Question Is AMD driver overhead still a problem with lower end cpus?

[SteveGrabowski]

I remember in the R9 200 series AMD had huge problems with driver overhead when using lower end cpus. It was so bad I remember Digital Foundry doing a video with an i3-4130 + GTX 750 Ti outperforming an i3-4130 + R9 280 by an embarrassing margin in one of the COD games, and this showed up in many other AAA games as well. Which is crazy since 750 Ti was always a very low end card while R9 280 was a pretty good midrange card at the time. I ask because I'm looking to buy a gpu before the year ends, but my cpu is a little towards the lower end now (Xeon E3-1231v3, basically an i7-4770 non-K minus 100 MHz). And I'm not going to replace the cpu yet. I was kind of sold on the GTX 1660 Super for $230 until seeing how RDR2 devours that gpu, so I'm worried that 1660 Super would also get wrecked by Cyberpunk and Dying Light 2 next year. So now I'm thinking I should probably go a little higher with an RX 5700, RTX 2060 Super, or RTX 2070. My psu is a little low power for looking at the RX 5700 XT (it's a Bitfenix Formula 450 Gold ). Now from benchmarks and prices 5700 seems like the obvious choice, but I'm worried about the driver overhead being a problem like it known to be in the GCN cards. Does anyone know if this is a problem with current gen AMD gpus?

 

[Guru]

no it's not an issue, hardwareunboxed did several videos testing low end cpu's with many amd gpu's from the RX 560 to Vega 64, there is no issue.

 

[mohit9206]

Yes there is issue. As long as you play DX11 games there will always be driver overhead causing you to lose performance with AMD . This has not been fixed and doubt amd wants to as its probably not worth spending resources as DX11 will soon be a thing of the past. They didn't fix it when they should have and its too late to do so now.

 

[maddogmcgee]

Yes there is issue. As long as you play DX11 games there will always be driver overhead causing you to lose performance with AMD . This has not been fixed and doubt amd wants to as its probably not worth spending resources as DX11 will soon be a thing of the past. They didn't fix it when they should have and its too late to do so now.

Benchmarks?

 

[noscop3]

I don't know if that's the case for me too,but i'm running i5-6500 with radeon rx580 8GB and some games have frames for no reason sometimes...I don't know if that's the reason,but next time i'm going with nvidia just to be sure

 

[alexruiz]

OP,
If you are planning on a RX 5700, you should pair it with a Ryzen 5 3600.
I know you said you plan on keeping your setup, but your gaming experience will be much better. Your all around experience will be much better.

On the subject,
I don't know what we can define as "low end", but what I have seen, even on a Ryzen 3 1200, Ryzen prefers the Radeons, they feel smoother.

 

[TheELF]

I was kind of sold on the GTX 1660 Super for $230 until seeing how RDR2 devours that gpu, so I'm worried that 1660 Super would also get wrecked by Cyberpunk and Dying Light 2 next year.

Gamers nexus just did a video on this,5700 xt in red dead has weird min variations (stutter) with no apparent reason and while this is probably going to be ironed out at some point I wouldn't hold my breath.Nvidia is pretty good at releasing day one drivers.

 

[EliteRetard]

Gamers nexus just did a video on this,5700 xt in red dead has weird min variations (stutter) with no apparent reason and while this is probably going to be ironed out at some point I wouldn't hold my breath.Nvidia is pretty good at releasing day one drivers.

What video were you watching? That was all about a glitch in the code for the game, which causes stutter regardless of the CPU/GPU.

The actual performance testing is here, where the 5700 series cards perform slightly better than a 2060 Super:

For 1080p high settings the 5700 series maintains 60FPS lows.
For 1440p high settings you need at least a 2080 Super for 60FPS lows.
Not even a 2080ti can maintain 60FPS at 4K high (and 26-46FPS at maxed settings).

 

[Shmee]

RDR2 is a poorly optimized console port, from what I hear. That said, your Xeon, if it is about equivalent to an i7 4770, is still a fairly good CPU. It may only be a quad core, but the HT should help in some multi threaded games, and any i7 from Sandy Bridge up is going to still do decently in most games when paired with a decent GPU.

But, it also depends on what resolution you are playing on, how CPU bound (or not) you will be. What socket is that Xeon? I know you said you weren't looking to upgrade the whole system, but if your board is socket 1150 and supports a 4790 or 4790k, this could be a possible drop in upgrade to get you to 4+ GHz with a 2nd hand CPU for relatively cheap. Even if you can't OC, or don't want to bother, if your board supports the 4790k, you still get the turbo to 4.4 GHz, which would be a nice increase for your current platform.

