Do I have a bottleneck somewhere?

[Feizy]

So, I recently switched my system around from Intel to AMD in anticipation of the soon to arrive Bulldozer CPUs. All of my hardware below was the same with the exception of the CPU and motherboard. My CPU and motherboard was an i5 2500k and an Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z before.

Anyway, I have noticed that my frames per second while gaming are much lower than they were on my Intel setup. I tested this on Bad Company 2 and Black Ops. Before, my system would stay at a nice 120 fps (vsync was on on my old system) almost all the time but now they are averaging 70-80fps for both games. I checked GPU-Z and the load on both cards averages about 40-60% when before on my Intel setup card #1 would always be at 99-100% and card #2 would be 60-80% load depending.

I have uninstalled, wiped and reinstalled drivers to no avail. Also, if I disable SLI and just use 1 GTX580 GPU-z still reports only 40-60% load on the GPU of card #1. My CPU is maxed out while playing BC2, so maybe my CPU is the bottleneck. Or are my 6 SSDs hogging all the bandwidth. I’m not sure how that works though. Also, all power in-put connectors on the motherboard are plugged in.

I’m stumped, any ideas?


System specs

Phenom II x4 840 (stock speeds, no overclocking yet)
Asus Crosshair V Formula
G.Skill 16GB (4 x 4gb) DDR3 1600
2 x EVGA GTX580 in SLI
Asus Xonar DX
6 x Crucial C300 128GB SSDs in Raid 0
1000w Coolermaster PSU
All watercooled...

 

[erocker]

Absolutely is a bottleneck. Both with the processor an memory bandwith.

 

[_ALB_R3D X]

Absolutely is a bottleneck. Both with the processor an memory bandwith.

I understand the CPU bottleneck cause is happening to me also but game dependent mostly,but I never really understood the memory bottleneck!!!It's the frequency or the timings?For what I recall Ph II doesn't gain much from higher frequency,but mostly from tight timings..this on single GPU setups from what I remember!
Can u be more specific...thx

 

[heky]

You switched from a Sandy Bridge build to go with Bulldozer? What in the world were you thinking?

 

[erocker]

AMD's internal memory controller is slow. It is a bottleneck and SLi and CrossFire depend on good memory bandwith. This is why you can put higher frequency memory in an AMD platform and it won't make any difference.

 

[Feizy]

I switched my setup around for fun. Once bulldozer comes out and i play around with it I may switch back. Who knows?

Thanks erocker. Is there anything I can do to help the situation at all besides going back to intel?
Maybe some overclocking?

 

[_ALB_R3D X]

I switched my setup around for fun. Once bulldozer comes out and i play around with it I may switch back. Who knows?

Thanks erocker. Is there anything I can do to help the situation at all besides going back to intel?
Maybe some overclocking?

Overclocking helps,but only a little bit(dependent on game)!
The only thing that helped me was tweaking settings with RadeonPro(don't know if NV has something like that)in certain games,but games like Crysis1 u just can't do anything to improve performance and believe me I've tried
I'm waiting for Bulldozer too so I hope it want disappoint or I'll switch to Intel and never come back...

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

BD have a new memory controller that is alleged to be quicker.

 

[erocker]

I switched my setup around for fun. Once bulldozer comes out and i play around with it I may switch back. Who knows?

Thanks erocker. Is there anything I can do to help the situation at all besides going back to intel?
Maybe some overclocking?

Overclock that CPU as high as it can go. I don't think it's an unlocked chip, so increasing the "FSB" will also increase the CPU/NB (also known as IMC) frequency.

 

[Feizy]

Ok, I guess I'll be overclocking tonight! Its been a while since I've overclocked any amd systems. Oh well, here goes nothing!

 

[heky]

I think i will see you back on the Intel side very soon. But that is just my opinion.

 

[_ALB_R3D X]

Ok, I guess I'll be overclocking tonight! Its been a while since I've overclocked any amd systems. Oh well, here goes nothing!

Or just up the CPU/NB frequency as much as u can...personally I hit a wall @2800Mhz but that sure helps + some OC

 

[Feizy]

ok, just an update. I OCed my CPU to about 4.0Ghz and that didn't seem to do much as far as the fps goes, but general operations seemed faster. Then I raised my NB and HT frequency to 2500 which is the highest my motherboard would let me. This seem sto be making a noticeable difference. My average fps in bad company 2 are now around 95-110. It does did down sometimes, but this is a definite improvement. Thanks guys!

 

[erocker]

ok, just an update. I OCed my CPU to about 4.0Ghz and that didn't seem to do much as far as the fps goes, but general operations seemed faster. Then I raised my NB and HT frequency to 2500 which is the highest my motherboard would let me. This seem sto be making a noticeable difference. My average fps in bad company 2 are now around 95-110. It does did down sometimes, but this is a definite improvement. Thanks guys!

Leave HT frequency at 2000mhz. You get no gains from overclocking it and it can actually have the opposite effect. CPU/NB frequency definitely helps.