AMD FX 8320's performance in games. Is it that bad?

[Kratos47]

Hey guys,

Basically a friend of mine is having a problem with his built and can't play most games at 60+ fps and is getting FPS spikes.

His built is:

• AMD FX 8320 Eight Core Processor
• Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-DS3P
• Sapphire DUAL-X R9 280 3GB
• 8 GB RAM
• W8.1 Pro 64-bit
• 1366x768 Resolution

Now seeing the resolution and graphics card i personally think he shouldn't have any problem especially in older games from 2011 etc but even those are giving him issues.

I don't know much about AMD but i got into an argument with someone that keeps saying that there is a CPU Bottleneck and that AMD FX 8320 is a crappy CPU to play games. I personally own a Intel CPU 920 but i still think it's not true and AMD piledriver series are good enough to play games, otherwise no gamer would actually buy them. So it to me it appears Intel fanboyism from that guys' side.

Can any FX 8320|8350 owner help me out here?

 

[Schmide]

Motherboard?

 

[Kratos47]

Gigabyte - 970A-DS3P

Sorry for not mentioning, OP updated.

 

[SPBHM]

60FPS for all games is unrealistic with any CPU I think,
but if your friend is playing mostly CPU intensive games with poor multicore scaling, like most MMOs the CPU is going to be a much bigger limitation than i5s (even i3s) for example,

depending on the game also a slow HD could be causing a few "spikes".

 

[jpiniero]

Does he have an SSD?

 

[Kratos47]

Yes you're right about that. But not every game is CPU intensive, in fact most aren't. The games he's having problems in are there:

-Battlefield 4 (this one is understandable)
-Crysis 3 - This was measured on w7 (Fps can't reach 40-50 on the first level)
-Shogun Total War 2 (or any other Total War game)
-Witcher 2
-Skyrim (with mods but not ENB)
-Metal Gear Solid Revengance (I expected this one to perform worse, but it's almost constantly 60)
-Shadow Warrior

Now here are some notes.
-I cannot confirm the FPS situation while I had w7 Ultimate, except for Bf4 and C3. Bf4 got a 10-15 boost after w8 upgrade.
-Witcher 2 got all clunky and bugy on w8, I never measured it's fps on w7.
-Skyrim is unbelievably inconsistent.
-The only major release that I can confirm is ALWAYS 60+ is Metro Last Light (without Psychix).

I told him to do some tests for me because in skyrim FX 8320:

Spoiler

Witcher 2, FPS spikes:

Spoiler

BF3 FPS spikes:

Spoiler

 

[Schmide]

Have him watch his VRM temps (usually TMPIN1) many motherboards will throttle when it gets above 65c or so. There is a setting in bios to disable this, usually under Hardware Monitoring -> PWM Processor Hot (set to disabled). However, if doing this you should add an additional fan blowing at the VRMs to compensate for the heat bleed. The VRMs can run at 110c+ but the components near then can't, extra air movement will help these components.

Edit: Looking at that board it seems to be a 4+1(2) VRM setup. May be susceptible to the above situation.

 

[Kratos47]

Does he have an SSD?

What's that got to do with it? And he most likely has HDD.

@Schmide: Yes i told him to see if his CPU is being throttled since in the graphs his CPU is around 50% usuage. But someone is just arguing with me that i don't know what i'm talking about at that it's a CPU bottleneck, and if that were true i think CPU would be under 90-100% usage and then GPU will get bottlenecked.

But that guys just keeps saying i'm wrong about this.

 

[SPBHM]

Yes you're right about that. But not every game is CPU intensive, in fact most aren't. The games he's having problems in are there:


I told him to do some tests for me because in skyrim FX 8320:

Spoiler

Witcher 2, FPS spikes:

Spoiler

BF3 FPS spikes:

Spoiler

it's not that simple,

Skyrim can go under 60 on the FX more easily than Intel CPUs

it might be a "200FPS" game under some conditions (like indoor?) but it's definitely a lot harder on the CPU than the graph you posted,

Witcher 2 is more or less the same some areas are lot harder, I had problems in this particular fight ( http://youtu.be/w_ydZOu2Tk8?t=8m40s maybe spoiler if you never played the game ) with CPU performance (25FPS), but it was a long time ago and with something that should be slower than the 8320 (i3 2100)

 

[Kratos47]

Yeah i can totally get that. I posted this to him:

even if a CPU isn't pegged at 100% on a core a bottleneck can exist. for instance on the FX 8320 it might have 8 cores but only 4 FPUs if those 4 FPUs are in use and being shared its possible for the CPU to be loaded around 50% on all cores but still bottleneck. I don't know if thats the case or not.

