[LoneMerc2]

Hi all,



Rig:


CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1075T

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master V6 GT

Motherboard: GA-890GPA-UD3H

Graphics Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 2GB (link to card here)

Ram: 8GB Corsair Vengeance (2x4GB)

Drive: OCZ Vertex II SSD 120GB

PSU: Cooler Master GX 750W (link to PSU here)


I have just the other day bought my self a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 2GB, the "Dual Fan Edition", card information is available in rig.

I have very low FPS in all the games I play, which should not be happening. I have ran a UniEngine 'Heaven' Benchmark test, the result was:

and shortly before starting this thread, I found a topic, it tells me about a Power Throttling / Power-Tune +20% Issue (details about it here). I increased this and have seen no change in fps at all. My UniEngine stutters when it is benchmarking, quite visably in some areas (even though the FPS stays 30+ while it stutters) too. This is an updated benchmark taken just now after I increased the power +20%:

Shouldn't I be getting more than this?

Here are a few lowpoints while playing some games, I usually get around 30-35fps in most games. 1920x1080 resolution.

Skyrim ultra setting:

^^ 19 fps

^^ 15 fps

Crysis 2 Ultra setting + DX11, Texture Pack:

^^ 21 fps

I get around 30fps playing BF3 on ultra when i quickly played a map in which I was outside on METRO. I imagine if I was to play Caspian or some other huge map this would be far less.

I fully expected to get highs of 40-50+ with a card like this. Is something wrong or is another piece of hardware causing a bottleneck? Or is it just me? The card is barely different from the ATI Radeon 5850 1GB I replaced it with!

I hope someone can help me here with this problem. Perhaps it is my PSU causing the bottleneck? This is the PSU I have.


I also have a bios switch on my card that unlocks it to a 6970 and it makes 0 difference at all.

Is this type of performance normal or is something bottlenecking my fps? I believe I should be getting far more fps from this beast of a card.


Thanks for reading. I hope someone can help.

 

[efx8]

What temperatures are you GPU/CPU hitting both idle and in these games, you're right that you should be producing better FPS. I wouldn't like to say the PSU is causing the bottleneck, possibly could be driver related have you tried using Driver Sweeper for removal of traces of your old GPU drivers?

 

[Amd_Man]

I would not put any faith in the Coolermaster GX series of power supplies. I know the GS650 failed the tests that I read. I do know that a card in need of clean stable (+12v rail)power will produce lower than expected (or attainable) frame rates.

 

[LoneMerc2]

What temperatures are you GPU/CPU hitting both idle and in these games, you're right that you should be producing better FPS. I wouldn't like to say the PSU is causing the bottleneck, possibly could be driver related have you tried using Driver Sweeper for removal of traces of your old GPU drivers?

CPU is hitting around 40-50 while playing games (usually always low from when I look), around 25-30 idle. GPU is around 40 idle and can go as high as 65 playing games.

Yeah I've completely uninstalled my drivers, restarted, ran driver sweeper, restarted, verified everything has gone then re-installed the latest drivers. It made my stuttering in unigine 'heaven' go away but other than that it fixed nothing fps wise.

I would not put any faith in the Coolermaster GX series of power supplies. I know the GS650 failed the tests that I read. I do know that a card in need of clean stable (+12v rail)power will produce lower than expected (or attainable) frame rates.

Ah right thanks for that, I do wish I went corsair now but I can't afford over £100 on a new psu at the moment. It does have a dedicated +12v rail for my card, but if its not a very good psu it matters not. What else do you reccomend?

 

[emosun]

The card is barely different from the ATI Radeon 5850 1GB I replaced it with!

Well this statement is somewhat true. Few people realize that when you upgrade form a high end card , to a high end card , there won't be alot of difference.

A 6950 isn't THAT much better but somewhat.

Is this type of performance normal or is something bottlenecking my fps? I believe I should be getting far more fps from this beast of a card.

I would also consider cpu lag in terms of it being preoccupied with something else. What other programs are you running?(messengers , browsers,antivirus,firewalls,ect..)

All of these can simply occupy a cpu enough to make the game less of a priority , try running these games without any other programs running.

Also , try running them without AA. At 1920x1080 you pretty much don't need AA anyway.

 

[LoneMerc2]

Well this statement is somewhat true. Few people realize that when you upgrade form a high end card , to a high end card , there won't be alot of difference.

A 6950 isn't THAT much better but somewhat.



I would also consider cpu lag in terms of it being preoccupied with something else. What other programs are you running?(messengers , browsers,antivirus,firewalls,ect..)

