the GTX 570.

To verify, run something like HWinfo in the background while you game or run GAME benchmarks. Then check the CPU usage against the GPU D3D usage. If the CPU is at 100% and the GPU is way below that, you found the problem.

(Don't test the usage with a benchmark like Firestrike. That is designed to max out both the CPU and GPU in separate tests. It will always show near 100% usage)

 

[uglyduckling81]

What resolutions are you running at? Did you upgrade to 4k at the same time? If so that's not low numbers at all.
Oh I just realised your brand of GPU as well. That's a really bad card. Asus took the cooler off the GTX 780 and slapped it onto the 290. It's known to have extremely poor cooling performance as a result. IT runs so hot it can throttle similar to the reference cards.
I avoid Asus products as a rule. They have gone down hill quality wise over the last 5 years or so. Plus dodgy, lazy practices like the 290 cooler debacle.
I would only consider Sapphire for a 290 card. The Tri-x is known to be the best 290 on the market aside from the Vapor-x. The Vapor-x runs too much of a premium though.

 

[minibrief]

Yes, it could indeed be the G3258. Unlike its bigger brother the i3, it only can access 2 threads at a time. Greater clock speed can make a difference, but not that much. It was probably already maxed out keeping up with the GTX 570.

To verify, run something like HWinfo in the background while you game or run GAME benchmarks. Then check the CPU usage against the GPU D3D usage. If the CPU is at 100% and the GPU is way below that, you found the problem.

(Don't test the usage with a benchmark like Firestrike. That is designed to max out both the CPU and GPU in separate tests. It will always show near 100% usage)

I'm going to try this in a few more games but from the ones i've tried so far the CPU usage stays quite low, with the exception of highly mult-threaded games such as GTA which is to be expected. i did however notice large drops in gpu utilization and the fan speed suddenly going to zero. i'm going to use some different software to have a look at this though.

 

[minibrief]

What resolutions are you running at? Did you upgrade to 4k at the same time? If so that's not low numbers at all.
Oh I just realised your brand of GPU as well. That's a really bad card. Asus took the cooler off the GTX 780 and slapped it onto the 290. It's known to have extremely poor cooling performance as a result. IT runs so hot it can throttle similar to the reference cards.
I avoid Asus products as a rule. They have gone down hill quality wise over the last 5 years or so. Plus dodgy, lazy practices like the 290 cooler debacle.
I would only consider Sapphire for a 290 card. The Tri-x is known to be the best 290 on the market aside from the Vapor-x. The Vapor-x runs too much of a premium though.

I'm only running in 1080p at the moment. i was hoping to get an ultra-wide screen soon in the near future to saturate the performance of this card. the temps from this card seem to be okay. i was fully expecting temperatures into the 80s. i would have liked to get one of the other companies cards as my 570 was also a DirectCU II and i didn't get on with the asus tweak software. i quite like the look of the twin frozr cards but the asus cards were selling for £210 in overclockers so i couldn't argue with that.

 

[minibrief]

okay so after some more testing it seems on most games my CPU stays at below 60% usage while my graphics card is gunning it at 100%. this makes no sense whats so ever. do you think i my overclock on my CPU could be causing this? maybe messed with something i shouldn't have...

 

[Vynavill]

From what I've experienced, on the same card and at the same resolution, it's a bit of a weird thing...

I too had fairly underperforming results in most games, and to be honest I actually had a brain fart as well and forgot to switch the card's BIOS to performance mode...
Still, things didn't improve that much after I changed that, and while I liked the card's silence, it kinda struck me as odd how silent it was.

Long story short: fans never went above 50% their max speed, regardless of the card's temperature. GPU-Z reported averagely 80°C core temperatures, and VRM temperatures around 105~110°C; throttling eventually ensued due to these little fellas and things went south...
Set a custom fan profile through MSI Afterburner that goes from 25% to 75%, practically no issues now. Yep, it's slightly noisier, but it keeps under 60~65°C at all times, in both core and VRM temps.

Not saying it's happening the same to you, but it's worth giving it a shot. Nothing too bad in letting the card run a little less hot anyway, as long as you don't keep the fans at 100% at all times 😛

 

[clutchc]

okay so after some more testing it seems on most games my CPU stays at below 60% usage while my graphics card is gunning it at 100%. this makes no sense whats so ever. do you think i my overclock on my CPU could be causing this? maybe messed with something i shouldn't have...

Going from the results with the system in my sig below, I'd say there is something wrong with the card. There's no logical way the R9-290X can be maxed out by a dual core G3258 running at only 60% usage.

Just for comparison, run the Firestrike benchmark and let's see what your scores are and what it shows. I know I said not to use FS for the usage test, but this is for a different test.

