[SOLVED] XFX Radeon R9 290x 8GB Stock to Overclock

Kultivater

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I have some years of experience in overclocking various processing units, however, I'm at a bit of a wall with this one, so I'm looking to get some fresh minds looking at it. I'm looking to overclock my GPU, and just for reference, I've extensively looked at the accomplishments others have made with the same card. They vary a bit of course, based on PSU/cooling/etc, but from what I can tell, even with the stock double dissipation, one should easily be able to achieve 1100MHz+ with this card. Here are the specs for my card(you'll have trouble finding it in google, because apparently my version of this card is rare. Mostly you'll only ever find the 4GB XFX version, whose memory clock is 1250MHz, whereas mine is not):

Base core clock: 1000MHz
Memory clock: 1375MHz
8GB GDDR5
Dual 85mm fans(double dissipation)

I've been able to increase the clock speed to 1070 with stability, but anything further than that causes the driver to crash. I noted something in the settings though: The stock voltage is set at 1225mV, which, to me, seems very high for a 1000MHz base clock. I've lowered it here and there, though it does little to remedy the problem.

I recently rebuilt this GPU, installing new fans and reapplying thermal grease. The XFX versions of this card are designed to run at 95C at full load. After the rebuild, the average temperatures reduced 10+ degrees. The only thing that brings it to full temperature now is VR. That said, I believe the rebuild improved the cooling system sufficiently to easily accommodate an 1100MHz OC. Anyone have any ideas as to why it's not working? I've lowered the voltage in 10mV increments all the way down to 1075mV, and I've increased the power limit to full. I'm not sure what the issue is.
 
Solution
Indeed you are sadly correct. I hadn't thought about it from that perspective really, because of how well it still runs. I've been looking at the 5000 and 6000 series RX cards, trying to decide if I think shelling out over a grand is the right decision. I'm rather new to VR, so I'm not sure what a feasible set of GPU specs would look like for it. I can only judge based on my card's performance, which I'd call mid level. It lags pretty bad in Blade and Sorcery when there's more than one combatant(not so much when I lower the settings), though it's my understanding that that game is one of the more graphically intensive of the VR world, so perhaps that doesn't speak so badly of my card. I also don't wanna skimp on the money and get a...

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
The first thing that popped up in my head when I read R9 290x is, how is that card yet alive? People who did own that card, apparently either retired it or they just died. The GPU in question is a hot headed chip and when you couple it with an overclock and pair it with todays tasks in 2021, that just adds more stress to the GPU's architecture. Same story for an Intel COre 2Quad processor, the clocks can be bumped up, you can try and use exotic cooling but the architecture shows it's age with concurrent app's tasks.

Then is the overclock, high voltages can and will degrade the internals of the chip, so no matter how cool you keep it, there's a chance that the GPU you have has already been degraded to the point where it needs more power to sustain the same overclock/or clocks, per se.
 
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Kultivater

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I suppose that's possible.

Firstly, an answer to your question: It's actually a good card. The original AMD R9 290x was released in mid 2013. The 8GB XFX version, which is quite a bit more powerful than the original, was released a little over a year later, so my card is roughly 6.5 years old. Not ancient, though definitely not new. Believe it or not, it competes with, and even sometimes outperforms, cards like the RX 580. All in all, this is a very solid card for its time, which is part of the reason I still have it. When I first got it, I bought it for $85 off of a 65 year old tech guy who I guess didn't want to deal with the failing fan it had when I bought it. I checked the card out for integrity and performance, and found that it hadn't been damaged yet from the lack of cooling(probably because the guy never used it heavily once the fan started to fail). That's why I rebuilt it. After the rebuild, it runs like a brand new card.

The other part of the reason I still use it is because it's a $600 card, and cards that clearly outperform it are very expensive. This card runs VR decently well, even with its age, so I'm rather satisfied with it, for now. I'm just looking to milk a little extra performance out of it, if I can. The memory clock it has beats that of the RX Vega 56 card, which is well beyond its generation, by almost 600 MHz, and with a simple 150MHz overclock, it would be on par with the Vega 56's core clock as well. All in all, this is a badass card, and I got it for a badass price.

