What's the best to use...

[DaMeiN]

I just got a new computer and wanted some advice on what is best:

Specs:

AMD A6-3620 APU With Radeon(tm) HD Graphics 2.20GHZ
8GB Ram


Now, I assume the on-board video card is a radeon? I'm not 100% sure, this was my first big upgrade in 5-6 years. I wanted a new computer for gaming. Now I know the 2.20GHZ isn't the best processor for gaming due to its low clock speed, but it was affordable for me, and I assumed it would work well for the games out at the moment.

Now, I also bought a 1GB DDR5 GeForce GTX 550 Ti graphics card. With these coupled at first when I got the PC I could run Borderlands on Steam at the highest graphics possible. Now 48 hours later I cannot. I don't know if I somehow magically picked up a virus in that time, but I doubt that. I am always pretty careful and do daily scans of Malware, Spyware, CCleaner, Anti-Virus and disk defrags (Probably over-kill, but like I said, I am always careful)

Now, in my PC before I had a 2GB DDR3 Evga GeForce 500 graphics card. I could do Borderlands on a high, not the highest quality. My question is, which video card is the best? The on-board, the DDR3 or the DDR5?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jaydip]

The DDR 5 without a hitch but i don't seem to fully understand ur question .

 

[blckgrffn]

The DDR 5 without a hitch but i don't seem to fully understand ur question .

Yes... Definitely, the DDR5 card is the best of the litter.

Is it defective? What kind of PSU are you running? The 550 Ti can actually draw a fair amount of juice despite its single six pin connector.

Are you in a different zone in borderlands or something? With more baddies/AI? Because while current, that CPU is pretty weak and may not meet the minimum requirements of the game (I would think it would, but sometimes all the add on packs can change things...)

That's not to say the quad core is bad - probably very competent in every day tasks, but more and more mid 2 Ghz CPUs are expected, especially from AMD who has been weaker on per mhz performance for the last couple of years. 2.2 ghz may just not cut it. I would expect very minimal gains from Turbo on that CPU.

 

[DaMeiN]

Sadly I didn't custom build this, and I'm feeling more and more like I should of, so I'm not 100% on the PSU. I'll check into that. As for the Borderlands zones, no I can be in Fyrestone (First town) and have issues. Now, my other processor I have in my custom built one was a 3.0GHZ dual core. Do you think maybe I should swap these out? Would the video card + 3.0 dual be better then the 2.2 quad? Because I don't care about every day tasks, I bought this to be able to play my games, lol.

As a side-note, I ran Skyrim on both PCS.

First PC specs (From memory)

3.0GHZ Dual Core
8GB DDR 1333mhz
2GB DDR3 GeForce 500

Which ran Skyrim only at its bare minimum graphics.

BUT, this PC, even now can run Skyrim at 100% graphics at highest. So I was kind of thinking the problem may lay in Borderlands and or Steam in general? Because it doesn't make sense for Skyrim (Which is a much more high-end game) to run 100% when I can't even get 20+ FPS on Team Fortress 2 via Steam.

 

[Jaydip]

There is no problem in Borderlands or Steam.Grab the GPU-Z tool and check the clocks while u play Borderland.Can u check the graphics adapter settings in bios and verify that it is PEG?

 

[DaMeiN]

I've used the GPU tool before, so I know how to use that. I'll report back on that. As far as the PEG in the BIOS, can you elaborate on that? I've never really messed with anything in BIOS besides when I was running my on-board video card back in the day and up'd the RAM sharing.

 

[Jaydip]

PEG stands for Pcie Express Graphics,it will tell u if u r running on the integrated gpu or on an external graphics card.If its PEG then its fine.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

550ti

 

[DaMeiN]

Alright, I'll look into that. I'm headed out now, I tried going into my BIOS but I guess its different on this PC? The usual delete key did nothing at startup and then I used ESC and it brought me to this custom GUI that I guess HP uses, but it didn't have any info on BIOS. So I'll check into it. Thanks so far. But as a side note, if I wasn't using my Ti why would it be under my advanced settings for my display? SAys all the right information.

Hang on...

Just checking this out and it says I have:

Doesn't that mean its pulling 3gb of my RAM to the video card? I'm guessing this may be what you guys meant, that I need to disable my onboard manually. Either way, I'll check back when I get home/find out how to access the BIOS.

 

[DaMeiN]

So.. apparently HP dislikes people messing with the BIOS..? I cannot find an reference on how to access the shared memory through this BIOS. Also, to answer your question about my PSU: It's a 550watt and the video card is a 400watt minimum req.

 

[DaMeiN]

So I ran the GPU-Z tool for about 10 minutes, forcing numerous scenarios in the game Team Fortress 2. Here are the results from the log (I will summarize and also attach it via Mediafile) Also, my FPS in the game never reached more than ~25. And my old setup could easily get 100+ in high settings.

GPU Core Clock never changed from start to finish at 405.0 MHz

GPU Memory Clock never changed from start to finish at 162.0 MHz

GPU Shader Clock never changed from start to finish at 810.0 MHz

GPU Temperature changed, but wen't down only. Starting at 45 and ending at 43.

Fan speed % never changed: Start/Finish = 41%

Fan Speed RPM fluctuated. 1680, 1710, 1680, 1650, 1680, 1710, 1680.

Memory Used wen't from low to higher. Starting at 228, ending at 423. Depending on what was happening.

GPU Load fluctuated. 0, 1, 0, 27 (Game Start), 1, 6, 9, 12, 13, 7, 4 and then continues changing depending on the game play, but never going higher than 18.

Memory Controller Load fluctuated. 3, 23 (Game Start again I think), 3, 7, 10, 13, 10 and continues on low 10's, never reaching higher than 17.

Here is a screen shot and the log file. From what I can tell from this (Never really used it that much) it isn't putting any strain on my video at all, really.

http://www.mediafire.com/?26iec4raa77jhl6 - GPU-Z Sensor Log.txt

 

[DaMeiN]

So it was my processor, apparently AMD has a feature they have enabled called Cool 'N' Quiet that is suppose to regulate your processor clock to help relieve the stress. Even when my games were trying to amp up the clock to its full potential it would drop down to low 900MHz. Disabling this via the power settings fixed my problem and I can now obtain 100+ FPS in my games again.

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Further proof that CnQ/Turbo is borked pretty heavily in LLano rigs.

 

[Yuriman]

What dual core is in the other PC? It might well be better.

As for the shared memory, don't worry about it. PCI-E cards use as little or ad much system memory as they need, that memory is not inaccessible to your CPU.

Also, I don't think there is a "Geforce 500", can you check again for the exact model?

 

[aaksheytalwar]

GeForce 500 is a series. Not a card