Newly Built Not Performing as it Should =p

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Mireli

Member
Apr 28, 2010
65
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I dont know what it was doing at that speed.

It may have been idle, but it now shows 3500MHz on the same 'idle' speed. =o
 

Qbah

Diamond Member
Oct 18, 2005
3,754
10
81
The BSOD you encountered earlier was most likely due to the OC. Have you any experience performing overclocking or did you just raise BCLK to get to 3.5GHz? What about voltages?

Run everything stock. DAO and WoW shouldn't be slow on this rig, even at stock speeds. That 60 FPS AVG in DAO is very low (a stock HD5850 gets this much).

Run Furmark for a longer period of time. 1 hour or something. Check for artifacts on the screen.

Also, what are your CPU temperatures when playing? Download RealTemp and check it out.
 

Mireli

Member
Apr 28, 2010
65
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0
Nope, it was on balanced.

Had to bring the CPU down again, was crashing regularly. It's now at 1600 idle and 2900 otherwise.

Hmm.

With WoW running, RealTemp seems to show mid 40's.
 
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MagickMan

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2008
7,460
3
76
DAO goes to shit after 3-4 hours, there's a memory leak. It got worse after the latest patch. Usually when I play I just restart the game every once in a while.
 

Mireli

Member
Apr 28, 2010
65
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Yeah, it wasn't just DAO though. It's WoW as well. And not in 3 hours, immediately at times.

So, from my experiments today, I've found boosting the PSU up extremely boosts my frame rate. Bringing my 3dVantage scores up 3000+ on both PSU and GPU. However, it makes the system unstable.

Is 1800idle/2900active on my 930 not right?

Also, my RAM is supposed to be 6-8-6-20, however it is showing in memtest as 8-8-8-20.

I'm at a loss. I am positive this system isn't running correctly. According to other users I am getting less, or equal FPS as a single 5850 is getting.
 

Ashkael

Member
May 5, 2010
51
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Dragon Age: Origins (and the expansion, Awakening) getting slow and sluggish over time is not a problem with your computer, it's an issue with the game itself that Bioware has yet to fix. It doesn't happen in every area of the game (the Circle of the Magi Tower, for example, seems unaffected). The only solution is to quickly close the game and relaunch it again when it becomes unbearable.

I've played DA:O with 3 different systems using GPUs from both camps (GTX285, HD4870, HD5870 and HD5970). My old VisionTek HD4870 is more than enough to eat that game. I find, however, that the game is more CPU-bound than GPU-bound. A good place where you can check this is the Denerim Market District: I always had a sharp FPS drop in this area that only went away when I overclocked my Core i7 920 processor to 3.8 Ghz. The overclock also helped a bit with the game's performance going down over time.

If you are completely new to overclocking, I highly recommend checking out this guide:

http://www.overclockers.com/3-step-guide-overclock-core-i3-i5-i7/

Keep in mind a good overclock takes time. It's not something you can do in 5 minutes unless you have a ton of experience.

I'd also like to point something out: you are running with the dual GPU HD5970. One thing I found out when I tried playing DA:O with my HD5970 (either by itself or in Tri-Fire with my HD5870) is that this particular game suffers HEAVILY from micro stutter. The microstutter in this game was so unbearable that when I decided to replay DA:O a couple days ago I yanked the 5970 out and put my 5870 back in. This eliminated the microstuttering and made the game run smooth as butter.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: I see you also mentioned WoW. That's another CPU-bound game. No amount of GPU muscle is going to give you 100+ fps in Dalaran. A 5-year old GPU can probably handle rendering in WoW without breaking a sweat as the game is not GPU intensive at all. A nice overclock on your i7 should boost performance significantly.
 
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Mireli

Member
Apr 28, 2010
65
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Ashkael, please check the FPS for DAO in this thread, if you could.

I was actually in the Denerim Market District during that time, lol. I was running in a circle around the main market area.

How does this compare to your FPS in it?
 

Ashkael

Member
May 5, 2010
51
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0
Ashkael, please check the FPS for DAO in this thread, if you could.

I was actually in the Denerim Market District during that time, lol. I was running in a circle around the main market area.

How does this compare to your FPS in it?

I always have FPS drops in the central area in the market in Denerim. I've seen it hit the high 30s while running circles around this very same area with x8 anti aliasing and the high-res texture pack installed on my 5870. But you know what? I've gotten FPS drops in this area on all my other setups, and I find the FPS always hovers around 40-60 in this area if you have VSync on. Turn off VSync and you will gain a magical 5-10 FPS in this area and you probably won't even notice you are below 60 fps.

Another place where you can see similar behavior is the party camp. When you have 3 or 4 followers it's relatively nice. When you have most of the followers and some other extra NPCs, you will take a FPS hit in this area too. I'm convinced it's more an issue with the game itself rather than the GPU or CPU.
 
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Mireli

Member
Apr 28, 2010
65
0
0
That's exciting. What about my other benchmarks, though.