If it turns out that I simply can't overclock it because of its age, so be it. Eventually I'll fork over the cash for an upgrade. I'm just going to cry when I do, because I truly love this card, even if it is a glutton for wattage.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
Honestly, I would absolutely avoid further overclocking this. R9 290x GPUs still in service are actually fairly rare. It is a good card from a performance standpoint, which is a reason to be happy with it. But trying to squeeze more out of a very hot, power-hungry card this old is just begging for some acrid magic smoke. That it costs so much now to replace the GPU is just an additional reason to not overclock it. It's one thing to try to wring out an additional 5% of performance when a replacement card can be found new for $150 and very much another when a replacement card can be found used for $500 (which is what used RX 580s are actually selling for right now). This is just not a good idea.
 

Kultivater

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Aug 30, 2020
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Honestly, I would absolutely avoid further overclocking this. R9 290x GPUs still in service are actually fairly rare. It is a good card from a performance standpoint, which is a reason to be happy with it. But trying to squeeze more out of a very hot, power-hungry card this old is just begging for some acrid magic smoke. That it costs so much now to replace the GPU is just an additional reason to not overclock it. It's one thing to try to wring out an additional 5% of performance when a replacement card can be found new for $150 and very much another when a replacement card can be found used for $500 (which is what used RX 580s are actually selling for right now). This is just not a good idea.

Indeed you are sadly correct. I hadn't thought about it from that perspective really, because of how well it still runs. I've been looking at the 5000 and 6000 series RX cards, trying to decide if I think shelling out over a grand is the right decision. I'm rather new to VR, so I'm not sure what a feasible set of GPU specs would look like for it. I can only judge based on my card's performance, which I'd call mid level. It lags pretty bad in Blade and Sorcery when there's more than one combatant(not so much when I lower the settings), though it's my understanding that that game is one of the more graphically intensive of the VR world, so perhaps that doesn't speak so badly of my card. I also don't wanna skimp on the money and get a card I'll end up replacing within a year or two, because getting full price on the resale is always unlikely. Unfortunately, as I said, cards that clearly outperform mine are very expensive. The RX 580, as you said, is $500+, and it barely outperforms my card(sometimes underperforms). Ironically it's cheaper than my card lol. I'm guessing if I want a true jump in performance ability, I'll be looking at a minimum of $800. Or do any of you have any suggestions? I run a full AMD setup, so I'm not all that interested in Nvidia(never been a huge fan of them or Intel, though I dislike Intel far more than Nvidia). My rig:

Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0 (AM3+)
AMD FX-8350 Black Edition (octa-core, 4336MHz factory OC, Coolermaster fan/heatsink)
16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 24000MHz RAM
XFX Radeon R9 290x 8GB
750W PSU
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
Indeed you are sadly correct. I hadn't thought about it from that perspective really, because of how well it still runs. I've been looking at the 5000 and 6000 series RX cards, trying to decide if I think shelling out over a grand is the right decision. I'm rather new to VR, so I'm not sure what a feasible set of GPU specs would look like for it. I can only judge based on my card's performance, which I'd call mid level. It lags pretty bad in Blade and Sorcery when there's more than one combatant(not so much when I lower the settings), though it's my understanding that that game is one of the more graphically intensive of the VR world, so perhaps that doesn't speak so badly of my card. I also don't wanna skimp on the money and get a card I'll end up replacing within a year or two, because getting full price on the resale is always unlikely. Unfortunately, as I said, cards that clearly outperform mine are very expensive. The RX 580, as you said, is $500+, and it barely outperforms my card(sometimes underperforms). Ironically it's cheaper than my card lol. I'm guessing if I want a true jump in performance ability, I'll be looking at a minimum of $800. Or do any of you have any suggestions? I run a full AMD setup, so I'm not all that interested in Nvidia(never been a huge fan of them or Intel, though I dislike Intel far more than Nvidia). My rig:

Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0 (AM3+)
AMD FX-8350 Black Edition (octa-core, 4336MHz factory OC, Coolermaster fan/heatsink)
16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 24000MHz RAM
XFX Radeon R9 290x 8GB
750W PSU

Honestly, what's holding you back is more likely the old AM3+ platform than the GPU. You're past the point of diminishing returns given the CPU, so even if there was a good case for overclocking the 290X further, you'd have a really hard time actually seeing much of a benefit. AMD gambled back in 2011 that slow cores of lots of threads would be effective, but they lost on that bet; while cores are more scalable these days, the games that do that well tend to want fast cores, so AM3+ aged extremely poorly in gaming. The result was that AM3+ CPUs were basically obsolete in the context of gaming PCs by 2014/2015 or so. An Athlon 3000G will actually outperform an FX-8350 in gaming unless having eight threads is really important.

