AMD R9 290 not performing as expected; low fps mainly. Tried several games such as GRID, Dishonored, Skyrim..etc - getting lower fps than claimed by websites, noticeable drops when roaming around every now and then, not very stable FPS overall. All drivers are up-to-date BIOS, GPU, etc.. Also, I have tried older versions such as 13.12, still same issue. //I'll post my specs and if anyone notices what could cause this please let me know! been disappointed for the past 2 days. CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K @ 3.50Ghz RAM: 32.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz (9-9-9-24) Motherboard: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. MAXIMUS VI EXTREME (SOCKET 1150) Monitor: BenQ RL2240H (1920x1080@60Hz) Graphics Card: 4096MB ATI AMD Radeon R9 200 Series (MSI) Storage: 111GB KINGSTON KINGSTON SH103S3 SCSI Disk Device (SSD) 1863GB Seagate ST2000DM ST2000DM001-1CH1 SCSI Disk Device (SATA) Power Supply: Corsair RM-850 80 PLUS Gold OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1 also, using a CORSAIR CWCH100i Hydro Series H100i High-performance CPU Cooler..and the graphics card is msi r9 290 so heat is not an issue
Are you actively checking temps? I would not assume that just because you have good coolers that temps are normal. Poor airflow or improper thermal paste application can cripple even the best coolers. Use CPU-Z and GPU-Z to monitor temps and clock speed to be sure they are not underclocking themselves.
Monitor temps, CPU/GPU usage while gaming and post back here. Something must be throttling your system. You can also run some 3dmark's to see some scores like firestrike.
GPU Temp is around 49-52C, CPU avg around 29-30C. and Ram usage showed 5600mb but im not sure if this is the total ram being used or only for skyrim (was testing on skyrim) on task manager it showed ram usage to be around 1,230,000kb i believe. FPS; I have everything on ultra on skyrim except shadow on high and running at 1920x1080, also no mods, sometimes fps would reach 53 sometimes 34 and in towns could go down to 27 and goes up a little. I have tried GRID's benchmark test (gfx) and it gave me 37-39 fps all around on maximum setting. Dishonored vsync on was smooth 45-47 but sometimes FPS would drop down to 30 or 27. CPU usage i'm not so sure its fluctuating but in task manager shows 3 to 10% for all idk how to get specific for skyrim. As for GPU usage also fluctuating but reach a maximum of 92, so im not sure. I will hopefully post an image later on, thanks for reply and hope u get an idea of what i'm going thru.
Your memory settings seem low. 667 is an odd speed, if its correct, thats way too slow. What does your GPU usage look like? if its not 100%, you are being bottlenecked by something in your system.
Looks like he pulled the specs from a utility which shows the base RAM speed. That would make his actual speed 1333 which is pretty common for DDR3. I can't really see anything wrong. I would reset the CMOS and try with default BIOS settings. Did you install chipset drivers? Those are often overlooked in 7/8 due to Windows having default drivers.
Agreed, use GPUZ to log your stats to a file whilst playing a game - then check if your load is reaching 100%. Are you using vsync? If so, make sure your refresh rate is at 60Hz.
Did you change any settings on Catalyst Control Center? Make sure you set it to default (except texture filtering, should be to high quality instead of just quality). If you pick edge detect and Super Sampling you're going to get very high image quality and possibly poor performance. It's useful for older games mostly. Just in case it's helpful
Actually, imo that's too LOW for a GPU load temp, regardless of cooling. As a result I'd assume your GPU doesn't boost clocks to 3D mode but remains underclocked, hence the poor fps and (really) low temps. Use an utility like MSI Afterburner to monitor GPU clock inside a game. The GPU clock should be around 950 MHz (reference) when a 3D app is running. edit: also disable AMD OverDrive from CCC.
Turn you fans up to 100% that's how I run mine and prob don't need too but do anyways regardless that I have the best 290 the sapphire-vapor x The stock 290's and many others do not have adequate cooling thus the card throttles a lot.
Why disable Overdrive? I'm new to AMD and picked up a Sapphire R9 290 and I'm trying to learn how to get the best performance out of it without O/Cing. I have the newest drivers and I assumed using Overdrive to adjust the max fan speed would help with any throttling issues I've been reading about. Are you saying Overdrive isn't a good way to check your GPU clock during gaming? Any help for this old noob would be appreciated. Thanks.
Well isnt Skyrim very cpu bound? Ive never played that game but I hear that seems to be the case.I would do a quick run on a program called Furmark-it measures how many fps you get in 60 seconds or something of that nature? But alot of people complain about using furmark saying its a power virus (whatever thats supposed to mean) I found it very helpful when I had my Radeon 6970 crossfire setup, I can tell if my overclock was working or not. A word of caution- If you do use Furmark keep an eye on your temps, ive heard of people frying there video cards left and right! And also for some reason Furmark does not like to play nice with Nvidia cards, I tried running my old Gtx 580 and it was around %45 usage the whole time,really weird I dont know.
Try going into your bios and forcing pcie Gen3/x16. Not sure it will help but it has for others as auto settings sometimes don't work too well
The reference cooler will cool the card with no throttling, the issue is the stock fan profile. It kicks in too late and doesn't go high enough. It's fixable with any of the third party OC apps (afterburner, trixx,etc..). The only real issue with stock isn't the throttling, it's the noise to keep if from throttling. I can keep all 3 of my cards at 100% usage and they are sammiched together, the tradeoff is they run at a very audible 80% fan speed, but it keeps temps at 80c. here is how close mine are:
Typical amd 290 series issue; it's getting to hot under load. Adjust fan speed up or get a proper after market cooling solution if you want the gpu to run at full speed.
OverDrive has been a known cause for issues, especially throttlingwise afaik. I always keep it disabled and use third-party apps (read:Afterburner) for tweaking and monitoring. The 14.x series drivers should have better working OverDrive functions vs previous ones, but I've gathered that keeping it disabled is still the better idea. My Sapphire R9 290 is also pretty new (my first AMD card in years) and I've been using it without OverDrive all the time. Not a single throttling issue here so far. Actually haven't had any issues with my card. (Apart from Doom 3 SikkMod but the solution there was to disable Catalyst AI. A known issue so nothing to do with the card.) Some older DX9/10 games may use incorrect refresh rates, but this can be overridden with a utility called RadeonPro, along with lots of other tweaks. It has something to do with AMD's new GCN (GameCoreNext) architecture used in Hawaii XT chips. It's designed for newer software so there may be some backwards compatibility issues with it.
DDR3-1333 is fairly common but it does actually hurt performance. Of course, nothing to the extent of what the OP is suggesting. It looks like in the pictures that the RAM has proper heatsink coolers on them. DDR3-1333 doesn't actually require large amounts of cooling because it shouldn't get very hot (unless it is crappy). You have tried older drivers, like 13.12, but have you tried the latest driver, 14.7 RC3? Don't be put off by the 'beta' status.