Finally, I wouldn't worry too much about it with your current CPU. It should still be reasonably fast. I have a spare system with an old X58 board and a Xeon X5660 OCd to about 4.2, paired with an R9 fury GPU. Now this CPU is an older 6 core, but the R9 Fury is slightly faster than the RX 590, but the point is it runs alright, though I have not used it in a while and looking to sell it.

I guess my point is I wouldn't worry so much about it with your current CPU, it's by no means a low end i3. I would get whatever card suits your budget and performance expectations, and see how it goes. If you really need to, you can always upgrade your CPU/mobo/RAM later to go with the 5700, or GTX 1660 Super, or whatever card you get.

 

[TheELF]

What video were you watching? That was all about a glitch in the code for the game, which causes stutter regardless of the CPU/GPU.

The one I linked to...
The code bug is on the CPU,if it's on the GPU he didn't noticed it on the nvidia cards he tested...it's a time stamp link the nvidia test is right before where the link starts to play and all the runs are consistent.
Even if it is a game bug,that's what's the OP is or should be concerned about, if he is after day one performance nvidia will be the smoother ride.

 

[Stuka87]

The one I linked to...
The code bug is on the CPU,if it's on the GPU he didn't noticed it on the nvidia cards he tested...it's a time stamp link the nvidia test is right before where the link starts to play and all the runs are consistent.
Even if it is a game bug,that's what's the OP is or should be concerned about, if he is after day one performance nvidia will be the smoother ride.

This is in no way true all the time. Plenty of games that have had terrible day 1 performance from nVidia, but good from AMD, and vice versa. It is wholely wrong to make a blanket response that one is always the better when evidence suggest otherwise.

 

[Stuka87]

I don't know if that's the case for me too,but i'm running i5-6500 with radeon rx580 8GB and some games have frames for no reason sometimes...I don't know if that's the reason,but next time i'm going with nvidia just to be sure

Are you saying its "dropping" frames? And you left that word out on accident?

Switching to nVidia for an issue that you have not proved is being caused by the GPU is kind of strange. Its not hard to see if its being caused by the GPU, the CPU, or is an issue with the game. If you want to switch fine, but you should validate the issue first.

Especially since the question the OP asks above has been disproved, and is no longer an issue.

 

[Hitman928]

GamersNexus is also running Vulkan (from their settings screenshots) which HardwareUnboxed found to have stuttering issues for both AMD and Nvidia GPUs which is why they used DX12 for their tests which didn't have the stuttering issues.

 

[EliteRetard]

GamersNexus is also running Vulkan (from their settings screenshots) which HardwareUnboxed found to have stuttering issues for both AMD and Nvidia GPUs which is why they used DX12 for their tests which didn't have the stuttering issues.

Yeah, here's a frame-time chart that GN posted for a 2080ti, it definitely has spikes (up to 40ms) just like the AMD cards in their testing.

image hosted at ImgBB

Image image hosted in ImgBB

ibb.co

If anyone experiences performance issues in this game with decent hardware, it's not the hardware at fault...the game engine is just buggy as heck.

 

[kondziowy]

It may only be a quad core, but the HT should help in some multi threaded games, and any i7 from Sandy Bridge up is going to still do decently in most games when paired with a decent GPU.

Hold it. Look here:
https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Red-...2-PC-Release-Patch-Benchmarks-Review-1336285/
Scroll down to cpu benchmarks. 3770K is doing so bad it looks like it's broken.

 

[Stuka87]

Hold it. Look here:
https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Red-...2-PC-Release-Patch-Benchmarks-Review-1336285/
Scroll down to cpu benchmarks. 3770K is doing so bad it looks like it's broken.

Certainly fishy, the 4c i5 just above it is doing way better. I wonder have the 3770 would do if they disabled hyper-threading?

 

[Shmee]

So in other words, a poorly optimized game.

 

[kondziowy]

Certainly fishy, the 4c i5 just above it is doing way better. I wonder have the 3770 would do if they disabled hyper-threading?

You can choose i5-2500K to be displayed on graph. It's even slower - only 50% of 7600K performance. But it's only 1 benchmark... although, both Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge look weak.

 

[Ranulf]

So in other words, a poorly optimized game.

Its all over the place. I've heard people have issues with Vulkan and its fine with DX12 and vice versa. For some its just a few settings tweaks or dropping things to high from ultra. Typical rockstar programming. See GTA5 PC multiplayer.

