Underperforming 7950 crossfire

[Skurge]

After getting my cards, I was a little disappointed that I couldn't max out a lot of games even at 2560x1440 and an OC to 1GHz.

Like Crysis 3 was barely playable on High. It wasn't until I was benching Metro Last light that I noticed upping my clocks changed nothing in regards to FPS. So I ran heaven and I was getting scores in the Region of stock 7870 crossfire.

Got the following score. Anyone know what's wrong?

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

FPS:
66.9
Score:
2797
Min FPS:
26.8
Max FPS:
135.0

 

[bystander36]

What FPS are you getting that you consider not good enough?

The truth is, no system can max out everything with 60+ FPS. There will always be a setting here or there that can't be used. No matter what CPU you have, there will be times you will be bottlenecked by your CPU. No matter what and how many GPU's you have, there will be certain settings that may still give you troubles.

PC games have lots of settings so you can fine tune your experience. Just because there are settings there does not mean all the settings are meant to be maxed out.

 

[Skurge]

What FPS are you getting that you consider not good enough?

The truth is, no system can max out everything with 60+ FPS. There will always be a setting here or there that can't be used. No matter what CPU you have, there will be times you will be bottlenecked by your CPU. No matter what and how many GPU's you have, there will be certain settings that may still give you troubles.

PC games have lots of settings so you can fine tune your experience. Just because there are settings there does not mean all the settings are meant to be maxed out.

It's not that I'm expecting to max everything out. I'm getting lower performance than people with similar setups.

The heaven bench is one example. 7950 crossfire users are getting in the high 80s and I'm getting mid 60s. Something doesn't seem right there.

 

[bystander36]

It's not that I'm expecting to max everything out. I'm getting lower performance than people with similar setups.

The heaven bench is one example. 7950 crossfire users are getting in the high 80s and I'm getting mid 60s. Something doesn't seem right there.

With that benchmark, did you run it at 1440p or 1080p? That seemed typical of 1440p.

 

[Skurge]

1080p, 1440p got me mid 30s

 

[stahlhart]

Valley seems to like overclocking memory more than core -- how do your VRAM clocks compare to that of the 7950 submissions in Face2Face's thread?

 

[bystander36]

1080p, 1440p got me mid 30s

That may be a problem then. You need to do some CPU and GPU monitoring and see what kind of usage and temps you are getting. Make sure both cards are functioning in crossfire and that they are working at the correct bus speed. Be sure that all the CCC 3D settings are default as well.

 

[computerparts1]

That may be a problem then. You need to do some CPU and GPU monitoring and see what kind of usage and temps you are getting. Make sure both cards are functioning in crossfire and that they are working at the correct bus speed. Be sure that all the CCC 3D settings are default as well.

This. More often times than not I find people with similar problems are either running in slower pci-e slots or something is wrong with their board which prevents full bus speeds.

 

[Skurge]

I checked with GPU-Z and both cards are running at x8 3.0 speeds. My VRAM clocks are at the stock 1250mhz.

 

[spinejam]

Power limit set to +20%?

 

[Skurge]

Yep

 

[Face2Face]

Disable ULPS

 

[Skurge]

I'll try that and retest.

 

[bystander36]

What are the cards usage? Do you have anything like MLAA enabled or other non default settings in the CCC 3D section? What clocks are they running at during the tests?

ULPS won't do anything if you are already getting proper clocks. You should first see if the cards are running at the proper clocks are not, if they aren't, then disable ULPS, but not before.

 

[ZGR]

Open a GPU monitoring tool and see what Unigine Valley/Furmark does for both. Really put them on load for awhile and see if throttling occurs.

 

[james1701]

Are you sure you are looking at the right benchmarks. I am only getting high 80's and low 90's on my 7970's in Valley benchmarks.

 

[Skurge]

OK so I've done more testing at stock and my temps are high 70s under load. At stock the cards would perform as expected for about 2 runs. On the 3rd run the bench would hitch for about 2 secs then resume at about 15fps lower. And my second GPU usage would max out at 88%

Same thing happens when they are overclocked. VRM temps don't exceed about 85c

Oddly enough this doesn't happen in furmark only in valley. Occt hangs my PC on startup. Not really sure what's going on. Will test the cards 1 by 1 when I get home today.

 

[ZGR]

Hmmm... That is a strange thing. Did GPU usage drop in Valley during scene transition? I noticed on my single GPU, that usage dropped for maybe a few milliseconds.

If you can monitor both 7950's core clock, memory clock, and voltage while under Valley or Furmark with full AA that may give some clues. Your temperatures seem fine.


Testing each card on their own may point to a faulty card. Watch for any voltage drops.

 

[24601]

OK so I've done more testing at stock and my temps are high 70s under load. At stock the cards would perform as expected for about 2 runs. On the 3rd run the bench would hitch for about 2 secs then resume at about 15fps lower. And my second GPU usage would max out at 88%

Same thing happens when they are overclocked. VRM temps don't exceed about 85c

Oddly enough this doesn't happen in furmark only in valley. Occt hangs my PC on startup. Not really sure what's going on. Will test the cards 1 by 1 when I get home today.

That's a sign that your overclock (Or stock) isn't stable.

Valley hits ROPs moderately on scene change.

Try increasing your core voltage.

Also, the super-high scores you see are people doing artifact suicide runs with every setting in their control panel as low as they can set them. Perhaps setting max pre-rendered frames/context queue at something stupid like 10 as well.

 

[james1701]

Is Valley installed on the SSD or platter drive?