Low Performance, Need configuring!

[Hemsky]

I just upgraded today from a 3800+ with one 7900gt to a Core 2 Duo E6600 and another 7900gt in SLI. One is eVGA, the other is XFX.
The actual specs for the cards are eVGA 7900 GT KO, XFX 7900 GT. Different vendors are supported.
I get barely better framerates in Company of Heroes, Oblivion, and WoW! I'm talking maybe +10-20.
I haven't done any tweaking of my BIOS in terms of voltages except for enabling the SLI-ready BIOS option for my Corsair Dominator 2x1gb XMS DDR2-800 PC2-6400 Ram which is SLI Ready
I have the eVGA nForce 680i SLI mobo with a 550 Watt power supply.
What is causing this? Are there any BIOS configurations I must use?
Any help would be appreciated!

 

[alimoalem]

how many fps were u getting before? and what resolutions are you playing at?

also, did u have the eVGA or the XFX first? cause from my understanding, it's going to run at the slower speed. so if the XFX is 10% slower than the eVGA, the eVGA is going to clock down to the XFX's speeds

 

[Roguestar]

This is why we don't waste money on extra graphics cards.

By the way, "SLI ready RAM" is a bunch of marketing BS and doesn't actually mean anything at all.

 

[Hemsky]

Regardless, it wasn't the reason I bought the RAM. Dominator's had some good reviews. The SLI-ready I hadn't noticed until I hit BIOS.

And I shouldn't see such a marginal gain when such a drastic change has been made. There is definatley something I'm overlooking.

The eVGA is the primary display card, but my understanding is SLI config will always scale down to the lower clock speed of the two.

 

[engiNURD]

What resolutions are you playing at?

 

[Hemsky]

1280x1024

Pretty much was I'd used with the old system

 

[alimoalem]

i'm not a gpu expert but there are four things that i can think of that could be hindering your performance gain:

1. underpowered. what is the brand/model of your power supply?

2. BIOS update may be needed.

3. there may be a FPS cap on some of the games you play

4. what FPS are you getting right now? if the XFX is 10-15% slower than the eVGA, the eVGA becomes 10-15% slower. you should get between 45-65% increase in performance with a second card. 85% (100-15) x 60% (due to SLI) comes out to ~50%, meaning you should get a 50% increase in performance. if you were getting getting 30FPS before, you should be getting around 45 FPS now. 45-30 = 15. 10 < 15 < 20, meaning the numbers are correct. maybe you're expecting too much out of the second card?

 

[Hemsky]

BIOS for which, Mobo or card?

I've been using the CoH benchmark to test the system.
Under recommended settings I'm getting 17fps Average with SLI enabled and 14fps with SLI disabled.
This is not right! Especially with a E6600, 2gig ram and SLI'd 7900gts! I was getting 40+ fps with the 3800+

My clock speeds for both the bus and memory are, respectively 500mhz, 750mhz.
When I replaced my mobo, cpu, ram and added video card, I transferred the whole system into a new case. I kept the hard drive and did not format it. Once I booted, I reinstalled drivers for both graphics and mobo but did not update the BIOS.
Must I do a full format?
If anyone is familiar with this motherboard (evga 680i NF68 SLI), on the top right of the board when looking inside the case (above ram) I have 3 LED lights that are on. One blue, one green and one orange. Does the orange indicate a problem with the connections?
I also directly powered both cards from the power supply. There is an onboard power Auxiliary Power for graphics labelled pwer 3. Its a 4 pin connection (the type which is all vertical) but I did not connect that straight to the card. I'm not sure which one I'm supposed to connect to it but I don't see any real advantage to this other than a convenience.
Any ideas?

Edit: my PSU is an enermax 535Watt

 

[tcG]

Which power supply? I bet your cards are down clocking because of insufficient power.

 

[Hemsky]

Enermax 535W SLI (Dual 12v rails)

 

[alimoalem]

Originally posted by: Hemsky
BIOS for which, Mobo or card?

I've been using the CoH benchmark to test the system.
Under recommended settings I'm getting 17fps Average with SLI enabled and 14fps with SLI disabled.
This is not right! Especially with a E6600, 2gig ram and SLI'd 7900gts! I was getting 40+ fps with the 3800+

i meant Mobo BIOS. if you really wanna see if it's this, but the parts in the old rig (AMD-based). if the framerates go up, that's your problem.

Originally posted by: Hemsky
When I replaced my mobo, cpu, ram and added video card, I transferred the whole system into a new case. I kept the hard drive and did not format it. Once I booted, I reinstalled drivers for both graphics and mobo but did not update the BIOS.
Must I do a full format?

you should reformat your HDD, update the BIOS, reinstall the drivers, and reinstall the games. you're not supposed to just transfer everything to a new box.

Originally posted by: Hemsky
If anyone is familiar with this motherboard (evga 680i NF68 SLI), on the top right of the board when looking inside the case (above ram) I have 3 LED lights that are on. One blue, one green and one orange. Does the orange indicate a problem with the connections?
I also directly powered both cards from the power supply. There is an onboard power Auxiliary Power for graphics labelled pwer 3. Its a 4 pin connection (the type which is all vertical) but I did not connect that straight to the card. I'm not sure which one I'm supposed to connect to it but I don't see any real advantage to this other than a convenience.

i wouldn't worry about the lots. who knows what they mean

i really don't know about the video power things. i use a desktop and a laptop...the desktop has a GeForce4 MX4000 AGP (definitely not gamer's choice) and the laptop integrated (not that it mattered if it was dedicated) so i don't know how that would or wouldn't be an issue.

next time in the future when something goes wrong (like FPS dropping from 40 to 17 when you move to a better cpu/board), isolate the problem, it's not that hard. see if it's the drive, the see if it's the motherboard or something. part of building rigs is having the satisfaction (or tolerance) of fixing your own problems too

 

[bamacre]

I would do a re-format, especially after installing a new motherboard. And make sure to install chipset drivers before anything else, especially video drivers.

 

[Hemsky]

I appreciate your advice! I will do a complete format and reinstall everything fresh.

This was my first PC I actually build with my own hands. I was amazed it POSTed.

With the CoH problem, I ended up updating the game to latest patch. Got 140 fps average and 210 high.
What a significant improvement!
However, I'm a little stumped as to why WoW can only run at 40-60 average.

Maybe a format?

 

[xenofusion]

After you update the CoH, U get 140fps average and 210high from 14-40fps!?

Recently I just upgrade my graphic card from 6600GT to 1950pro and I don't see alot of improvement.

Really dissapointed.