XFX 295x2 FPS issues?

[wabbitinspace]

Hello everyone,

I just joined today to ask my first question on here, which will actually be two, i've always used this website to answer most of my questions, but I am a little stomped right now and can't really find anything that works.

So I upgraded from a 7870 myst to XFX 295x a couple of weeks ago, did new install of windows 7 and formatted hard drive.

I installed FFXIV , started up on max settings on 1980x1200 and getting between 20-40 fps in and out of town. Sometimes it would jump to 50, but almost never 60. I'm thinking, this new view card should be able to handle this no problem right? The old video card was getting me like 30 and 40fps so i'm thinking it could be some hardware problem? I dont know too much though.

The other thing is, when i installed the 295x, my memory is no longer able to be in dual channel mode. the sticks were always in slots 2 and 4, and were in dual channel when looking in cpu z, but after switching video cards it showed 16gb installed but 8 gb were hardware reserved. When i switched to slots 1 and 3, same thing. slots 1 and 2, and all 16 are available.

CPU amd 8350 4.1
My mother board is msi 970 gaming
16gb patriot viper 3 1866 2x8
1980x1200 res

From what i have been reading and I have not tried yet(dont have the funds at the moment), i have a 5400 rpm hard drive, and thats it. Could this be causing the fps problems? Or is it the 1980x1200? I switch around on the game to 1680x1050 and 1920x1080, all the same.
Temps are normal and stay around 50-55c

Thanks everyone 😀

let me know if you need any more information from my end

 

[Mr_Venbeer]

What is your CPU? And what temperatures are both the CPU and the graphics card getting while stress testing?

 

[damric]

CPU Bottleneck and your HDD is pitifully slow too. Pretty much opposite of what you need to run that game.

 

[wabbitinspace]

I knew I would forget something,

CPU is amd 8350 4.1

CPU and GPU while testing is gpu 55c and cpu around 65c

 

[Mr_Venbeer]

The sad truth, as damric said, it is a CPU bottleneck. Hard drive doesn't matter, it never affects in game performance. You can overclock your CPU to reduce this bottleneck.

 

[damric]

I knew I would forget something,

CPU is amd 8350 4.1

CPU and GPU while testing is gpu 55c and cpu around 65c

Run the benchmark please.

 

[photonboy]

Some confusion here...

1) While his CPU will bottleneck that video card compared to a good i5 CPU I really don't think this explains the low performance he is getting.

In fact, he's dropping LOWER with the new card at times which can't be explained by a CPU bottleneck since it's the same CPU.

2) HDD slowing game?
NO. This only affects the time to start the game or level (or entering building) initially. From there it's run from the main System and video memory's and processed by the CPU and GPU.

Thus in-game performance is EXACTLY the same between a 5400RPM and an SSD. I've tested this extensively.

3) Troubleshooting:

a) update motherboard BIOS
b) set CPU and DDR3 memory to default values (for now). Can investigate overclock later but for now we want stable.
c) run MEMTEST for a full pass www.memtest.org
d) PSU? (I've heard cases of power throttling.)
e) Drivers (AMD seems to have issues with drivers affecting performance). Remove and reinstall..
f) Reinstall Windows (last resort).

**If you have a SPARE HDD or SSD (60GB or better) then do the following:

1) Run a BENCHMARK utility that supports Crossfire on current setup. Generate a result for SINGLE and DUAL GPU usage.
2) Ensure MEMTEST passed
3) Shut down system and unhook all HDD/SSD's except for the one to install Windows on
4) Install Windows (do NOT Activate it)
5) Install motherboard main CHIPSET driver (may be in a package), audio driver etc.
6) Install latest AMD video driver from AMD site (not sure if Crossfire updates are included or secondary)
7) Run the BENCHMARK again. If results a lot higher you definitely had software issues. (You do for sure since your memory isn't being allocated properly anymore)

Summary:
My main reccomend is I suggest you create a fresh Windows install to test only. Then take the benchmark results and decide how to proceed.

*Use several benchmark utilities with at least two Crossfire compatible. Even the older 3DMark2001 which probably doesn't support Crossfire is useful.

Other:
a) MSCONFIG (System Configuration)
b) Boot-> Advanced options
c) UNCHECK the top two related to CPU and Memory if either is checked, save, then reboot (then see what usable memory is now)

 

[wabbitinspace]

Hey guys, sorry for the long response time. So I did the first thing regarding the CPU overclocking, turned up to 4.5 and only stable settings are with 1.56v for cpu...is that bad? However, FPS has went up a lot, now in town i am getting 45-70 and out of town upwards to between 90-120, so overclocking definitely worked!

 

[Mr_Venbeer]

1.56 volts is definitely something you have to be careful with. I wouldn't go above 1.45 volts on an FX CPU.

 

[damric]

1.56 volts is definitely something you have to be careful with. I wouldn't go above 1.45 volts on an FX CPU.

oops

 

[damric]

1.56 volts is definitely something you have to be careful with. I wouldn't go above 1.45 volts on an FX CPU.

oops

BTW guys, HDD affects game performance in a HUGE way. Have you not played Dragon Age Inquisition? A 5400RPM drive would literally give you hall-hour level loading. Game performance isn't FPS alone.