Actually i checked and you're right. FX 8320 has 8 cores where 2 cores are packed in one module and every module has 1 FPU, meaning every 2 cores are tied with 1 FPU. So if both cores must use the FPU at the same time one core must wait for the other core to finish before it can use that FPU.

And i finally found out what's happening in his case. This explains what's happening in skyrim:

If it wasn’t clear by now that Skyrim favors Intel over AMD, here you go. Even though all the “Frames per Second” results were over 80 FPS, only the Intel chips can deliver a steady 60 FPS over the entire minute of gameplay.

It seems like Skyrim is somehow not optimized correctly for AMD processors, and this could very well be a bug.

http://www.hardcoreware.net/amd-piledriver-fx-review-vishera-8350/6/
And i already advised him that he needs to reset everything and try to run vanilla skyrim. See if the results are same as the ones done by benchmarkers and go from there. It's a console port after all.

In BF3 his fps spikes can be explained by this:

Arkham City on the other hand will run perfectly:

He needs to confirm this.

For the GPU part, R9 280 is more than sufficient since he's gaming at 720p not 1080p. So seeing the reviews and resolution\card installed it still doesn't makes sense what's happening in his case since those very games run okay. It's could be more likely a BIOS issue, driver, DX9 API outdated dll files. Like for windows he needs to see whether he has these updates installed or not:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2646060
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2645594

Therefore, multithreaded workloads may not be optimally distributed on computers that have one of these processors installed in a lightly-threaded environment. This may result in decreased system performance for some applications.

And we know games are a mixture of mainly single to multi threaded functions.

 

[KingFatty]

I think it's the motherboard power delivery, with only 4+1 VRM according to earlier post. This leads to problems because the CPU sucks down a lot of power, and the VRMs start getting really warm, and so the motherboard "cheats" by chopping the CPU performance/speed multiplier as a way to force the CPU to use less power while the motherboard VRMs cool off.

That's the likeliest scenario, using a very high-power CPU in a motherboard without a lot of phases to handle the power delivery well.

Here is someone's first-hand account of how that specific motherboard was throttling their CPU - so it's like you just can't ever use the CPU to its fullest due to the lightweight power delivery on the motherboard:

I wouldn't overclock at all, no vrm heatsinks and bad powerphase, I guarantee that thing is going to throttle with any kind of an overclock, if it's not already throttling now. There was somebody here the other day in a topic saying their friend's cpu was throttling bad with no overclock if I remember correctly, on prime 95 with that motherboard

See: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2146935/overclock-amd-8320-970a-ds3p.html

Also further down:

That motherboard got pretty bad universal reviews on newegg, didn't bother checking amazon but I assume the same there too.
See if it throttles during Prime 95. I have always heard overclocking through the AMD overdrive is a bad idea.

People have come here over time with bad performance because of throttling and they have had that bad motherboard. Either it won't work at all or dies after a couple months according to most reviews.

Again the culprit is likely the motherboard robbing him of any chance of using the CPU to its fullest.

If he's stuck with that motherboard, maybe he can trade his 8320 CPU for a "lesser" CPU that is better about power usage, perhaps the FX-6300? Even though it has fewer cores, it will use less power and may avoid the motherboard chocking it to death because the motherboard might be able to better handle the lower power delivery without needing to throttle the CPU.

Ideally he could overclock the CPU to see if it lessens the problem (which might confirm a CPU bottleneck), but I think his motherboard will prevent this. Because, if you overclock, the CPU will want to guzzle down even more power, and then the motherboard will just throttle again, so the problems should persist.

But it's interesting how you describe the problems as "spikes" because that sounds just like throttling is going on. Because I bet outside of those spikes, it's pretty good right? The spikes are when the motherboard is forcing the CPU to run at a lower multiplier to let it consume less power so the motherboard VRMs can cool themselves off.

 

[Kratos47]

I think it's the motherboard power delivery, with only 4+1 VRM according to earlier post.

Yes his motherboard 4+1 so piss poor at power delivery and FX 8320 is a power hog if i'm not mistaken. Definitely more than i5.

And exactly spikes. One second it runs fine and then he moves around a heavy area and BOOM, fps goes down, stutters and then goes back up again.

I told him to turn off any power features which might come into play at some thermal threshold but i don't think there's any options like that and i read all his MOBO manuel and couldn't spot any.

This is a BETA BIOS update, so perhaps that's worth a try?

 

[Schmide]

It's a lot simpler to detect than that.

Get OCCT
Run OCCT
Watch cpu speed and TMPIN1

Disable PWN Processor Hot as I said above.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Be careful to expect benchmark FPS in the actual games. Benchmarks are usually prescipted and very light on the CPU. Unlike the actual games.

