Radeon 5770, Terrible Performance, What's Wrong

[xpose]

I recently updated from an 8800 GT to a Radeon 5770. I was expecting some big performance gains, but have not seen them at all. Every game I test I get much lower FPS scores than I should according to anandtech benchmark scores.

I have the latest ATI drivers installed. Surely Radeon 5770 can do better than an average of 25FPS on Dirt 2 with settings on high at 1680 x 1050.

Does my motherboard bottleneck the bandwidth? I have no idea what the issue is.

Operating System: Windows 7 Enterprise 32-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_rtm.090713-1255)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: P5KC
BIOS: BIOS Date: 06/25/08 18:03:13 Ver: 08.00.12
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9450 @ 2.66GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 3328MB RAM
Page File: 1939MB used, 4712MB available

 

[lyssword]

did you run driver cleaner to remove any traces of previous drivers?

 

[v8envy]

Try cranking the resolution down to see if frame rates improve. If they don't, the GPU *hardware* is not at fault.

Remember that benchmarks are run on pristine machines with no spyware, updater programs, virus checkers or other cruft bogging things down.

You're 2 gigs into swap. That's a hint to me that something big is running on your machine.

 

[blanketyblank]

yeh 25 seems low for that setup and resolution. I'd recommend clean driver install or clean format of OS if that's feasible for you. I find installing the drivers kind of nasty even if you're just going between different models of cards from the same company.
Also what brand of 5770 are you using? I've heard that sapphire released a few with the wrong bios so some of the stream processors are disabled.

 

[Ross Ridge]

Make sure your video card is plugged into the blue 16x PCI Express slot closest to the CPU. The other black 16x PCI Express slot only runs at 4x on the Asus P5KC.

 

[xpose]

did you run driver cleaner to remove any traces of previous drivers?

I have. I've run Driver Sweeper. (http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/)

Try cranking the resolution down to see if frame rates improve. If they don't, the GPU *hardware* is not at fault.

Remember that benchmarks are run on pristine machines with no spyware, updater programs, virus checkers or other cruft bogging things down.

You're 2 gigs into swap. That's a hint to me that something big is running on your machine.

I agree that benchmarks run on pristine machines, but at the same time my system was freshly installed roughly a month ago, plus I have very similar hardware. I even have an Intel X25-M Gen2 34nm 80GB SSD as my primary HD.

Plus I disabled a virus scanner and still saw no improvements.

I'll try to run the benchmarks again with a lower resolution.

yeh 25 seems low for that setup and resolution. I'd recommend clean driver install or clean format of OS if that's feasible for you. I find installing the drivers kind of nasty even if you're just going between different models of cards from the same company.
Also what brand of 5770 are you using? I've heard that sapphire released a few with the wrong bios so some of the stream processors are disabled.

I am actually using Sapphire. I have not heard of that before and will definitely look into this. I sure hope that is the problem because nothing else explains the low scores.

Make sure your video card is plugged into the blue 16x PCI Express slot closest to the CPU. The other black 16x PCI Express slot only runs at 4x on the Asus P5KC.

Good idea Ross. Though I do have the card plugged into the blue slot.

 

[SRoode]

High settings may be a push for the 5770. I have a 5850 and run at High and my fps average about 50 with 4xAA. What is your AA setting?

 

[xpose]

High settings may be a push for the 5770. I have a 5850 and run at High and my fps average about 50 with 4xAA. What is your AA setting?

My AA is disabled.

 

[xpose]

Perhaps I found the issue. According to GPU-Z, it says I am running PCIE at x2, instead of x16. Unless I am misreading the graph?

If that is the case, how the heck do I change that?

 

[SRoode]

Is there a setting in your bios to change that?

 

[xpose]

Is there a setting in your bios to change that?

Not from what I saw. I checked everywhere.

I am going to boot down, take the battery out and reset the cmos. That should fix it. I'll post when I get it back up.....

 

[tcsenter]

did you run driver cleaner to remove any traces of previous drivers?

Drivers already have such a cleaner, its called the integrated 'remove/uninstall' feature found in Add/Remove Programs or Programs and Features.

Alternatively (Windows 7 and Vista), from Device Manager, select the device to be removed, right click and select "uninstall/remove". When prompted to 'remove software for this device', tick the box and/or select Yes/OK.

13+ years and I've never had to use a third-party driver cleaner program. Seen lots of problems caused by them, however.

 

[happy medium]

Perhaps I found the issue. According to GPU-Z, it says I am running PCIE at x2, instead of x16. Unless I am misreading the graph?

If that is the case, how the heck do I change that?

Update your board drivers.

 

[xpose]

I reset my CMOS and it now detects the card at x8. Such a weird problem! Now I get more respectable scores of AVG FPS 54.3.

Still though, it should be at x16. Not sure if I should try to reset again or what.

 

[MrK6]

Update your board drivers.

Ditto. I would uninstall the Catalysts, update the board drivers, reinstall the Catalysts, just for the sake of being thorough.

 

[happy medium]

I reset my CMOS and it now detects the card at x8. Such a weird problem! Now I get more respectable scores of AVG FPS 54.3.

Still though, it should be at x16. Not sure if I should try to reset again or what.

update your bios also.

 

[xpose]

Ditto. I would uninstall the Catalysts, update the board drivers, reinstall the Catalysts, just for the sake of being thorough.

I've done that a few times, didn't help.

update your bios also.

My bios is using the latest version.

I want to thank all of you guys for your suggestions and replies. It turns out, it was a combination of the BIOS being screwy and the card needing to be taken out and put back in.

Even though the card was fully in its place, I decided to move over my sound card one slot to give it a little bit more breathing room. I booted it up, and it shows x16.

Maybe a bit of luck? I'm not sure. What I do know is that making sure your video card runs at x16 is extremely important!

My benchmark scores are only a few FPS slower than what anandtech shows they should be.

 

[Phil1977]

Was your soundcard PCIe as well? Or normal PCI?

Not getting the corrent number of PCIe lanes is usually overclocking or having cards in the CF / SLI slots...

EDIT:

How is the performance now?

I have a 9600GT and also thinking of going with a 5770 as its the only option at that price.

 

[xpose]

Was your soundcard PCIe as well? Or normal PCI?

Not getting the corrent number of PCIe lanes is usually overclocking or having cards in the CF / SLI slots...

EDIT:

How is the performance now?

I have a 9600GT and also thinking of going with a 5770 as its the only option at that price.

My soundcard was just regular PCI, but was right next to my new card. (The 8800 GT was only single card width, this card is double width).

The performance now is kick ass. Deciding if you need to upgrade that 9600GT depends on what res you run your games at. I recently got a wide screen monitor, so running games at 1680 x 1050 started to get a bit on the slow side.

Now... not only can I run most games at that res with settings on high, but AA 4x as well. Call of Duty, Batman, etc

 

[AzN]

You are probably running dx11 mode. Run dx9.