At this point, you'd actually see more of a gaming benefit from a modern platform using a 290X than a new GPU or overclocked 290X using any AM3+ chip. And the good news is that's a more achievable goal in this market than a new GPU. Landing a 5900X or 5950X is still tricky -- and the value proposition might not even be there unless you do lots of other stuff besides gaming -- but it's getting fairly simple to get a 5600X or 5800X, both of which will murderize your 8350. While I got my 5900X and 3080 at MSRP, it took a month of having an extra laptop on Falcodrin's Twitch stream and jumping quickly at every drop alert. Then, ride your Zen 3 CPU until the GPU market opens up a bit and retire your 290X at that point.

I'd still avoid overclocking the GPU, though; this is a bad time to stress out old parts.
 
Solution

Kultivater

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Aug 30, 2020
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Honestly, what's holding you back is more likely the old AM3+ platform than the GPU. You're past the point of diminishing returns given the CPU, so even if there was a good case for overclocking the 290X further, you'd have a really hard time actually seeing much of a benefit. AMD gambled back in 2011 that slow cores of lots of threads would be effective, but they lost on that bet; while cores are more scalable these days, the games that do that well tend to want fast cores, so AM3+ aged extremely poorly in gaming. The result was that AM3+ CPUs were basically obsolete in the context of gaming PCs by 2014/2015 or so. An Athlon 3000G will actually outperform an FX-8350 in gaming unless having eight threads is really important.

At this point, you'd actually see more of a gaming benefit from a modern platform using a 290X than a new GPU or overclocked 290X using any AM3+ chip. And the good news is that's a more achievable goal in this market than a new GPU. Landing a 5900X or 5950X is still tricky -- and the value proposition might not even be there unless you do lots of other stuff besides gaming -- but it's getting fairly simple to get a 5600X or 5800X, both of which will murderize your 8350. While I got my 5900X and 3080 at MSRP, it took a month of having an extra laptop on Falcodrin's Twitch stream and jumping quickly at every drop alert. Then, ride your Zen 3 CPU until the GPU market opens up a bit and retire your 290X at that point.

I'd still avoid overclocking the GPU, though; this is a bad time to stress out old parts.
Interesting thoughts. Honestly I just upgraded to this mobo and CPU from an old MSI LGA1150 with an i5-4570(I got the board and CPU together for only $190). Since then, all of my games(non-VR) have been running very well (including games like Battlefield V at full graphics). This is the second time I've had a rig with an FX-8350 in it, and each time it has done very well for gaming. From what I can tell, VR notwithstanding, I can run at least 90% of the games on the market currently, most of which I can run at full graphics(1080p) with 45fps or more, and that's with my current GPU. I'm sure AM4 board and an octa-deca Ryzen chip would decimate all, but I'm not convinced that I need that to run VR decently. As I said, the rig I have works very well. You make it sound like it's something that could barely run anything from the last couple years, which simply isn't true, from my experience. In time, I'll definitely upgrade it all, but from what I can tell, the GPU is the biggest factor in one's ability to run VR effectively, which leads me to believe that a higher end GPU would xaus my rig to do just fine. Perhaps not 60+ fps at full graphics in all VR games, but a playable framerate at the least. I make pretty good money, but I don't make enough to throw $2000+ into my machine that quickly. Baby steps. Right now, my biggest needs are a more powerful PSU, and more capable GPU.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
Gonna have to disagree strongly with you. The FX-8350 loses in gaming benchmarks to even Skylake-era i3s and Pentiums. The cores are painfully slow and the basic fact is you literally lost something like 40% of per-core performance from a 4590. If you're getting more FPS now, then something was wrong in your build previously; it wasn't a problem of hardware choice.

Steve Burke ran some number on them fairly recently. The 8350 even struggled to regularly beat by any margin the G5500, a $75 GPU from 2018. We're talking some 50 fps from midrange first-generation Ryzens over an 8350 in a lot of games.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_Gcg-tFfu0


Something with an RX 580-level GPU should be doing a lot better than the framerates you present. A better GPU is just going to be wasted.

