My radeon hd 6670 is bottlenecked. Anything i can do without buying a new cpu?

[Jdm13oiZz]

My amd radeon hd 6670 is getting bottlecked by my amd athlon x2 3.5ghz (its actually a amd phenom ii 521 3.5ghz from one of the Hp Pavilion p6000 series models. I found out it was just rebranded... -_-...)

is there anything i can do to reduce the bottleneck such as doing system tweaks, or using programs without buying a whole new cpu?

and to anyone who thinks im not bottlenecked, i am pretty sure it is a bottleneck. No matter what settings i have my game on my fps stays the exact same, shouldnt i get more fps on low than i get on high? well i dont, its the same fps as high.

some games also like to stutter, because of the bottleneck.
i can see in the task manager that my cpu usage spikes from 20% to 80% every few seconds.

also, my friend who has the same graphics card and like the same setup as me but with a amd phenom II x4 955 3.2ghz processor gets quiet a lot more fps than me and no stuttering.

and by the way, i was told at tomshardware by someone that getting dual channel for my ram (ive got one 4gb stick) will boost my fps quiet a bit and reduce my bottleneck. Is that true? i was also told by a friend that getting a sound card should reduce the bottleneck too.

 

[Puppies04]

You can try to minimise other programs ru8nning in the backgroud while you are gaming but you will still be cpu bottlenecked. Only other options are OC the cpu or buy a new one.

Running dual channel ram might help a little also offloading the audio workload to a dedicated soundcard might help a bit aswell but I doubt they will be massive improvements. Why not just buy a new CPU by the time you mess around buying a soundcard and another ram dimm you will end up spending the same amount of money.

 

[Bman123]

well for one what games are you playing and at what resolution?

 

[T_Yamamoto]

have you tired overclocking it?

 

[frozentundra123456]

You can run task monitor to check CPU usage and something like MSI afterburner to monitor GPU usage. If the CPU usage is pegged and the GPU is not you must be CPU limited. Frankly, in most games I would not expect you to be that CPU limited. I am using a 9800GT and an E4500 at stock 2.2ghz. In skyrim, cpu and gpu usage are both very close to the same, so they are pretty well balanced.

If the 3.5ghz you posted is correct for the CPU speed, it should be a lot faster than mine, while the 9800GT is only slightly slower than the 6670. So I am surprised you would be that CPU limited. Have you checked your CPU temperatures? Could it be getting hot and throttling or something? Edit: or as someone else said, do you have something running in the background or some sort of virus/spyware that is eating up CPU power?

 

[aaksheytalwar]

A E4500 is possibly stutter free compared to his setup due to its newer arch. Also, a 6670 is significantly more powerful.

He has only one real choice, to upgrade his CPU. The rest is just beating around the bush.

And mid range AMD or any low end Intel would cut it really well and make him GPU limited.

 

[KompuKare]

some games also like to stutter, because of the bottleneck.
i can see in the task manager that my cpu usage spikes from 20% to 80% every few seconds.

that makes me consider that you may have a driver / hardware conflict somewhere. Determining if you is easy enough: download Process Explorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653), and let it run sorted by CPU usage while doing nothing. If you see CPU spikes while doing nothing, you've most likely got a conflict. If you do, narrowing it down to something specific is much harder...

But a start would be for instance that Process Explorer is lists Interrupts as a CPU task and if that spikes it's probably a badly written hardware driver, etc. Certainly worth trying

 

[wlee15]

A E4500 is possibly stutter free compared to his setup due to its newer arch. Also, a 6670 is significantly more powerful.

He has only one real choice, to upgrade his CPU. The rest is just beating around the bush.

And mid range AMD or any low end Intel would cut it really well and make him GPU limited.

His processor is a Athlon II X2 processor running at 3.5 Ghz so it's actually much faster than the 2.2 Ghz Conroe based E4500.

 

[formulav8]

Your cpu wouldn't be bottlenecking that card. Its probably the card thats to slow for the quality and resolution you want to use.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

i wonder if hes trying to pull 1080p

 

[mrcmtl]

We can't help you much more if you don't tell us the game that you are playing.

If for example you play an old game and have Vsync on, no matter if you choose high or low settings, it will stay at around 60fps or whatever your monitor refresh rate is at.

Dual channel memory might help a bit, but another sound card has absolutely no help in this situation.

 

[upsdriver]

If you have vsync on and no triple buffering, your fps could be capped at 30. The 6670 is a weak card, really doubt your cpu is bottlenecking it.

 

[Jdm13oiZz]

Back from sleeping xD.... Well my monitor is 1600x900 and thats what i play on. Games that ive noticed this occuring is, saints row the third, gta 4, need for speed world, bioshock, need for speed shift, and skyrim pretty much all games.. What happens is the fps caps at a certain fps, and it stutters from there. The game will like slow down real quick then speed up real fast, the fps jumps around. Even if i try to lock the fps to something lower it still stutters a bit from there, which is wierd..

One game me and my friend play is a multiplayer mod for san andreas called multi theft auto and the server we play on has a fps limit of 80 but i can only average 40-70 maxed out but with shadows off. While my friend can get 80fps flat, no stuttering with shadows on. Whenever i turn shadows i can see my cpu spike like crazy, its like every few seconds it jumps.

btw, 640x480, 800x600, 1400x900, 1600x900, ect its all the same. My fps doesnt change. and no i havent tried overclocking because ive got one of those HP motherboards and they lock the bios.

