Upgrade with little to no change-- bottleneck?

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I

Ighnot

Junior Member
Feb 19, 2011
3
0
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Hi, all. First post. Glad to be here.

I have the following--

Mobo: ASUS M4A78 Pro

Proc: Phenom II X4 920 (2.8 GHz)

RAM: 4 Gig Corsair 1066 (under Win 7 32 bit)

Video Card: Sapphire ATI HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 2Gig, running one 22" widescreen display at 1680 X 1050


My problem is that I was running RIFT beta and getting frame rates in the 20s or so with a Sapphire ATI HD 4870 1Gig running the same display, and I decided I'd had that card long enough that it was time to upgrade to the one listed above. I'm only using it to drive one display (bought it in case I go for a 3-display solution later on), so I was expecting a good jump in frame rates.

I haven't seen that. I have the latest ATI suite which includes CCC 11.2, and I've double-checked the settings to make sure I didn't inadvertently turn something way up, and it's all the same. For AA and AF, I have it using software settings.

Other games aren't showing much improvement, either, although Starcraft II seems to be a little happier.

This is pretty frustrating for me because I also bought a better power supply (and one that had the 8-pin/6-pin PCI-E connectors, as my old one had just the two 6-pin connectors) and went ahead and got a case, too, so I laid out a good bit of money for this upgrade.

Right now I'm using Driver Cleaner to completely remove everything and reinstall the ATI drivers, in the hopes that maybe an older dll with the same name that was sticking around somewhere was the culprit and I manage to eradicate it. :)

Anyway, I'm writing to see if any of you knowledgable people have any advice for me on this. Could it be that my Processor/Mobo combo is a bottleneck? I had considered it when I bought the video card, and had decided it was sufficient. Was I wrong?

Could it be that because it's eyefinity 6 I have to tell it (somewhere) that I'm driving only one display, or is there a particular ONE of the six mini-ports on the card that I should use when driving only one display?

Thanks in advance for anything you have to offer.

Ig
 
happy medium

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
Yes I would say its a combination of a slow cpu, game choice, and a lower resolution thats causing your disappointment.

You cpu should be at least overclocked to 3.5 to take advantage of your new gpu.

Welcome to the forums by the way.
 
3

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
106
I would recommend a 64bit OS with a 2gig graphics card. You could very well be running out of ram (either system or vid) and swapping to disc.
 
J

jrocks84

Member
Mar 18, 2010
90
0
66
3DVagabond said:
I would recommend a 64bit OS with a 2gig graphics card. You could very well be running out of ram (either system or vid) and swapping to disc.
Click to expand...

The 64-bit OS is nice and allows the last ~750MB of ram to be used.

As for the 2gig vram, thats useless on 1680x1050
 
toyota

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
0
why are you using 32bit Windows 7? why did you buy a 2gb Eyefinity 5870 to play games at 1680x1050?

and yes your cpu is limiting that 5870 especially in games that only use 2 cores.
 
mnewsham

mnewsham

Lifer
Oct 2, 2010
14,539
428
136
toyota said:
why would he downgrade from a 920 to an 820? and what would being afraid of ocing have anything to do with it since both are running 2.8?
Click to expand...

He hasn't OC'd yet and he has made some bad choices already might as well take the easy way out and get a higher clocked chip.
 
3

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
106
jrocks84 said:
The 64-bit OS is nice and allows the last ~750MB of ram to be used.

As for the 2gig vram, thats useless on 1680x1050
Click to expand...

Could the 4gig of system RAM be using up all, or most, of your usable RAM and leaving very little for video and causing you to swap to disc and creating a bottleneck?
 
toyota

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
0
mnewsham said:
He hasn't OC'd yet and he has made some bad choices already might as well take the easy way out and get a higher clocked chip.
Click to expand...
the cpu you linked to is a slower version of what he already has and is at the SAME clocks.
 
J

jrocks84

Member
Mar 18, 2010
90
0
66
3DVagabond said:
Could the 4gig of system RAM be using up all, or most, of your usable RAM and leaving very little for video and causing you to swap to disc and creating a bottleneck?
Click to expand...

Oops, I misread what was said before, and now I agree with you.
 
I

Ighnot

Junior Member
Feb 19, 2011
3
0
0
Thanks for the replies so far, all.

I bought the eyefinity 6 2Gig card because I anticipate buying two additional displays in the near future. I didn't buy that card solely to drive a single display at 1680 x 1050, as stated. I bought the CPU and mobo together a couple of years ago. If I'm in an upgrade cascade, I could just go ahead and upgrade everything else, I guess.

Right now I have the processor OC'd to 3.2 GHz, and it's running stable, but it showed no framerate improvement. My page file isn't in use when I'm in games at all. I even turned it off to double-check, as if not hearing the HD being hit wasn't enough, along with bringing up perfmon while running games and logging everything.

My choice in parts notwithstanding, the most perplexing thing about my problem is that I had higher frame rates on the older card, which doesn't make sense. I can't help thinking something is WRONG that I can fix. I've done the autotune under AMD overdrive in CCC, and that raised my core clock to 890 MHz and my memory clock to 1290 MHz. No change on frame rates as compared to BEFORE OC-ing the processor and running AMD overdrive.