In the end, though, it's your money to spend wisely or not wisely, so all I can do is wish you luck. In the end, if you want to spend $2000 to put a GPU into a disappointing 2012 platform for little benefit, you're the one with skin in the game.
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
Let me preface by saying its good to see someone reusing older hardware and enjoying it. It clearly works for you now and thats great. However I have to agree with everyone else here in that Overclocking stresses parts, and stressing your older GPU in this market is an unsafe idea, lest you have a ton of money burning a hole in your pocket, or endless patience. Especially that you are not the original owner, so you don't know for sure how hard that hardware has been beaten on (even if not overclocked, if it wasn't cooled properly its just as bad).

Theres a couple things you said that I needed to comment on, just for clarity.

This card runs VR decently well, even with its age, so I'm rather satisfied with it, for now. I'm just looking to milk a little extra performance out of it, if I can. The memory clock it has beats that of the RX Vega 56 card, which is well beyond its generation, by almost 600 MHz, and with a simple 150MHz overclock, it would be on par with the Vega 56's core clock as well. All in all, this is a badass card, and I got it for a badass price.

In no world is a 290X on par with a Vega 56. Comparing clock speeds between cards of different architecture and design is completely irrelevant. The Vega 56 demolishes the 290X in every benchmark possible, no amount of overclocking will get you vaguely close to the performance of a Vega 56.

From what I can tell, VR notwithstanding, I can run at least 90% of the games on the market currently, most of which I can run at full graphics(1080p) with 45fps or more, and that's with my current GPU.

45fps is pretty bad, if it were VR I'd be vomiting. VR needs to be at least 60fps for much of the population to not get motion sickness.

I truly don't mean to rain on your parade, if it works for you thats great. But in the discussion we need to be realistic here on how this is working out and what you'd get should you spend any money.

The platform you are on is not worth throwing any more money at, save if you get stuff super cheap or free. I agree with the others a modern processor would help you quite a bit and get you some more more life out of that GPU.
 

Kultivater

Commendable
Aug 30, 2020
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Gonna have to disagree strongly with you. The FX-8350 loses in gaming benchmarks to even Skylake-era i3s and Pentiums. The cores are painfully slow and the basic fact is you literally lost something like 40% of per-core performance from a 4590. If you're getting more FPS now, then something was wrong in your build previously; it wasn't a problem of hardware choice.

Steve Burke ran some number on them fairly recently. The 8350 even struggled to regularly beat by any margin the G5500, a $75 GPU from 2018. We're talking some 50 fps from midrange first-generation Ryzens over an 8350 in a lot of games.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_Gcg-tFfu0


Something with an RX 580-level GPU should be doing a lot better than the framerates you present. A better GPU is just going to be wasted.

In the end, though, it's your money to spend wisely or not wisely, so all I can do is wish you luck. In the end, if you want to spend $2000 to put a GPU into a disappointing 2012 platform for little benefit, you're the one with skin in the game.

Nothing was wrong with it at all. The i5 still works just fine. I don't really understand how you could possibly believe that. The i5 is a 3.2GHz chip at BOOST clock, and only quad core. The 8350 runs at 800MHz per core faster than that without any boosting at all, And it has twice the cores. It is almost perpetually more powerful than that chip. I couldn't even play BF5 because it would stutter so badly I couldn't aim when I had that chip(same GPU). As soon as I got my new mobo and chip installed, it ran flawlessly. The simple fact is that quad core chips aren't powerful enough to run that game, and the 8350 is actually the recommended chip(look it up). I'm not saying my chip has no flaws. It's true that AMD Removed up with that generation of chips in their attempt to manipulate threads. However, what you're currently claiming is plain absurd, and I can easily prove you wrong. I still have that board and chip sitting in my closet.

Anyway, the point is that my chip, at the very least, meets the minimums for nearly every game in existence, and meets the recommended for a majority as well. That's simply a fact. It's not the best chip for gaming, but it does the job well enough, and it's simply untrue to say a chip upgrade with my rig is more important than a GPU upgrade in terms of gaming considering the GPU I have.
 