 

[Phynaz]

You don't need a new CPU, you need to find what background process is using up your CPU.

 

[Jdm13oiZz]

that makes me consider that you may have a driver / hardware conflict somewhere. Determining if you is easy enough: download Process Explorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653), and let it run sorted by CPU usage while doing nothing. If you see CPU spikes while doing nothing, you've most likely got a conflict. If you do, narrowing it down to something specific is much harder...

But a start would be for instance that Process Explorer is lists Interrupts as a CPU task and if that spikes it's probably a badly written hardware driver, etc. Certainly worth trying

it jumps around at 5-10%

You don't need a new CPU, you need to find what background process is using up your CPU.

I dont really have any, my processes are always below 40. Only thing ive really got running in the backround is skype, srs audio sandbox, hamachi, avast antivirus, and a thing called motionjoy dualshock 3 tool which lets me use a ps3 controller to play games..

 

[Homeles]

Your cpu wouldn't be bottlenecking that card. Its probably the card thats to slow for the quality and resolution you want to use.

This... I wonder if even a PIII would bottleneck a 6670...

 

[mrcmtl]

I doesn't seem to be a CPU problem. I'm pretty sure games like need for speed shift doesn't need more than 2 cores. Also the fact that your CPU isn't maxed out indicates that you shouldn't be in a CPU bottleneck situation either.

Maybe you can borrow a stick of RAM from your friend and test your system out in dual channel and see if that helps.

 

[Jdm13oiZz]

You can run task monitor to check CPU usage and something like MSI afterburner to monitor GPU usage. If the CPU usage is pegged and the GPU is not you must be CPU limited. Frankly, in most games I would not expect you to be that CPU limited. I am using a 9800GT and an E4500 at stock 2.2ghz. In skyrim, cpu and gpu usage are both very close to the same, so they are pretty well balanced.

If the 3.5ghz you posted is correct for the CPU speed, it should be a lot faster than mine, while the 9800GT is only slightly slower than the 6670. So I am surprised you would be that CPU limited. Have you checked your CPU temperatures? Could it be getting hot and throttling or something? Edit: or as someone else said, do you have something running in the background or some sort of virus/spyware that is eating up CPU power?

Okay, for that multiplayer mod for San Andreas my cpu would be at like 80% usage and my gpu would at like 50%

 

[Jdm13oiZz]

I doesn't seem to be a CPU problem. I'm pretty sure games like need for speed shift doesn't need more than 2 cores. Also the fact that your CPU isn't maxed out indicates that you shouldn't be in a CPU bottleneck situation either.

Maybe you can borrow a stick of RAM from your friend and test your system out in dual channel and see if that helps.

need for speed shift is one of the lesser ones that stutter out of all the games i have. xD

 

[KingFatty]

Doesn't an overheated chip show a usage that "bounces around"? I wonder if the CPU and/or the GPU is doing OK and making the game work as intended, then overheating, then it throttles performance to cool back down, then works normally, overheats, throttles, repeat...

So run a program that will show the readings of sensors for your CPU and GPU. Ideally, you will be able to watch the CPU usage and temperature over time, as well as the GPU usage and temperature over time. Do you see any pattern where the temperature gets high, then usage cuts down or something like that? When was the last time you cleared out the dust from your heatsinks?

 

[nickb64]

GTA 4 runs like shit on most setups, it's not a great port.

My laptop's GPU should be a bit slower than OP's (6770M 1GB). Even at 1366x768 GTA 4 runs like shit with an i7 2630QM (turbos up to ~2.5GHz most of the time in games)

 

[zebrax2]

Tried using a different version of Catalyst than the one you currently have?

 

[Jdm13oiZz]

Tried using a different version of Catalyst than the one you currently have?

the catalyst doesnt work anymore for some reason.. when i try to start it up it says amd vision engine control center cannot be started, because there are no settings or something like that...

the fps issue still occured when catalyst was working though...

Doesn't an overheated chip show a usage that "bounces around"? I wonder if the CPU and/or the GPU is doing OK and making the game work as intended, then overheating, then it throttles performance to cool back down, then works normally, overheats, throttles, repeat...

So run a program that will show the readings of sensors for your CPU and GPU. Ideally, you will be able to watch the CPU usage and temperature over time, as well as the GPU usage and temperature over time. Do you see any pattern where the temperature gets high, then usage cuts down or something like that? When was the last time you cleared out the dust from your heatsinks?

My pc is like from december. and i just opened up the sidepanel and well theres not really any dust anywhere..

 

[DominionSeraph]

Download Speedfan. Check temps.

Run Driversweeper to uninstall your video drivers. Then download and install fresh drivers for your 6670.

Clean boot before you start a game.

 

[formulav8]

Hopefully i'm understanding everything going on. Best case for Dual channel is up to 10%. Games is probably one of the area's 10% could be somewhat expected. But from what your saying, 10% won't do much to help your problem. You also have plenty of ram in itself. Its NOT your cpu thats a bottleneck. (Unless something is wrong with it or the mobo). Your 1600x resolution is quite a bit to ask of a 6670 video card with any higher eye candy settings. (It only has 480 shaders) I would bench at your video cards stock clockspeed and then bench your video card at the highest possible overclocking settings that you can get stable. Since its 128bit ddr5 just worry about ocing the core as high as possible. You can use AMD's Catalyst Control Center (may only allow up to a certain clock) or the MSI Afterburner program. Depending on how high you can overclock the video card, you should see nice increases in your frame rates. That is probably the better thing to check right now.