Are they fine for a 5970 and my setup? My 3dMark/Heaven, etc.

PS: When i had the discussion about what video card to buy, no one really mentioned the micro stuttering and how big of a problem it is. Where were you then?! :D

Is this something that will be remedied in the future?

EDIT: Also something else thats really random. My fan is set to 50%. Yet often it sits at 20% while I have WoW/DAO open. Other times, I open DAO with it at 20% and the fan shoots up to 100% and slowly drops down to 50%. What's up with this?
 
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Ashkael

Member
May 5, 2010
51
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3dMark Vantage on default settings


Overall: 21101
GPU: 22244
CPU: 18282

Those numbers look just about right for a 5970 + i7 930 at stocks. In fact, that's pretty close to what I got. I think the farthest I was able to push my GPU score on Vantage at default settings was mid 25000s with the i7 @ 3.8Ghz and the 5970 @ 775/1050.

My best Vantage GPU score was about 36000 with two Sapphire 5970s in Quadfire @ stocks. I haven't tried playing more with the two cards in quadfire.

You also mention your card was hot. The 5970 runs VERY hot. If you have the fan set on auto, it's not unusual to see the card hitting low to mid 80s even at stocks. Manually bump the fan speed to something like 50% if this really bothers you. That should help keep the card in the 50s depending on your room temperature.

The best advice I can give you is to perform all sorts of stability tests to ensure your system is fine and to rule out any possible pieces of hardware being bad. After this, please play your games with fraps turned off. I know a lot of enthusiasts are probably going to cry at this recommendation, but the reality is that you will never enjoy whatever game you are playing if you have one eye glued to the FPS counter. The moment you see it drop below 60 you will get angry at having spent thousands of dollars for top of the line stuff that doesn't quite give you the perpetual smooth-as-butter performance that is really only attainable in dreams.

The reality is that unless you have a magical computer, you are always going to have some sort if issue with most PC games you play.
 
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Ashkael

Member
May 5, 2010
51
0
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PS: When i had the discussion about what video card to buy, no one really mentioned the micro stuttering and how big of a problem it is. Where were you then?! :D

Is this something that will be remedied in the future?

I was busy ordering TWO HD5970s that I don't use because of terrible micro stuttering.

To be fair, I haven't seen it happen as bad as DA:O in other games, but it still happens enough that I notice it and it makes me angry. To give you an example, in Just Cause 2 there's virtually no micro stuttering UNTIL I try to fly any sort of airplane. The second I hop on an airplane and start flying at full speed, it's microstutter city. I found out that, at least in Just Cause 2, enabling VSync fixed this micro stutter, but then VSync itself introduces other much maligned issues like interface lag when you drop below 60.

As far as when it will be fixed, I don't know. One thing is for sure: I'm sticking to single GPUs from now on.

When benching my quadfired 5970s one thing became really apparent while watching the GPU tests: I had ridiculous FPS (150+) in the very same areas my single 5870 gets high fps (60-80), but in the areas that caused my 5870 to go down in fps, my quadfired 5970s also suffered heavily, barely managing to stay above the 5870 by 5-15 FPS depending on situation. In other words, my costly GPU investment gave me a crapton of impractical FPS where I don't need it, but only a very marginal improvement where I'd really like it. Since the cards hover in the high 100+ for a considerable chunk of the tests, this ends up inflating the final score. As a gamer, I'm more concerned with the worst case scenario rather than completely impractical FPS.
 
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Mireli

Member
Apr 28, 2010
65
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Thank you so much for the information.

I just bumped my CPU up to 3989MHz, ran Prime for not long enough (30min) and it was fine, impatient for now, will run it over now.

GPU at stock settings. This thing seems to refuse to OC anything much at all. After seeing the person in this thread:

http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f10/well-almost-done-228536/index7.html

He has his 5970 at 1000/1250, I can't get anywhere even remotely close to that. =p

Either way, my Vantage scores after the CPU change (which seems stable, an hour later at least -_-)

25431 Total
GPU 25839 [Stocks. Why did my GPU score jump 3400 just by OCing the CPU? =o]
CPU 24279 [A 5000+ point upgrade. Jesus]

Assuming this is stable, I can safely assume there is nothing wrong with my hardware/etc? These numbers are very respectable?
 

Ashkael

Member
May 5, 2010
51
0
0
Thank you so much for the information.

I just bumped my CPU up to 3989MHz, ran Prime for not long enough (30min) and it was fine, impatient for now, will run it over now.