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Kultivater

Commendable
Aug 30, 2020
50
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1,540
Let me preface by saying its good to see someone reusing older hardware and enjoying it. It clearly works for you now and thats great. However I have to agree with everyone else here in that Overclocking stresses parts, and stressing your older GPU in this market is an unsafe idea, lest you have a ton of money burning a hole in your pocket, or endless patience. Especially that you are not the original owner, so you don't know for sure how hard that hardware has been beaten on (even if not overclocked, if it wasn't cooled properly its just as bad).

Theres a couple things you said that I needed to comment on, just for clarity.



In no world is a 290X on par with a Vega 56. Comparing clock speeds between cards of different architecture and design is completely irrelevant. The Vega 56 demolishes the 290X in every benchmark possible, no amount of overclocking will get you vaguely close to the performance of a Vega 56.



45fps is pretty bad, if it were VR I'd be vomiting. VR needs to be at least 60fps for much of the population to not get motion sickness.

I truly don't mean to rain on your parade, if it works for you thats great. But in the discussion we need to be realistic here on how this is working out and what you'd get should you spend any money.

The platform you are on is not worth throwing any more money at, save if you get stuff super cheap or free. I agree with the others a modern processor would help you quite a bit and get you some more more life out of that GPU.

Here are the facts:

  1. Having a better CPU, regardless of your GPU(or any other component) will improve the performance of your rig in gaming.
  2. The same can be said about a GPU.
  3. In terms of gaming performance levels, the FX-8350 provides more power to the rig(and therefore greater affectation) than the R9 290x.
  4. In gaming, the GPU is the more impactful component of a computer for performance.
Those facts considered, here is one more fact:

1. Upgrading my GPU will, therefore, increase my gaming performance by a larger margin than upgrading my CPU would.

I am therefore more willing to upgrade my GPU than my CPU, especially considering I just installed the mobo and chip less than 2 months ago. I'm not rich, and I need a new GPU regardless of whether I upgrade the rest first, which means I can simply take it with me when I do, which means buying a GPU first hurts nothing and helps everything.

As a side note: 45 FPS is actually the standard for Oculus VR. ASW 2.0 mechanics put a limiter on your frames to keep them at 45, and in turn basically doubles the power of your GPU. That considered, 45 fps is actually very normal in the world of VR, unless you have a $3000 rig and manually disable ASW. Look it up. It's rather interesting.

Edit: I didn't see the rest of your response. The Vega 56 simply doesn't have the specs to "demolish" my card. Yes it's quite a bit better, because the technology is newer. However, while HBM2 may run 3x faster than GDDR5, it still has half the memory clock speed, which evens the playing field a bit, especially considering my card has double the RAM. The core clock is indeed impressive though. Not every day you see a 5th gen card that can factory overclock over 300MHz. If I were able to truly overclock my card to my cooling capabilities, I could compete with its core clock too. No matter what I do, it'll always be better, but to say it "demolishes" my card... again, an absurd statement. I respect your response though.
 
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Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
Here are the facts:

  1. Having a better CPU, regardless of your GPU(or any other component) will improve the performance of your rig in gaming.
  2. The same can be said about a GPU.
  3. In terms of gaming performance levels, the FX-8350 provides more power to the rig(and therefore greater affectation) than the R9 290x.
  4. In gaming, the GPU is the more impactful component of a computer for performance.
Those facts considered, here is one more fact:

1. Upgrading my GPU will, therefore, increase my gaming performance by a larger margin than upgrading my CPU would.

I am therefore more willing to upgrade my GPU than my CPU, especially considering I just installed the mobo and chip less than 2 months ago. I'm not rich, and I need a new GPU regardless of whether I upgrade the rest first, which means I can simply take it with me when I do, which means buying a GPU first hurts nothing and helps everything.

As a side note: 45 FPS is actually the standard for Oculus VR. ASW 2.0 mechanics put a limiter on your frames to keep them at 45, and in turn basically doubles the power of your GPU. That considered, 45 fps is actually very normal in the world of VR, unless you have a $3000 rig and manually disable ASW. Look it up. It's rather interesting.