I even got a good Thermaltake case that runs much cooler and quieter than my old 9 year old case.

toyota said: "and yes your cpu is limiting that 5870 especially in games that only use 2 cores" Would you mind explaining that to me? I have a 4 core processor, and I use the multi core optimization provided by AMD, if that's worth anything. I don't understand why having this CPU limits the 5870 in games that use 2 cores.

Anyway, I know I'm not using the page file at all, just to be clear on that point. I'm using the most recently released driver versions from ATI and not the ones on the CD that came with the card. Is it possible I could see some improvement from rolling back to an earlier version? I've seen new releases introduce problems from time to time.

I haven't the resources at this time (after spending what I have so far) run and buy anything you guys recommend to me. Especially when it comes to that AMD/ATI vs. Intel/nVidia stuff. What I'm asking is if you've heard of such a problem (hardware upgrade from 4870 to 5870 running slower) and can bring your experience and knowledge to bear on it.

Thanks for the welcome.

-Ig
 
BD231

BD231

Lifer
Feb 26, 2001
10,568
138
106
Anything over an x4 955 is overkill for gaming. I'm running a phenom II x3 a @ 3.7ghz and I'm still able to feed a GTX 460 pretty decently.

You think you're running into problems though? Try buying a GTX 460 and realizing the dumbass's over at nVidia let your GPU run as low as 30% utilization on some games due to driver limitations causing micro-stuttering on very simple titles.

Be glad you didn't go nvidia.

PS: Are you sure you don't just have V-Sync on? It's not likely you wouldn't notice a performance increase with an added 400mhz.
 
toyota

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
0
basically your cpu architecture is about the same as the older Core 2 architecture so if it is clocked low then it will not fully keep up with a 5870 at 1680x1050. in a game that does not use more than two cores even a Core 2 duo such as mine would give a better framerate.
 
toyota

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
0
BD231 said:
Anything over an x4 955 is overkill for gaming. I'm running a phenom II x3 a @ 3.7ghz and I'm still able to feed a GTX 460 pretty decently.

You think you're running into problems though? Try buying a GTX 460 and realizing the dumbass's over at nVidia let your GPU run as low as 30% utilization on some games due to driver limitations causing micro-stuttering on very simple titles.

Be glad you didn't go nvidia.

PS: Are you sure you don't just have V-Sync on? It's not likely you wouldn't notice a performance increase with an added 400mhz.
Click to expand...
overkill for many games yes but it will also depend on what card and settings someone is usuing. a 5870 is quite a bit faster than your gtx460 and 1680 is not exactly high res so he should at least oc his current cpu a bit for those more cpu intensive games.
 
I

Ighnot

Junior Member
Feb 19, 2011
3
0
0
toyota said:
overkill for many games yes but it will also depend on what card and settings someone is usuing. a 5870 is quite a bit faster than your gtx460 and 1680 is not exactly high res so he should at least oc his current cpu a bit for those more cpu intensive games.
Click to expand...

Is there a consensus on what games are more CPU-intensive?

-Ig
 
S

SlowSpyder

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
17,305
1,002
126
OP, with the 32 bit version of Windows and a 2GB video card you probabaly don't have a whole lot of system memory (unless Win7 32bit does some voodoo I'm not aware of). Also, a 2.8GHz Ph2 isn't exactly a record setter. A Ph2 at even 4GHz is starting to look it's age when compared to newer Intel chips. But, a solid overclock should help you. Get it up into the mid-higher 3Ghz range. I game on a 3.6GHz Ph2 and it does well enough to play any current game. So I would keep overclocking and maybe look into a 64bit OS... especially at such a lowish resolution ( <- the overclock part).
 
toyota

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
0
Ighnot said:
Is there a consensus on what games are more CPU-intensive?

-Ig
Click to expand...
well that is a tricky topic. some games such as Starcraft 2 only use 2 cores but can push them very hard and will scale with as high of clocks as you can give your cpu. other games such as GTA 4 and Prototype really need a fast clocked quad and preferably an i7/i5 quad to perform well on higher settings.
 
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TurtleCrusher

TurtleCrusher

Lifer
Apr 20, 2008
10,067
990
126
I did a lot of comparing my Q8200 to Phenom 2 X4 CPUs and noticed that even with a cache-butchered Q8x00 It was still a bit faster clock for clock than Phenom 2 x4's. In benchmarks I did to compare with other members. I clocked my Q8200 @ 3ghz against several Phenom 2's at 3.2-3.7ghz, and only when it got to 3.7ghz it was faster in most cases.

You should either overclock or get a newer X4 or X6 black edition.

I wrote a review a couple days ago on my GPU upgrade from a 4830 to a 6870 1gb. That should give you a rough idea of bottlenecks from the CPU. It's on the first page of the forums at the moment.
 
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happy medium

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
Ighnot said:
Is there a consensus on what games are more CPU-intensive?

-Ig
Click to expand...

Rift is one of them. :( it seems much happier with a i7 or highly clocked core 2 quad or Phenom.

Make sure you have the latest direct x 9 installed also.

Turn down all your detail settings to low and see if there is a change in fps.
 
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