So I found a killer open-box deal on Newegg for an ASUS Radeon RX 480, 8GB (reference design), and I'm hoping it wasn't too good of a deal to be legit. I've noticed that while i'm benching way higher with my new card, and things are running much better for the most part, textures in some games are not loading right away. For example; in DOOM, textures take 1-3 seconds to load and start off a blur fest. This didn't happen with my old 7870, and this seems extremely odd for a new RX 480 card with such high specs c1: What could be causing this, and does my card have some bad memory? Or can this be "normal" in some cases or caused by drivers/software? I'm running the newest Crimson ReLive 17.1.1 drivers released this month. I am trying to determine whats up asap, because Newegg has a limited time window on returns for open-box purchases, if I need to go that route...
You should be familiar with Id tech engine and its texture popin, Doom isnt much different. I assume you ramped up the graphics quality to Ultra/Nightmare compared to your old 7870 which can probably only run medium, that could be the difference. Any other game you noticed something similiar?
You should have enough bandwidth with PCI-E 2.0 x16 for it to not be the bottleneck. But just in case, its worth investigating why it isnt using x3.0 mode. I cant help much on AMD kit unfortunately, I'll try. Check your BIOS setup hasnt restricted the speed. If you have another PCI-E card in the system, check the manual to see which slots are shared with the gfx cards. See if it can be moved if its grabbing PCI-E lanes. Although this should reduce the x16 to x8, not PCI-E 3.0 to 2.0. But stranger things have happened.
Keep HWiNfox64 open in the background and check for "GPU Memory Errors" while gaming. A few tens are ok, a few hundreds are a problem.
I will have to give this a try It's actually been quite a while since I've played any ID game. The last one I played was Quake 4, and that's been a hot minute! I noticed some sketchy performance in Skyrim w/high res texture pack as well, but a couple other games seemed alright. It seems intermittent. Also, you are correct as I've been ramping up settings to see what this thing can do My AM3+ mobo doesn't support 3.0 mode. I double checked the specs and its a PCI-E 2.0 board
Hmm, must be an AMD or card specific variable. Doesnt show up for my 980ti. Link speed is the last in the list.
DSparil: your card is ok. You may be just suffering from load latency of your textures. When you popped in your new card, the game parameters may have changed. I get this a lot when I play Mass Effect series since I have those 4k texture packs installed. Check your game settings and see if the texture levels have increased.
Bump the settings down to what you were using on your old card. Bet they load fast. New card is more powerful, but your storage is going to be the weak link in loading higher res textures.
Im looking at upgrading my card also and looking to spend some money tho not crazy amounts so its either an RX480 Gaming or a GTX 1060 gaming price bracket. Worth it going from my current card??? Or should I save a bit more to make the jump to a 1070??? Don't know if Passmark is a general guide to performance but... 7970 - 5248 RX480 - 7871 GTX1060 - 8777 GTX1070 - 10,973
Well, I've tested a few games with HWiNfox64 and have not received any memory errors what so ever. The software reported a flat 0 through some game time in DOOM, Tomb Raider and Unreal Tournament (pre-alpha), so I suppose all is well after all. After doing some research, It seems some newer games these days are having this issue. I've also noticed it a lot in the new UT based on the Unreal Engine as well. I suppose it is what it is and I'll stick with my new card. I'm glad its probably fine, because returning it to Newegg and getting another would be a bit of a pain in the a$$ lol Out of curiosity, is there any way to eliminate or reduce that besides reducing my settings in game? It's not a big deal, but just a slight annoyance
I was playing Unreal Tournament yesterday (updated after some time) and i've noticed the same poppin as you did when the match starts. It takes couple of seconds to load all the textures, after that its all good. Your card is fine and i would stop worrying about it.
^ Ok, good to know this is just the way it is nowadays. Although unfortunately, the card is not fine and is going back to Newegg. But not for this reason, for another reason entirely! Not hours after I last posted here, I was doing general desktop work (not even gaming), and all of a sudden the fan controller on the card went absolutely berserk. It shot up to 6000+ RPM's and sounded like an airplane. It freaked me the f out for a hot minute! I had to reboot my computer to get it to calm down, and later that night it did it again, completely at random. The card is a lemon :bang: I'm guessing it was probably a return or a defect to begin with, and they thought it was refurbed, but its in fact not 100% a-ok. I guess the open-box deal was a bit too good of a deal after all. Luckily Newegg hooked it up and gave me some eggpoints to offset the cost of a replacement, which will be much more considering there are no good "open box" deals available now.
That is usually caused by a faulty sensor reporting erroneous readings. My 390 for awhile was doing this, noting the 200+C readings that lasted for a second and caused the fan to shoot up to max in spurts, and throttling of my performance. I fixed it by taking out the card, blowing it out for dust, and reseating it back. I suspect it was a marginal pin contact that was causing it.
You certainly may be correct, but I'm semi-lazy and rather than take it apart and try to identify and fix what may have been the issue, I'm just returning it. Not to mention, I believe a new card should you know, work properly when you purchase it lol. Newegg was pretty good about it and offered a gift card to help offset the cost of an 8GB replacement RX 480, which will cost me a bit more than the open box deal that was a lemon :infinity:
Well I suppose the one good thing to come out of this, is the replacement will be an even better card. I decided to go with the ASUS Strix RX 480 over the Sapphire Nitro+, because from reviews I was reading, the cooling solution is better and it runs a quieter and cooler card. The clock on that card is a fair bit higher than the reference card I had to return, so that's always nice. It is a bit of a hassle, but I'll be happy once I get that brand new ASUS Strix installed and rolling!