Edit: I didn't see the rest of your response. The Vega 56 simply doesn't have the specs to "demolish" my card. Yes it's quite a bit better, because the technology is newer. However, while HBM2 may run 3x faster than GDDR5, it still has half the memory clock speed, which evens the playing field a bit, especially considering my card has double the RAM. The core clock is indeed impressive though. Not every day you see a 5th gen card that can factory overclock over 300MHz. If I were able to truly overclock my card to my cooling capabilities, I could compete with its core clock too. No matter what I do, it'll always be better, but to say it "demolishes" my card... again, an absurd statement. I respect your response though.

I'm sorry but you just don't have a proper understanding of all this.

Your 8350 was definitely a great improvement over your old CPU, no doubt. Also up until a couple of years ago the 8350 was the minimum CPU for most games, I will agree with that as well. But upgrading your GPU will very much not necessarily improve your performance over upgrading the CPU. If you have a GPU which can massively outperform the CPU in a system it causes a bottleneck, where the GPU is waiting for the CPU to provide it with game info, this causes stuttering. To make this into an example, you may be clocking an average of 90fps, but your minimums are around 5 or 10fps. This looks and plays very poorly. You are correct though in that if you buy a new GPU you can move it to a new build, however that GPU can handle more CPU than your current 8350 can provide. You likely can get more FPS with what you have, by using a better CPU. And at least you can actually GET CPUs and motherboards like now, unlike GPUs.

You are incorrect about Oculus VR. 45fps is thew MINIMUM sustained framerate for a machine to qualify for the Oculus store, they want recommended machines to run 90fps.


And finally, you are incorrect regarding the Vega 56 vs the 290x. Again you cannot compare clock rates between different architectures and types. Period end of story. Look at any benchmark of the Vega 56 vs the 290x, in most cases the framerate is double or more. Look at superposition benchmark which tests memory very strongly, the Vega 56 completely demolishes the 290x. I don't care how close you get to the clock rate.

If clock rate was all that matters the FX-9590 would have been a great chip, 5ghz. Except it gets matched or surpassed in every benchmark except zipping files by a Skylake i3.

Clock rate cannot be used to compare differing hardware, ever.
 

Kultivater

Commendable
Aug 30, 2020
50
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1,540
I'm sorry but you just don't have a proper understanding of all this.

Your 8350 was definitely a great improvement over your old CPU, no doubt. Also up until a couple of years ago the 8350 was the minimum CPU for most games, I will agree with that as well. But upgrading your GPU will very much not necessarily improve your performance over upgrading the CPU. If you have a GPU which can massively outperform the CPU in a system it causes a bottleneck, where the GPU is waiting for the CPU to provide it with game info, this causes stuttering. To make this into an example, you may be clocking an average of 90fps, but your minimums are around 5 or 10fps. This looks and plays very poorly. You are correct though in that if you buy a new GPU you can move it to a new build, however that GPU can handle more CPU than your current 8350 can provide. You likely can get more FPS with what you have, by using a better CPU. And at least you can actually GET CPUs and motherboards like now, unlike GPUs.

I understand this. What I'm saying is that there is more room for improvement in my GPU than in my CPU, if one is run with the other. Example: For argument's sake, let's say that, in comparison with the absolute best CPUs and GPUs in the entire world, my CPU scored a 40%, then my GPU would score a 25% or 30%. This means my GPU isn't able to push my overall gaming performance to my CPU's full potential, similarly to your example, my current GPU is actually limiting my CPU's ability to be fully utilized, because it can't keep up. Not directly, because it doesn't work the same way in reverse. but you get the idea. That means only about 30% of that 40% is being utilized in my CPU. That said, if I were to upgrade my CPU to one that scores... let's say 70%, I'm going to see improvements in certain things that affect FPS, like pathing, AI, etc, but I'll see little or none in every other area, because my current CPU is already maxing my GPU out. If I were to instead upgrade my GPU to one that scores 70%, my improvement margin becomes 10%-15%, because my CPU was not being maxed by my original GPU, and therefore gains that much more improvement margin due to being fully utilized. The stuttering is easily combatted with frame limiters. It's rather commonplace for certain components to tower above others(especially in GPUs, since PCI-e is backwards compatible, and chipsets are not).

You are incorrect about Oculus VR. 45fps is thew MINIMUM sustained framerate for a machine to qualify for the Oculus store, they want recommended machines to run 90fps.