GPU at stock settings. This thing seems to refuse to OC anything much at all. After seeing the person in this thread:

http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f10/well-almost-done-228536/index7.html

He has his 5970 at 1000/1250, I can't get anywhere even remotely close to that. =p

Either way, my Vantage scores after the CPU change (which seems stable, an hour later at least -_-)

25431 Total
GPU 25839 [Stocks. Why did my GPU score jump 3400 just by OCing the CPU? =o]
CPU 24279 [A 5000+ point upgrade. Jesus]

I'm not the most knowledgeable person in here, but the way I understand it (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) is that essentially, your CPU needs to be fast enough to keep your GPU busy while handling various other tasks. This is why pairing a high end card like a GTX480 or a HD5870 with a weak processor might not be a great idea. This is also why World of Warcraft, a game that can be eaten alive by a 5-year old GPU, will experience significant drops in FPS in crowded areas like Dalaran, Alterac Valley or any raid: your CPU is busy dealing with all the stuff going on in the game world and it still has to keep your GPU satisfied.

So yes, overclocking your CPU can result in some extra GPU performance in benchmarks and games.

As for the guy with the 5970 at 1000/1250, he probably lucked out or is running aftermarket cooling. He also probably over volted his card. Remember that producing 1,000 Cypress or Fermi chips is not a simple as producing say, 1,000,000 pairs of Nike shoes. You always have to deal with a percentage of your production not turning out well, and I'm willing to bet those 1,000,000 pairs of Nike shoes probably end up with less defective pairs than the 1,000 chips. This is also why voltage binning exists. Not every chip is the same.
 
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Mireli

Member
Apr 28, 2010
65
0
0
Awesome information. Thanks.

Another question I have is about my RAID. People seem to keep wondering if its performing correctly- is there a way to benchmark this?

My Windows Experience Index score was 7.7, 7.7, 7.7, 7.7 and 5.9, the low score being the primary hard disk. Not sure if that means anything, just sad to see that number.

Before the OC of the CPU (GPU again still at clock) my score was 7.5, 7.5, 6.5, 6.5, 5.9. =o Awesome to see the processor went up .2 but the graphics 1.2, haha =)

I plan on ordering a SSD big enough for Win7 and a couple games- how will that affect FPS in games, as well as OS processing?
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
3,003
126
Overclocking is not the answer.

Have you installed the latest chipset drivers for system?
Have you verified Crossfire is in operation?
Have you checked your PEG is running @ 16x?
 

Matrices

Golden Member
Aug 9, 2003
1,377
0
0
If your RAM is not running in spec, go into the BIOS and set your RAM timings manually.
 

Mireli

Member
Apr 28, 2010
65
0
0
Overclocking is not the answer.

Have you installed the latest chipset drivers for system?
Have you verified Crossfire is in operation?
Have you checked your PEG is running @ 16x?

Yes, the latest chipset has been installed.

I don't know how to verify the Crossfire, I know in GPU-Z it says ATI Crossfired (Enabled 2 GPUs).

I dont know what you mean by PEG, but I think it's this, says in GPU-Z:

PCI-E 2.0x16 @ X16 2.0
 

MagickMan

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2008
7,460
3
76
That's exciting. What about my other benchmarks, though.

Are they fine for a 5970 and my setup? My 3dMark/Heaven, etc.

PS: When i had the discussion about what video card to buy, no one really mentioned the micro stuttering and how big of a problem it is. Where were you then?! :D

Is this something that will be remedied in the future?

I have no, as in zero, microstutter with my 5850 xfire setup. Not sure why some people do and others don't. If you're not seeing it now, I wouldn't worry about it.
 

Mireli

Member
Apr 28, 2010
65
0
0
I think I am, I'm not exactly sure. I am noticing minor hickups while my frame rate stays high.
 

Mireli

Member
Apr 28, 2010
65
0
0
Well, after much testing and pushing, here is the best I could get.

I couldn't really get my GPU OC'd at all, and I didn't really get a gain with what it's at now either. Made me sad =(

I notice a huge drop in frames in the second GPU test when there is a large number of asteroids, also whenever there are transitions. It seems I hickup andcatch up. I am guessing this is normal, though.

scorel.jpg
 

Supersonic64

Senior member
Jun 9, 2010
372
2
0
1800MHz? You were running an underclocked i7 930? Anyways, you can't just expect to overclock your CPU and get instant stability. You have to tweak settings and stress test until you are stable.
 

MagickMan

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2008
7,460
3
76
That's a fact. When OCing a modern CPU there's a lot of trial and error to get the most out of it. Adjust this, tweak that, raise one voltage, lower another, etc.. Then once you find the max stable clock, as in actually stable, back it off a little and you're done.
 

Mireli

Member
Apr 28, 2010
65
0
0
1800MHz? You were running an underclocked i7 930? Anyways, you can't just expect to overclock your CPU and get instant stability. You have to tweak settings and stress test until you are stable.

I was running it at stock settings... the difference on my GPUs performance between stock and current settings are astronomical.

System seems completely stable, stress tested over night, no crashes.

However I am noticing one thing. When I load new games, I get a flash of something else at load time.

EG: When I load up DAO, it flashes something while it loads, another piece of memory I assume. Sometimes it flashes WoW, sometimes a scene in DAO, sometimes randomness.
 
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