 

[noscop3]

Are you saying its "dropping" frames? And you left that word out on accident?

Switching to nVidia for an issue that you have not proved is being caused by the GPU is kind of strange. Its not hard to see if its being caused by the GPU, the CPU, or is an issue with the game. If you want to switch fine, but you should validate the issue first.

Especially since the question the OP asks above has been disproved, and is no longer an issue.

not quite sure how to prove the issue especially because everyone instantly blames my CPU without even thinking,while my friends are running for example i5-4400 with gtx 1050ti and getting better results than me in some games when they really shouldn't

 

[Stuka87]

not quite sure how to prove the issue especially because everyone instantly blames my CPU without even thinking,while my friends are running for example i5-4400 with gtx 1050ti and getting better results than me in some games when they really shouldn't

First thing I would do is run something like MSI Afterburner to monitor all the CPU, Memory, and GPU related usages. Then play one of the games that hitches. And then check the graphs. Another thing to try is to lower the graphics settings down, so that the GPU is not the limiting factor, does it still happen? And of course this assumes OS and Drivers are all up to date.

But you are right, an RX580 is a lot faster than a 1050Ti. Do you notice this in all games, or just some games?

 

[noscop3]

First thing I would do is run something like MSI Afterburner to monitor all the CPU, Memory, and GPU related usages. Then play one of the games that hitches. And then check the graphs. Another thing to try is to lower the graphics settings down, so that the GPU is not the limiting factor, does it still happen? And of course this assumes OS and Drivers are all up to date.

But you are right, an RX580 is a lot faster than a 1050Ti. Do you notice this in all games, or just some games?

just some games,and surprisingly those games that run worse are the games with worse graphics.For example,warframe on almost high graphics has fps drops even when i remove the 60 fps cap while games that should require better specs run well(fortnite ~130 fps constantly on epic,the division 2 on high constant 60 fps,etc).Oh also gta 5 on a weird combination that is between low and medium has framedrops when driving with more than 60mph

 

[JimKiler]

RDR2 is a poorly optimized console port, from what I hear. That said, your Xeon, if it is about equivalent to an i7 4770, is still a fairly good CPU. It may only be a quad core, but the HT should help in some multi threaded games, and any i7 from Sandy Bridge up is going to still do decently in most games when paired with a decent GPU.

But, it also depends on what resolution you are playing on, how CPU bound (or not) you will be. What socket is that Xeon? I know you said you weren't looking to upgrade the whole system, but if your board is socket 1150 and supports a 4790 or 4790k, this could be a possible drop in upgrade to get you to 4+ GHz with a 2nd hand CPU for relatively cheap. Even if you can't OC, or don't want to bother, if your board supports the 4790k, you still get the turbo to 4.4 GHz, which would be a nice increase for your current platform.

Finally, I wouldn't worry too much about it with your current CPU. It should still be reasonably fast. I have a spare system with an old X58 board and a Xeon X5660 OCd to about 4.2, paired with an R9 fury GPU. Now this CPU is an older 6 core, but the R9 Fury is slightly faster than the RX 590, but the point is it runs alright, though I have not used it in a while and looking to sell it.

I guess my point is I wouldn't worry so much about it with your current CPU, it's by no means a low end i3. I would get whatever card suits your budget and performance expectations, and see how it goes. If you really need to, you can always upgrade your CPU/mobo/RAM later to go with the 5700, or GTX 1660 Super, or whatever card you get.

Didn't they spend a year making it better than the consoles with new features? Crazy if they had that time but did not optimize anything.

 

[Hitman928]

just some games,and surprisingly those games that run worse are the games with worse graphics.For example,warframe on almost high graphics has fps drops even when i remove the 60 fps cap while games that should require better specs run well(fortnite ~130 fps constantly on epic,the division 2 on high constant 60 fps,etc).Oh also gta 5 on a weird combination that is between low and medium has framedrops when driving with more than 60mph

I don't know about warframe but your GTA5 comment sounds like it is stuttering when trying to load new areas of the map and you are traveling fast enough that the game/hardware can't keep up. Is this on an SSD?

 

[Stuka87]

I don't know about warframe but your GTA5 comment sounds like it is stuttering when trying to load new areas of the map and you are traveling fast enough that the game/hardware can't keep up. Is this on an SSD?

Was going to ask the same thing. GTA is very hard on a PC's storage system. A Fast SSD is a requirement to help prevent hitching.