Read this.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
Example: For argument's sake, let's say that, in comparison with the absolute best CPUs and GPUs in the entire world, my CPU scored a 40%, then my GPU would score a 25% or 30%. This means my GPU isn't able to push my overall gaming performance to my CPU's full potential, similarly to your example, my current GPU is actually limiting my CPU's ability to be fully utilized, because it can't keep up. Not directly, because it doesn't work the same way in reverse. but you get the idea.

The problem is that none of this is actually true. Your CPU is a massive bottleneck, a mediocre gaming platform from 2012. Your GPU is still competitive with midrange GPUs and even before the GPU prices went up, you'd need a $300 GPU to be any kind of a real upgrade; your CPU is regularly outperformed by CPUs from three years ago with an MSRP under $100.

You're like a person with a decent mid-tier sports car and four bald, flat tires. Yet you think that you need to upgrade the engine of your car because it's holding back your flat tires.

Again, it's your money to flush down the toilet. The only reason it's worth responding at this point is the risk that someone new to PC building was to come across your post and get the woefully mistaken impression that your advice is good and ends up wasting their money.
 

Kultivater

Commendable
Aug 30, 2020
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The problem is that none of this is actually true. Your CPU is a massive bottleneck, a mediocre gaming platform from 2012. Your GPU is still competitive with midrange GPUs and even before the GPU prices went up, you'd need a $300 GPU to be any kind of a real upgrade; your CPU is regularly outperformed by CPUs from three years ago with an MSRP under $100.

You're like a person with a decent mid-tier sports car and four bald, flat tires. Yet you think that you need to upgrade the engine of your car because it's holding back your flat tires.

Again, it's your money to flush down the toilet. The only reason it's worth responding at this point is the risk that someone new to PC building was to come across your post and get the woefully mistaken impression that your advice is good and ends up wasting their money.

I'm flushing money down the toilet... by buying a GPU that I can still use once I upgrade my chipset+components...? Wouldn't "flushing money down the toilet" require that my upgraded part be utterly useless in the entire future?

Anyway, I'll tell you what: I'll put my money where my mouth is. Once I do get a new GPU, I'll benchmark my system before and after I install it, thus proving myself correct. I believe the only reason you're acting like that is because you are somehow perceiving my meaning as "no, my CPU isn't crappy in comparison to others," which is not at all what I said in any of my posts within this thread.

Edit: Here's some solid proof: When I first bought this machine(off an ex roommate for $300), it had a GeForce GTX 750ti in it, with that Intel i5-4750. Couldn't even run Dragon Age: Inquisition above 25 FPS. The moment I installed my R9 290x, I could run it on full graphics at 60+, as well as other games I couldn't run with that GPU, like Battlefield 1. Same CPU in the system, same RAM. Wanna explain that? Anyway, I'll let you know when I have that benchmark ready.
 
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DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
I'm flushing money down the toilet... by buying a GPU that I can still use once I upgrade my chipset+components...? Wouldn't "flushing money down the toilet" require that my upgraded part be utterly useless in the entire future?

Anyway, I'll tell you what: I'll put my money where my mouth is. Once I do get a new GPU, I'll benchmark my system before and after I install it, thus proving myself correct. I believe the only reason you're acting like that is because you are somehow perceiving my meaning as "no, my CPU isn't crappy in comparison to others," which is not at all what I said in any of my posts within this thread.

Edit: Here's some solid proof: When I first bought this machine(off an ex roommate for $300), it had a GeForce GTX 750ti in it, with that Intel i5-4750. Couldn't even run Dragon Age: Inquisition above 25 FPS. The moment I installed my R9 290x, I could run it on full graphics at 60+, as well as other games I couldn't run with that GPU, like Battlefield 1. Same CPU in the system, same RAM. Wanna explain that? Anyway, I'll let you know when I have that benchmark ready.

An i5-4570 wasn't a bottleneck for a 750 Ti, so an upgrade to a 290X was effective. Your CPU is a bottleneck past a 290X, so an upgrade will not be very effective. I'm much more confident after this quoted section that you don't know what you're talking about. You're already getting poor performance for a 290X.

While I'll have to keep an eye on this thread for any bad advice you're giving to someone coming across this thread and for the occasional chuckle, this is mostly a lost cause and a time sink otherwise. Best of luck to you.
 

