Possible bottleneck/horrible hardware setup

[Wasdie]

Hey all, I'm new to these forums but I know they are the best source on the web for this kind of information.

I was just wonder if my current setup has major bottlenecks.

Here are my current specs...

• Gygabyte 956P-DS3
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4ghz OCed to 3.0ghz
• XFX ATI Radion 4890 1gb DDR5
• 520 watt Corsair PSU
• 4 gigs of A-Data DDR 800
• Windows 7 Professional 64bit.

A little history. This summer I upgraded my ram to 4gigs and went from an EVGA Nvidia 8800gts 640mb to the current 4890 (I burnt out my 8800gts because of a lack of cooling which I fixed). My old 3d Mark 06 score was around 8500 and it jumped to about 11000 with the graphic card upgrade. Not bad.

Though when I played games like Crysis I didn't see a large performance jump. I only play 1440x900 with no AA and I didn't change any of my settings from the 8800gts and I only saw a 3-5 fps gain. This didn't seem right. Furthermore I play a game called WWII Online which runs on a very old graphics engine. The 8800gts could play the game at around 30-60 fps in the most hectic battles and 150+ when there wasn't a person around (the game is very CPU intensive). When I plugged in my card I can never seem to get above 60 fps in the very lightly populated areas and my fps drops to under 20 during the big battles and whenever I am in a city...

To further my case, when I upgraded from my 8800gts to my 4890 I actually had to lower settings in ArmA 2 to increase my performance.

This all made no sense to me. I regularly clean my computer, defrag, check for viruses, keep files nice and organized, and don't run tons of stuff in the background. I keep my drivers all nice and updated (currently at 9.12).

I have no idea why I don't see more performance from this card. In the benchmarks it destroys the old 8800gts from 2007, but on my PC I don't see it.

Could it be time to upgrade my PSU, CPU, and RAM? Or is the problem that I am expecting to much from this card?

Thank you very much.

 

[NIGELG]

How about a clean install of Windows?Before considering that you could try a driver clean out if there are still Nvidia's drivers on your computer.

 

[cbn]

Though when I played games like Crysis I didn't see a large performance jump. I only play 1440x900 with no AA and I didn't change any of my settings from the 8800gts and I only saw a 3-5 fps gain. This didn't seem right.

It does seem right to me.

You aren't going to notice any major gains from a GPU upgrade when the resolution you are using is so small and you don't use AA. In fact, I am sure a 8800 GTS probably handles those settings fast enough already.

 

[cbn]

Could it be time to upgrade my PSU, CPU, and RAM? Or is the problem that I am expecting to much from this card?

It is time to upgrade your monitor.

 

[cbn]

How about a clean install of Windows?Before considering that you could try a driver clean out if there are still Nvidia's drivers on your computer.

Good idea.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Possibly vsync's on with double buffering? You'd drop at multiples of refresh (60fps/30/20 at 60Hz).

 

[Wasdie]

I don't use any v-sync and I had a clean Windows 7 Professional install since I had bought the card.

 

[Wasdie]

What would be a similar Nvidia card to the ATI 4890 - 4870?

It appears that the game WWII Online and ATI's drivers for the 4890 just refuse to get along and people with Nvidia cards just destroy the game. So I figured I should just buy a similar Nvidia card and be done with it.

I haven't been happy with ATI and their drivers. Apparently the 4870 works really great with WWII Online but the 4890 uses a slightly different diver software. I am just fed up with ATI at this point.

With my 520 watt power supply could I just switch it with a GTX 260 or GTX 250 and see nearly identical performance?

 

[v8envy]

The GTX 260 216 is the closest economically viable card to a 4890. The GTX 275 is much closer performance wise, but not bang/buck wise.

Something is definitely not right though. A 3 ghz core2 should not be CPU limiting you, and the 4890 is a beast of a card that tears up everything in sight. Your PSU and RAM look good. Time to troubleshoot the OS some more.

 

[NesuD]

You have something else wrong somewhere. That card should be a screamer although as an earlier poster pointed out it won't really outshine your old one by much at that low res with no AA running. My 4850 blows away what you are getting at higher res with AA on. Makes no sense that it shows such a huge improvement in 3d mark but a huge drop off in actual games. My experience is that ATI drivers have been better for me than Nvidia over the years and I am having no issues with my current ati drivers. Whoever told you the 4890 drivers are different from the 4870 doesn't know what he is talking about the cards are identical with higher clock speeds.

Is it possible the card has cooling issues? you should be able to tell that by looking in the CCC.

 

[Wasdie]

You have something else wrong somewhere. That card should be a screamer although as an earlier poster pointed out it won't really outshine your old one by much at that low res with no AA running. My 4850 blows away what you are getting at higher res with AA on. Makes no sense that it shows such a huge improvement in 3d mark but a huge drop off in actual games. My experience is that ATI drivers have been better for me than Nvidia over the years and I am having no issues with my current ati drivers. Whoever told you the 4890 drivers are different from the 4870 doesn't know what he is talking about the cards are identical with higher clock speeds.

Is it possible the card has cooling issues? you should be able to tell that by looking in the CCC.

At no load I am idling at 59 degrees. Seems a bit high to me. Should I ramp up the clock speed manually?

I don't know how my OS could be messed up. I installed it fresh a few months ago.