That being said, the 8320 is not a fast gaming CPU.

 

[AtenRa]

Disable Turbo, OC to 3.8GHz and see if things are better.

edit : Dont raise voltage, use default.

 

[USER8000]

• Sapphire DUAL-X R9 280 3GB
• 1366x768 Resolution

The OP is using an R9 280 at 1366X768.

Both Skyrim and BF3 should be running fine at such a low resolution - the system is overpowered if anything.

What PSU is the OP using??

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Yes his motherboard 4+1 so piss poor at power delivery and FX 8320 is a power hog if i'm not mistaken. Definitely more than i5.

What mobo is it? I've run an 8320 on a freebie Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3 (heatsinked 4+1 VRM section, rated for 125W) and did not notice any VRM-related throttling under either IBT or Prime95 AVX2.

 

[Kratos47]

The OP is using an R9 280 at 1366X768.

Both Skyrim and BF3 should be running fine at such a low resolution - the system is overpowered if anything.

What PSU is the OP using??

Yeah that's what i believe as well. Except the throttling issue because of the way components are set to function, i don't think there is a bottleneck here.

But one guy has been really stubborn about it and is quick to throw his weight on others, saying i'm giving wrong advice.

He even said that i7 920+R9 280X on 900p is a CPU bottleneck (which i actually own myself) and i showed him this screenshot where CPU isn't being stressed out and I'm roaming around a heavy area of Witcher 2, with lot of units & action going on for CPU to calculate and a graphically intense open world for the graphics card.

Smooth gameplay and no bottlenecking of GPU since CPU isn't a bottleneck.
[FIELDSET2=System Specs:]

• CPU: i7 920 OCed@3.8 GHz
• GPU: ASUS R9 280X DC2T-3GB @ resolution 1600x900
• RAM: GSkill Trident - 2000 MHz 6GB
• MOBO: Gigabyte Ex-58 Extreme

[/FIELDSET2]
Game is on ultra with ubersampling disabled.

 

[Kratos47]

What mobo is it? I've run an 8320 on a freebie Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3 (heatsinked 4+1 VRM section, rated for 125W) and did not notice any VRM-related throttling under either IBT or Prime95 AVX2.

It is mentioned in the OP mate but MOBO is Gigabyte 970A-DS3.

 

[USER8000]

Yeah that's what i believe as well. Except the throttling issue because of the way components are set to function, i don't think there is a bottleneck here.

But one guy has been really stubborn about it and is quick to throw his weight on others, saying i'm giving wrong advice.

He even said that i7 920+R9 280X on 900p is a CPU bottleneck (which i actually own myself) and i showed him this screenshot where CPU isn't being stressed out and I'm roaming around a heavy area of Witcher 2, with lot of units & action going on for CPU to calculate and a graphically intense open world for the graphics card.

Smooth gameplay and no bottlenecking of GPU since CPU isn't a bottleneck.
[FIELDSET2=System Specs:]

• CPU: i7 920 OCed@3.8 GHz
• GPU: ASUS R9 280X DC2T-3GB @ resolution 1600x900
• RAM: GSkill Trident - 2000 MHz 6GB
• MOBO: Gigabyte Ex-58 Extreme

[/FIELDSET2]
Game is on ultra with ubersampling disabled.

I am asking about the PSU since if it is a crap unit or even an old one,it might be able to deliver sufficiently stable power during stressful parts of a game.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

It is mentioned in the OP mate but MOBO is Gigabyte 970A-DS3.

My bad, saw it after I posted. I don't have the best impression of MSI's AMD VRMs (they have the highest incidences of going all July 4th on you, even the higher end models), though their Intel offerings are solid.

 

[Kratos47]

I am asking about the PSU since if it is a crap unit or even an old one,it might be able to deliver sufficiently stable power during stressful parts of a game.

I have asked him and i will let you guys know as soon as he reads it on his profile & replies back.

 

[sandorski]

At that resolution there should be no performance issues. Even at 1080p that system should be 60fps capable. At least in most games.

Was this a fresh install on a clean HD? I suspect there's some conflict with Drivers or possibly a Driver has not been installed.

 

[Kratos47]

He did switch to Win 8 after not having much luck in Win 7. I also suggested him to reinstall the display drivers using DDU and make sure his motherboard chipset drivers and everything are set. He said he had already tried that.

I also suggested him to update is DX9 API files with the latest one on Win 8.

 

[KingFatty]

Maybe suggest he uses a fan to blow air on the motherboard VRM heatsinks. maybe a spare case fan just pointed down on them, or even open up the computer case and use a desk fan to blow air across the motherboard heatsinks.