Kultivater

Commendable
Aug 30, 2020
50
0
1,540
An i5-4570 wasn't a bottleneck for a 750 Ti, so an upgrade to a 290X was effective. Your CPU is a bottleneck past a 290X, so an upgrade will not be very effective. I'm much more confident after this quoted section that you don't know what you're talking about. You're already getting poor performance for a 290X.

While I'll have to keep an eye on this thread for any bad advice you're giving to someone coming across this thread and for the occasional chuckle, this is mostly a lost cause and a time sink otherwise. Best of luck to you.

Then explain the i5 causing 1-2 second freeze stuttering in Battlefield V with this GPU, and running flawlessly on full graphics, at 1080p and 200% resolution scale after upgrading to the FX-8350. If what you're saying were true, my computer would actually be performing, at the very least, slightly worse with this CPU than it did with the i5.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
Then explain the i5 causing 1-2 second freeze stuttering in Battlefield V with this GPU, and running flawlessly on full graphics, at 1080p and 200% resolution scale after upgrading to the FX-8350. If what you're saying were true, my computer would actually be performing, at the very least, slightly worse with this CPU than it did with the i5.

The most likely problem was something else going on and you did a poor job diagnosing the issue. It runs just fine on a 4570 without "1-2 second freeze stuttering."

3800


high


Again, I have zero interest in providing you assistance; my only interest in this thread is to prevent you from spreading misinformation.
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
I understand this. What I'm saying is that there is more room for improvement in my GPU than in my CPU, if one is run with the other. Example: For argument's sake, let's say that, in comparison with the absolute best CPUs and GPUs in the entire world, my CPU scored a 40%, then my GPU would score a 25% or 30%. This means my GPU isn't able to push my overall gaming performance to my CPU's full potential, similarly to your example, my current GPU is actually limiting my CPU's ability to be fully utilized, because it can't keep up. Not directly, because it doesn't work the same way in reverse. but you get the idea. That means only about 30% of that 40% is being utilized in my CPU. That said, if I were to upgrade my CPU to one that scores... let's say 70%, I'm going to see improvements in certain things that affect FPS, like pathing, AI, etc, but I'll see little or none in every other area, because my current CPU is already maxing my GPU out. If I were to instead upgrade my GPU to one that scores 70%, my improvement margin becomes 10%-15%, because my CPU was not being maxed by my original GPU, and therefore gains that much more improvement margin due to being fully utilized. The stuttering is easily combatted with frame limiters. It's rather commonplace for certain components to tower above others(especially in GPUs, since PCI-e is backwards compatible, and chipsets are not).

I do not need you to explain how bottlenecks work to me. Especially when you're clearly just bending it to fit your narrative. Not only that you just made up all those numbers under the assumption your CPU is better than it is. It is not. Your GPU can handle much more than your FX-8350 can put out. It is similar in performance to an RX 480. No not every game will improve, some will show little improvement, but some will show large improvements. But hey its your money, you came here for help but don't want to listen to what we are saying, thats up to you.

And again, your max FPS is irrelevant, if you're having super low minimums. And sure you can limit framerate. But if you're going to do that why spend $1000+ (or a scalper) on a new GPU?!?! If you don't know when you will be upgrading the rest of your equipment, then wait and buy the best GPU for what you will be getting.


I think you're not understanding what you are reading. ASW is a feature that ALLOWS you to run VR with a simulated smoothness with hardware that can perform as low as 45fps. It does not mean that 45fps is where all content is locked on all systems, or that it is the standard. It very much does not mean that it doubles the power of your GPU. The standard they prefer is 90 fps, it says it in your link, it says it in my link, it is WELL KNOWN that VR with FPS below 60 causes nausea in a large part of the population. Like I said if it works for you, great. For me I would be tossing my lunch.

We are just trying to help you spend your money most effectively here, as well as help you from risking hardware that may be expensive to replace in the current market. Everyone in this thread knows what they are doing and has been doing it for a very long time on very many systems. I'm not saying you need to blindly follow all of our advice, but clearly fighting us over every salient point isn't helping you. Be my guest, do whatever you want. I've seen thousands of 8350's and 290x's come through here, and for some reason the 8350 brings out religious devotion, despite it being a failure that just about was good enough at the time it was released.

Could be worse, you could have an FX-9590.
 
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