All of these can simply occupy a cpu enough to make the game less of a priority , try running these games without any other programs running.

Also , try running them without AA. At 1920x1080 you pretty much don't need AA anyway.

Yeah I only run with my AV on and Steam. I've tried with AA off and it has made a marginal difference, around 5fps in SR3. I also get an error saying: "Windows has detected your computer performance is slow..." blah blah asking me to switch off Aero. It has only just started happening, what could be causing this? It only happens playing games and has just started.

 

[emosun]

Yeah I only run with my AV on and Steam.

What antivirus are you using? HAve you tried running the games with it disabled?

I also get an error saying: "Windows has detected your computer performance is slow..." blah blah asking me to switch off Aero. It has only just started happening, what could be causing this? It only happens playing games and has just started.

You should actually read the error entirely and see what it's trying to tell you...

 

[LoneMerc2]

What antivirus are you using? HAve you tried running the games with it disabled?



You should actually read the error entirely and see what it's trying to tell you...

Norton Internet Security, and no I have not. I will try though.

I have, it tells me my performance is low and I need to switch Aero off to improve performance. Turning Aero off (my PC is more than good enough to run Aero, lol), as in going to basic, makes no difference.

 

[Johnny1982]

From my experiences with Norton I can tell you it's a system hogger. Try disabling it and see if it improves your gaming speed.

 

[emosun]

Norton Internet Security, and no I have not. I will try though.

This is exactly what I expected.

Norton along with mcafee are the absolute worst security programs you can have running on the machine. I have no doubt in my mind that norton could easily cause all the lag you have.

Uninstall it completely , and use avg from now on.

 

[LoneMerc2]

This is exactly what I expected.

Norton along with mcafee are the absolute worst security programs you can have running on the machine. I have no doubt in my mind that norton could easily cause all the lag you have.

Uninstall it completely , and use avg from now on.

Great news that my subscription expires in 25 days then! Thanks for that. I'll get AVG the first chance I get.

 

[Tyree]

AVG is not much better relating to hogging resources. MS Security Essentials is free, uses a minimum of resources and does a decent job.

 

[emosun]

I gotta say avg did seem to use a lot during scans , but it can be set to simply scan when your not on the computer. At idle it seems ok. Much better then norton at any given time.

I honestly think no virus protection at all would be better then macafee or norton , but try MS Security Essentials too.

 

[LoneMerc2]

Can I have MSE and AVG? Or must I choose one or the other?

 

[emosun]

I would say try MS Security Essentials first since tyree says it has very low impact on resources. But definitely remove Norton , don't even bother waiting for the license to run out.

 

[LoneMerc2]

I would say try MS Security Essentials first since tyree says it has very low impact on resources. But definitely remove Norton , don't even bother waiting for the license to run out.

Thanks I have removed norton using the removal tool and installed MSE.

Does MSE come with a firewall and other internet protection? Or is it just the scanner, because it looks as though I need something more substansial as my firewall than Windows Firewall lol.

Dropping AA in my games has also seemed to improve FPS vastly (as it usually does, I just overestimated what this card can do).

 

[MonsterMiata]

Thanks I have removed norton using the removal tool and installed MSE.

Does MSE come with a firewall and other internet protection? Or is it just the scanner, because it looks as though I need something more substansial as my firewall than Windows Firewall lol.

Dropping AA in my games has also seemed to improve FPS vastly (as it usually does, I just overestimated what this card can do).

Any serious amount of AA (any thing over 4) will bring any high end gpu too its knees @ 1080p. You don't need it at that resolution. Shut it off and enjoy 60+ fps.

 

[LoneMerc2]

Any serious amount of AA (any thing over 4) will bring any high end gpu too its knees @ 1080p. You don't need it at that resolution. Shut it off and enjoy 60+ fps.

Yeah I've noticed that when I turn it down. I do get a bit of jaggyness but no where near as much as when I used to game at a lower resolution w/o AA.

Well if the performance I'm getting with this card is in fact ok, I just have one more question:

Is this a good score to be getting for these benchmarks? This is with the card on the 6970 fw using the bios switch, I get a slight FPS increase with it, and since I have a bios switch on my gpu - why not use it

Is this good?

3D mark 11 ran the entire test on Performance (1280 x 720p)

3D Mark Vantage ran the entire test on Performance (I believe) at 1920x1080.

 

[emosun]

By running 3d mark on this end and some online searches it looks consistent with the cards performance.