 

[minibrief]

okay so after some more testing it seems on most games my CPU stays at below 60% usage while my graphics card is gunning it at 100%. this makes no sense whats so ever. do you think i my overclock on my CPU could be causing this? maybe messed with something i shouldn't have...

Going from the results with the system in my sig below, I'd say there is something wrong with the card. There's no logical way the R9-290X can be maxed out by a dual core G3258 running at only 60% usage.

Just for comparison, run the Firestrike benchmark and let's see what your scores are and what it shows. I know I said not to use FS for the usage test, but this is for a different test.

The results are contradicting themselves now...
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7404745?
My card is actually better then the average 290X. from the looks of this it should be running fine but it just isn't.
I'm tempted to format my PC as it's been quite a while and i have a feeling conflicting drivers are a problem as all of my prior cards have been Nvidia.

 

[minibrief]

can i just add this isn't solved. i accidentally clicked solved....

 

[clutchc]

can i just add this isn't solved. i accidentally clicked solved....

With your permission, I will unselect solved...

 

[minibrief]

That would be excellent. You have my permission!

 

[clutchc]

The results are contradicting themselves now...
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7404745?
My card is actually better then the average 290X. from the looks of this it should be running fine but it just isn't.
I'm tempted to format my PC as it's been quite a while and i have a feeling conflicting drivers are a problem as all of my prior cards have been Nvidia.

I'll say they are. It looks like you have a pretty good balance (much to my surprise).
Here's my score with the R9-290X and a Phenom II X4 965BE @ 4.0 GHz: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/2797001
I figured that would make more sense than posting the rig in my sig.

 

[clutchc]

You should maybe run DDU from safe mode and clean up all Nvidia and AMD drivers. Then run CCleaner and do the clean and registry portions both. When done, install the latest drivers for your card and OS.
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/550192/geforce-drivers/display-driver-uninstaller-ddu-v12-9-3-4-released-06-09-14-/
https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

It might save you from having to do a complete re-install of Win.

 

[minibrief]

You should maybe run DDU from safe mode and clean up all Nvidia and AMD drivers. Then run CCleaner and do the clean and registry portions both. When done, install the latest drivers for your card and OS.
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/550192/geforce-drivers/display-driver-uninstaller-ddu-v12-9-3-4-released-06-09-14-/
https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

It might save you from having to do a complete re-install of Win.

Yeah that's definitely worth a try. I'll leave it for tonight and do it in the morning. at least then if it doesn't work i'll have the rest of the day to get to formating.

 

[minibrief]

From what I've experienced, on the same card and at the same resolution, it's a bit of a weird thing...

I too had fairly underperforming results in most games, and to be honest I actually had a brain fart as well and forgot to switch the card's BIOS to performance mode...
Still, things didn't improve that much after I changed that, and while I liked the card's silence, it kinda struck me as odd how silent it was.

Long story short: fans never went above 50% their max speed, regardless of the card's temperature. GPU-Z reported averagely 80°C core temperatures, and VRM temperatures around 105~110°C; throttling eventually ensued due to these little fellas and things went south...
Set a custom fan profile through MSI Afterburner that goes from 25% to 75%, practically no issues now. Yep, it's slightly noisier, but it keeps under 60~65°C at all times, in both core and VRM temps.

Not saying it's happening the same to you, but it's worth giving it a shot. Nothing too bad in letting the card run a little less hot anyway, as long as you don't keep the fans at 100% at all times 😛

This is probably something i'll do when i'm sure my card is working properly. i'm not comfortable messing something that might be broke. what sort of curve do you have? 60 to 65 would be a god send on this card!

 

[Vynavill]

Actually, I need to correct that 😛 25~75% is a friend's I helped configure, sorry. A little note beforehand tho. Replicating it exactly on your side won't bring the same exact result (ambient temp, internal case temp, airflow, etc...), but it should give your card some more breathing room, thermally speaking.
Mine goes something like this (too lazy to post an image).
[35°C - 30%], [45°C - 35%], [50°C - 45%], [55°C - 55%], [60°C - 65%], [70°C - 80%], [80°C - 85%], [90°C - 90%]

Starts out nice and easy, keeps stuff cool under load and will react accordingly in case of an emergency. Those last 3 points are only in case something is going terribly bad with the system and temps are skyrocketing.
It should, at least, take out of the equation thermal throttling, should it indeed be the issue as in my case.

I'd adivse trying what clutchc said before what I wrote just above, anyway.

 

[minibrief]

Okay problem solved! well ish. i'm getting more respectible frames per second in games now but i'm still going to need a new CPU. see if my budget will stretch to a 2790k or might have a look at the new broadwell processors. Thanks a bunch everyone! now to start trying to cool down this 290x!